Blackwing Angel: Fallen Angels Paranormal Romance, #1

By Heather Choate

Meta hauls souls to Hell. Sol thinks sneezing during prayer is a sin. But Meta finds herself falling for him just as Satan tempts her with power and acceptance she’s never known. In a world where forbidden desires are paid for with your soul, young Meta must decide if she’s willing to turn from the alluring darkness and give her heart to an angelic man who was never meant to be hers.

Immerse yourself in this young adult paranormal romance fiction rich with engaging characters and surprising twists and turns from bestselling author, Heather Choate.

Check out what others are saying about Blackwing Angel:

"I absolutely fell in love with Meta!! She was a complex character to get to know. I loved how she didn't instantly fall in love with Sol, the most pure angel of heaven. At first she did despise him, but she eventually grew to love him. This book had a lot of twists and turns and just when you thought it was going to end BAM another obstacle keeps you glued to the book. I recommend this book to any who are fascinated with angels, good or bad." -Brit

 

"This book was very entertaining and kept me wanting more and more until the end. The author, Heather Choate, does a remarkable job keeping you on the edge of your seat while following Meta on her journey. This book also has some surprising twists that really caught me off guard and for me really set this book apart from some of the others I have been reading of late! I highly recommend this book. You will find that the author has a knack for writing a captivating story but also does so in a very intriguing fashion. Excellent!"  -Merry May

 

"I read this book in one day, I just couldn't put it down! I was drawn into it on the very first page, and the draw never waned. The characters are well developed, entertaining and believable; I loved the flow in the book. I find it hard to keep my interest in most books but this one did it without me realizing it was going on. And for that alone I highly recommend this book." -Stuart Powell

Get your copy of Blackwing Angel today!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Akela Publishing
• Release date: Dec 11, 2014
• ISBN: 9781502227676

Book preview

Chapter One

I’ve witnessed trillions of people die, but have never experienced death myself.  Of those trillions of deaths, I’ve seen only 6,412 souls go to Heaven.  The rest I’ve happily hauled to Hell.

After all these eons of time as a Guide, I thought I had a pretty good idea of who I am, Meta, the outcast angel from heaven.  But that all changes when I see one of the others, those light-lovers, standing at the bedside of the dying man.

At first, I try not to gag at the other, whose aura shines brighter than St. Peter’s.  Like me, it’s his job to Guide dead souls, but he takes them to Heaven, and I take them to Hell.  Just because I’m an angel doesn’t mean I like other angels, I mutter through fingers clenched tight over my lips to keep me from spewing.  Angels don’t like me either, and I don’t expect different treatment from this new Guide, so I hide my face behind the veil of my long black hair so that he, with his lily-white tresses and luminescent skin, won’t see me. 

Why can’t I just work alone?  You bother me worse than floppy puppies and pink polka-dotted umbrellas, I grumble to myself as I slip behind the slowly beeping medical equipment, but not because of the mortals surrounding the dying man’s bed.  They can’t see us, me and this bright white other.  It’s because I’m like a bat repelled by his warm, celestial light.  Distance is good, so I float a little farther into the corner, holding my hank of hair tightly over my eyes.  I must look like a complete idiot.

Of course the Guide for Heaven knows I’m here, but he turns his face to the dying middle-aged man whose sallow cheeks inflate like an overstretched-balloon every time he inhales.  The Guide won’t even look at me.  Ugh.  Before I can stop my stupid mouth, it blurts, "You better not waste my time or I might just drag you to Hell and see how you like that."

The dying mortal’s mouth moves revealing his teeth stained brown from the cigar tobacco.  His half-dozen various relatives scoot in closer to him.  I ignore these.  He clutches the pink, plump hand of his wife, whom he’s ignored for years, with such force I’m sure it’s numb by now.  He’s almost dead, though he coughs from time to time. 

What is it, Gary? she hushes, her mortal voice crackly and coarse from hours of crying. 

I want to snap at the crying woman, he’s a goner, sister.  My bedside manner isn’t the best.

