Saving Grace

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Book Cover Design by
okaycreations.net

Editor -
http://frankiesfreelanceediting.blogspot.com

Dedication
and Thanks

This book is c
ompletely and utterly dedicated
from the bottom of my heart to...

Samantha Baer Taylor and the awesome
reviewgasm
she gave me. To the Blog Queens, without them I would not know what the hell to read
!
Maryse
at
http://www.maryse.net
,
Lori at
http://lorisbookblog.blogspot.com
and
Minha
(Brazilian Girl) for all her support!

Life
is about livi
ng every single moment like it'
s your last. If you treat each go
odbye, each hello, each hug,
each day, and
each kiss like it was your
last
...
how amazing would each moment of your life be?

Thank
you
all
for waiting so patiently
for Saving Grace
(
and some of you not so patiently
, I loved your daily messages!) And thank you all for taking a chance on an Indie author, who can't write a lick of words, but loves to tell stories...

PROLOGUE

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Happy-Epilogue-After

There's
a very old story that was found written on an ancient scroll hidden on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea. There were many stories written on many scrolls, but the one in particular that I am talking about is called the Book of Enoch. You may have heard of it, or maybe not, but I feel I must tell it. The story is about the
Grigori
, a band of angels that were dispatched to the e
arth to watch over the humans because t
hey were fragile and precious and needed protecting.
Blah, blah, blah
.
And of course without complaint
,
the angels did as they were told, nicknaming themselves the Watchers.

Now, as time passed
,
the Watchers began to notice how beautiful the human women were
(of course)
, and took for themselves human wives. The offspring from these unions were called the
Nephilim
,
who grew into mighty savage giants that pillaged the earth and endangered all of humanity with their chaos.

To rid the earth of it
s poison, the humans and
Nephilim
were destroyed in a continuous raging storm
,
and the angels were thrown into a dark abyss in the middle of the earth for eternity.

But
what the book doesn't
say
,
was that
not all of them shared the same fate. One angel and one human shared but one kiss. The angel of course
,
because his brothers
were of a jealous nature
, was treated like the rest of
the fallen angels
and was imprisoned along with them. The human however
,
was to live the rest of her eternity as a lost soul in search of the angel that she once loved.

The Book of Enoch was once cherished by many religions throughout the world. However, it later fell into the disfavor of many powerful theologians for the simple opposition of the controversial deeds of the fallen angels. So it was kept hidd
en, and most of humanity does not
know this story to be a true part of its history.

But, I know it's true.
Because
I'm
the freaking lost soul.
And just when I finally found my angel
,
all hell breaks loose to try to keep us apart.
Seriously
.

I
didn't
have a clue how
long I had been walking. All I was aware of was the sun slowly setting behind me, far in the distance. The fiery orb slowly melted into a horizon littered with sand and rock. A lone asphalt strip traveled through the center of this expanse of land. My feet quietly moved over the gravel and crushed rock that it was made of.

A thin mist settled all around me. As I walked along
,
it thickened and the raw smell of wet earth filled my senses. Large drops of rain fell against my face, landing on my eyelashes and splattered cool sparks of fire along my cheeks. The rain stung my face and arms. It bit my scalp and shoulders; yet it was a relief from the blasting sun. I raised my head to the sky, but not one cloud could be seen.

I kept walking.

So far
,
I
hadn't
seen another soul out
there
. I
didn't
even know if
there
was real. The only thing I was sure of was that somewhere the beautiful body I had been living in for the last ten years was laying in a coma in a hospital bed. So here I am stumbling through the
freaking desert
trying to find my way back to
it, my body and consciousness
.

Oh, and
let's
not forget that there seems to be a
gang of
idiotic
,
fallen angels after me.
Honestly, they could all kiss my ass. I set my mind on one thing. Okay, two things. First
,
I was getting that body back. Second, I was going to find Shane and punch him square in the face (maybe, and I mean
MAYBE
, after that
,
I'd
kiss him. May
...
Be.)

I had a lot of time to think about it on that desert road. The more steps I took
,
the angrier I became. In all of existence, and yes I mean ALL, I have been wronged more and longer than any other human.
EVER
. I have been punished for...
truly,
I
don't
even
know the exact number of centuries, for a single kiss.
One freaking kiss
.
One earth shattering, heart stopping kiss,
but still, it was just a kiss!

But the thing that really gets me angry. The thing that really makes my fists clench and my skin tight
,
is that perfect kiss, that kiss that I saw a glimpse of heaven in, was with someone who ended up to be Shane Maxton. Shane Maxton, New York
City's
very own personal Man-Whore of the Year.

Shane
. I would have never thought it would be him. I mean, yeah in a cheesy romance novel, chick flick kind of way I should have probably guessed
it was
him
all along. My God, for someone who has been around as long as I have
,
I sure am naive.
Yeah, I know you're agreeing with me, thank you so much for rubbing it in.
Like I don't have enough issues right now.

Shane
. The last time I laid my eyes on his perfect face
,
I could see his heart breaking while I walked away with another man. If I knew who he really was, that he shared the same secret as me, that he was the one
I'd
been looking for all these centuries, I would have never left his arms. Ever.

But that was before.
Before Gabriel showed me how Shane
tried to forget my existence, how he tried to erase the memory of me.
And now, I'm just seriously pissed off at him
.

An enormous black bird flew down through the raindrops, screeching its piercing caw right above my head
,
stopping my thoughts short.
What the hell
,
is that a vulture?
I jerked to a stop as the bird landed in front of my feet.
Not a vulture, those things are butt-ass ugly
. This was a beautiful sleek feathered r
aven. It
s head tilted up towar
ds me as if to say hello. It had
secrets too.

Folding my legs beneath
me,
I slowly sat down on the road, meeting the birds black gaze.

"What are you doing here? Are you in a bird hospital in a coma too?" I joked.

The damn bird cawed at me loudly and bird hopped closer.

"Okay,
you're
a pretty bird and all, but seriously
,
if you come any closer to me with that sharp-ass beak
I'm
going to kick you hard," I said.

The bird tilted it
s little birdy head at me again and flew away in a cloud of soft black feathers, raindrops and wind.

I watched the bird spread its giant wings and soar through the rain toward the direction I was heading. In the
distance,
I could make out the shadowy shapes of buildings that
weren't
there before. "Wonderful. Thanks bird. That must be the
Secret Garden
and I must be
Mary freaking Lennox
.
Fan-freaking-
tastic
."

I stood up, with my hands on my hips, raindrops continued to blast their little electric spikes of heat onto my face. I chewed at my lower lip, wondering if I should just walk in the opposite direction. I
hadn't
even thought up a plan
yet. I had no idea where the hell I was.
Was I dead?
I
couldn't
be. When I stood completely motionless
,
I could still hear the sharp beeps and hisses of the life support machines hooked up to my body somewhere. Low somber sounds
just a breath above the desert
silence.

My head swam with dizzying thoughts. The assault of the rain on my skin sent bursts of sheer adrenaline just underneath the surface.
What am I going to do if
the archangel
Gabriel was here? How do I fight against him?