But if I’m honest with myself, something I don’t do often, the mortals aren’t nearly as interesting to me as the newbie Guide, so I tune out their blubbery conversation and guardedly study him closer.  Through the slits of my squinted eyes, his gleaming, white hair appears as though it’s been doused in Vaseline and set under a stage light.  It’s painstakingly combed.  He’s just over six feet tall.  Nice, I accidentally admire.  There’s something about the strong breadth of his shoulders that makes the initial nausea at seeing him turn to a low burning in my stomach and my palms are all sweaty.

He takes a calculated step away from me as if he can’t stand that I’m here.  Hoh, well that’s really sweet.  Jerk.  He must’ve replaced the last Guide for Heaven who probably decided going to Earth was better than working with me.  How quickly they come and go.  Can’t he just go now and stop distracting me from my work?

Every slowing heartbeat from the coughing man in the hospital bed feels eternal in its length, which means a lot, coming from someone like me, who’s been around forever.  Literally.  I’d like to shout over the wife’s bawling: Just die already and let me go back to my solitude.  I almost wish I could pop him off to speed up the process.  That’s wrong to think, very wrong.  I wring my robe until it’s twisted so tight around my fingers the pale tips turn blue. 

It’s just that this particular Death Calling hasn’t gone at all how it usually does.  I’ve just come from Singapore, and it was a typical Calling just like the ten-gazillion ones I’ve done before: My delicate white feet touch the Earth; the mortal human dies, their family cries around them, boo-hoo, while I dance unseen to my favorite song More Than a Feeling by Boston in the hallway.  Such a darn good band.  Then, the freshly-dead soul gets impatient with my lack of dancing skills, and so, I stop procrastinating and take him or her straight to Hell. 

Mortifying, I know.  Mortals usually expect the Angel of Death to be a male with golden hair, fluttery dove-white wings, a polished halo; sort of a St. Peter type.  I, however, am none of those nonsensical pre-notions.  Not only am I a girl, which seems to turn the universe upside down to the dearly departed, but there’s nothing soft or pretty about me.  Though I don’t look a day older than seventeen, (having never been alive means no need for Botox— Ha!) but I probably appear more like a devil, with my sheets of long, black hair, translucent white skin, and stabbing muddy-gold eyes. 

Sorry I don’t fit your perfectly construed pigeonhole.  Being constantly compared with the Shirley-Temple blondes of Heaven, it won’t be the first time.  But, that doesn’t matter; I take the dead souls just the same.  Get ‘em out of earth, off to hell, bodda bing, bodda boom.  My work’s done.  Time to move onto the next dead one. 

Solitude and are darkness are like my blanket.  I hate Heaven: it’s so frilly and bright, but I hate its opulent occupants even more.  I avoid them whenever possible until I’m forced to work alongside the other Guide for Heaven, and I only have to do that if the soul in question is a Terminus: someone whose fate is still resting between Heaven and Hell.  This balding man is such a soul and the other guards him like a protective lion.  I’m a forgotten shadow, and there he is: all shimmering with the gold dust of Heaven still on his robes, standing there placidly as if death is nothing more than a trip to the petting zoo to bring the fluffy animals back home. 

Keep wishing on your little star, I whisper to the other.  This man isn’t going to Heaven, he’s mine. 

The fading mortal’s gray eyelids open and his milky irises spin until they find his wife, and rest on her blotchy face.  Hannah, the name cracks out of his lips, like an unexpected gurgle of water in an arid desert. There’s a change on his face: his mouth softens and moisture fills his tear ducts.  He has an understanding: this is the end. 

His end. 

Wait. 

Come on now, don’t do anything pretty, I mumble, wishing the mortal could hear me, or I could strangle him and finish it.  Calm down, Meta, I tell myself.  You know the rules.  It’s just that I want to take the soul to Hell so bad and rub it into the other’s face for ignoring me this entire time.

Oh, Hannah, the dying mortal whispers, the veins in his neck straining as he raises his head.  She presses her fleshy palm against his cool, ghost-gray cheek.  I’m so sorry, Hannah.  There’s deep regret and urgency in his eyes.  It’s amusing that after neglecting his wife of 31 years, he now acknowledges her.  Please forgive me.

The other leans in, his aura lighting the sheets of the hospital bed so they appear aflame. But of course, none of the mortals can see this.  He thinks he’s going to win.  Crap. Over my dead body, I wish I could chortle.  I’ll never be dead because I’ll never be alive.  By choice.

Tears rip down the weeping Hannah’s cheeks as she nods her head and whispers. I forgive you, Gary.  Her exoneration changes everything.  Gary exhales in release, and then his eyes go vacant.  The muscles of his neck relax and his head lolls back onto the bed.  I count:  One beat.  Slow and heavy.  Two.  Deeper.  Pause.  Pause.  Three.  He’s gone, or rather, here.  His wife and family sob around him, but again, I pay them no attention.

Gary’s spirit stands beside his dead body and he doesn’t acknowledge the inconsolable humans either, who are now wailing in grief.  Instead, he’s looking at me, seeing me for the first time, even though I’m in shadow beyond the now silent vital-sign monitor.  It surprises me how quickly some of the newly-dead souls understand why I’m here.  His glare is cold, almost aggressive.  I smile.  What a joke. 

You can’t take me, he says, and I huff, smile gone.  Crossing my arms across my slim chest I’m defeated.  He’s right, I can’t take him because of his repentance.  What a waste of time.  Congratulations miracle worker, Gary, you’ve barely escaped the jowls of eternal torture with a deathbed confession.  Go celebrate on your fluffy white cloud. 

Gary just stands there like a threatened hound, looking at me.  He doesn’t take the other’s warm, golden hand to leave for Heaven like he’s supposed to; he continues to glare at me.  Why?  The other is standing face to face with Gary and the back of his clean, white head mocks me.  Apparently growing impatient, the angel turns his head toward my shadow.  He’s finally going to acknowledge me.

The other’s frosted indigo eyes discover mine and I immediately gasp in riveting pain that shoots from the top of my dark head to my slippered toes.  It’s like a searing of my being, as though my very fibers are being scorched into nothingness.  This is more than my usual gag-reflex when I’m confronted with another angel, and my hands cover my eyes to block his blinding light.  I’ve never felt such a connection to another before, never knew someone could make my stomach flip and my cheeks flush like this.  Who is this angel?  I’d love to pick up the EKG monitor and throw it at him, but neither of us can break away, like two electrons fused together by unbending energy. 

His face is easier to drool on than St. Anthony’s: a smooth brow swept by blazing white hair, a fine nose and defined jaw line that beckons to be kissed.  But it’s his eyes, above all, that cut into me like two pointed blue lasers, shredding all my carefully crafted self-control.  His perfect face flinches, though he tries to hide the impulsive reaction.  I hate him for his smooth control.  He’s disgusted by me, of course, but is too faultless to show even the slightest trace of it.  Compared to him, my aura is like a thin, black shadow, my skin translucently pale, and my hair like dark ocean waves.  Even the light of my muddy-golden eyes is like a weak candle flame next to his stadium spotlight.  It’s as if we aren’t even from the same realm. 

My slippers feel like they’ll give out under me.  I need to flee.  I mean, the dead man is no longer my problem, right?  Then, slowly, the glorious angel’s perfect, unlined face begins to quiver.  The lids of his gorgeous blue eyes pull back wide, the beams of light behind them glowing brighter from the strain.  Does he feel the same energy I do?  Finally, he manages to rupture the connection between us by looking away.  His aura light lessens at the same time to its previous vibrancy.

Shocked and drained, but attempting composure, he straightens his robes, takes hold of Gary’s hand and strides through the veil that peals back before him in the center of the room like a translucent, watery current.  He and the soul move into the veil and then are gone.  Just an afterglow of light remains in the place where he was, like the flash of a camera that lingers in the air.

I can’t think or breathe.  Tremors of energy ripple through me like the aftershock of an atomic bomb. 

That makes 6,413 souls I’ve seen go to Heaven.

Chapter Two

I long for the cool, forgotten shade of the everglades, where I often like to hangout between Death Callings.  The long, finger-like shadows of the ominous emerald trees, and slow dripping of water off the thousands of leaf-tips would surely help me recuperate from the peculiar encounter with the other, but I’m called away to another task.  Although weary, I know this is probably better for me.  Work will turn my thoughts away from that horrible light lover and my loss, of that one soul, Gary.  I should be happy Gary has gone to paradise and joined the ranks of Heaven I too belong to, but all I can see is the haughty turn of the other’s mouth.  I wish I could have won, just to throw it back into his smooth, butter-cream face.

This next Death Calling is for another human male, but this one, thankfully, is not a Terminus, so there’s no chance I’ll encounter the new one here.  Who was he and what had our connection been?  Trying to suppress the ripping in my chest that still loiters like an unwelcome guest proves futile.  Those few seconds when we stared at one another so intently, was the most alarming experience I’ve ever had in all of my pre-earth existence, and I’ve been around a long, long, long time.

The memory or his piercing eyes burn into my mind like the negative of photograph.  I hope he’s replaced soon.  After all, there are other others: angels that can take his place.  I however, have never been replaced.  Meta, the Hell angel.  Who would possibly want my job?  That’s why the light-lovers don’t understand me.  I relish the darkness, the solitude and have been the lone guide for Hell since the dawn of mankind.  But being tormented by this too beautiful, too irresistible new Guide for Heaven is worse than direct sunlight.  If he’s not replaced soon, I’ll have to take care of him myself.

Still shuddering like a spooked mare, the veil opens for me to the sight of the next Death Calling in Bharuch, India.  It doesn’t take more than a beat of my immortal heart that pumps no real blood, and I’m there.  Slashed in the gut with a javelin, the fat human lies on the floor of his superior palace covering the luxurious Persian rugs with his sticky, claret-red blood.  The stains will never come out.  Unlike the last Death Calling, this mortal is dying alone, no friends or family to comfort him.  That’s one less thing to distract me. 

The human really is pathetic, I think as my silver slippers glide noiselessly across the floor.  He’s lived a life of unquenchable greed, murder, and adultery, and now, is dying alone in his house of blood-begotten riches. 

Oh Lakshmi, save me, he moans, and exhales a final time.  Time to work.

Your Goddess of Riches can’t save you now, I say flatly to the bewildered soul who now stands dead before me. 

His sinister eyes dart about wildly and he crouches low, an obese, cornered feline. Where did you come from?  He sees his own murdered body, a mess of blubber on the floor at his feet, the blood still seeping into the carpet fibers.  He screams, and then scowls back at me, an insulted ware cat.

What have you done to me? With chubby, clumsy fingers, he grabs at a knife sheathed to the belt of his dead body.

I don’t even start, but hold up a hand and stop him.  It’s time for you to come with me.  Taking control feels good; empowering.  I’m still myself despite whatever connection I may have had with the other.

The simple words cause the fat soul’s mouth to pull back in terror.  He backs away from my outstretched palm.  No, never. 

Taking a step toward him, I lower my chin like a stalking leopard.  Realizing he has nowhere to go, he suddenly lunges at me with those same pudgy hands outstretched.  Futile move, I think sardonically.  As soon as he’s within reach, my hand wraps around his bulging outstretched fingers.  His feet immediately fall to the floor, his attack thwarted.  Ha.  He writhes and twists against my hold like a hooked fish.  How stupid.  He can’t break it, and upon discovering this, he begins cursing and sputtering at me.  Again, idiotic.  I’ve no patience for explanations now.  Let the chubby ape figure it out himself. 

Like an invisible curtain has opened, the veil peals back in the middle of the room, revealing the dark of the underworld.  I yank Mr. Tubby away from his earthly palace and into the absolute darkness.  My faint, white aura about