Gabriel came awake with a rattling gasp. The fire that had attacked her body was all but gone, now lingering like a tiny rotating ball inside her chest. She remembered everything backward, firstly seeing herself trapped by Michael’s arms as she came to life and then soaring up through the sky as she clung to failing consciousness. She had wanted no part of his help, but she had been too weak to refuse because…

Michael swooping her up as her legs failed her on Earth came back next. The lethargy still remained now, making her mind work slowly and with great effort.

She sucked in a breath that burned her lungs. Her hands lifted, her downward stare going hazy as she saw the past. As if transported back there, the ground rattled closed as she peered down to a new world of black and fiery red—and Lucifer on his knees.

Bruised and covered in angry welts of raw flesh, the look of grief in his eyes broke her heart all over again. She was losing him… No. She shook her head, and the expanse of her charred garden came back, all dead trees and rolling brown hills beneath the endless light above.

She had already lost him.

This was merely the latest time. The final time.

Chasing away her tears with a sniff, she looked down—and saw her reflection in the murky water. Face paler than usual, her long hair was matted and tacky. But it was her exposed arms that held her gaze. Cleansed of blood, the bites she had sustained were gone, leaving her milky white complexion flawless. But that ball inside her chest cavity still remained, that fire their fangs had kindled in her. Before its lockdown she had felt a change, a debilitating emotion she had never felt before. When she had looked at Michael, a simmering rage had burned inside of her. The ugly, insidious feeling was still inside her now, but it was caged, locked away within her heart by God’s power.

Despite this, her anger and resentment at Michael and all he had done remained. But she refused to waste her time thinking about him now. Knowing what she had lost, she wondered…

The waterfall froze instantly, leaving waves over the murky pond to peter out to the edges. Gabriel waited until the surface resembled a dirty film of glass. Holding her hand out, her fingers quivered with the hope she clung to. Lucifer was gone, so far away, taken from her all over again, but…could she, was it even possible—to see him?

Touching her palm to the surface, tiny ripples spread out. As they faded, darkness rose up, severed by a snake of winding red. The fiery lake. Gabriel repressed a noise of triumph, terrified she would lose her ability to view him as soon as God learned of her continued link to the fallen angel. She edged closer, scanning the charcoal plains—

Her heart paused for a beat, then it took off racing.

There he was, right where she’d left him. No longer crouched down on his knees, Lucifer stood tall. His tan face with healed pinkish blemishes was lifted to the sky. Ash fell around him. It settled on his stoic face and his body with its mangled armor and patchy skin. He was healing, away from Heaven and in a desolate land. Her hope for him surged, renewed by remembering his heartfelt apology. He had finally seen the error of his ways and begged forgiveness. And she had wholeheartedly granted it. “There is hope for you still, Lucifer. This is not the en—”

The resigned look across Lucifer’s face cracked suddenly, making her choke on her words. A horrible depression contorted his features. “Forgive me, Gabriel. I cannot—will not—exist without you.”

Gabriel stopped breathing as Lucifer took a slow step closer to the fiery riverbank. Flames danced on the surface in rising waves. “No, he would never.” Her words were barely a whisper as her throat choked closed. He took another step—and dipped his toes into the lake.

Gabriel’s heart stopped dead in her chest.

Her fear of losing her link to Lucifer vanished. Her fear of anything other than his life no longer existed. Rising up fast, she tried to breathe, tried to make her mouth work with the panic that had seized her throat and tongue. “God!” a choked rattle came out, a pitiful sound. Her hands came together, seeing Lucifer edging his toes further into the lake. “God, please!” Her voice was louder now, a desperate shout that echoed around her. “Hear me now. I need you. Please. Oh, God…”

She hissed as Lucifer staggered into the lake, letting the lava swallow his shins. Sweat made his skin glisten and a grimace stole the depression from his scrunched features.

“Do not let him do this. Not the Morningstar. Not the brightest of us all.”

Falling down, she barely felt the scrape of rough twigs and dead grass under her knees. “Please, God…” I cannot go on if he perishes, the quieter words rushed in her head, deathly honest and damning all the same. But she did not care. God could hear and know all. He already knew her heart as well as he did Lucifer’s.

She dared to make her honest threat known with a shaky breath. “I will not be if Lucifer does not exist.”

A quaking rumble shook her garden, vibrating the ground as it caused trees to crack and a few to fall. A beacon of light blanketed the entire plain, stealing all sight before it vanished.

Gabriel looked up fast, expecting to find God’s coiling form floating above her pond. But then a gentle hand landed on her forearm. Gasping, her joined hands fell as she twisted, scampering back until she saw who was right beside her. God, in his boyish form. Staring at her with his vacant, glowing eyes, she felt a small need to repent for her threat. But she would not do it. She could not. No punishment or repercussion was worth letting Lucifer kill himself. “Please…”

“Shhh,” God held up his hand that was smaller than hers, and his command froze her tongue in her mouth. His brows pinched as if in contemplation. “I heard all that you said. I do not wish to condemn your honesty. But…”

His golden hair fell forward as he twisted to glimpse the unstoppable scene through the pond. Lucifer was now up to his waist, looking like his mind was about to shut down from the agony that ripped open every visible muscle across his arms and body. Uncontainable tears streamed down Gabriel’s face. Could God even do what she was demanding? Could he save them both?

God sighed, long and slow. “If this is done, the aftermath will ripple across time.” He lifted his rounded face to look up at her with those hollow eyes. “Your loyalty to me must withstand what is to come above all. Can you vow to choose my will over your feelings, Gabriel?”

Lucifer shoved his hands down into the lake and cupped lava up high in his palms. Gabriel nodded without a second thought. To save Lucifer she would go to the ends of existence, she would do anything. “I vow it.”

“Then it shall be.”

Light speared from God’s hollow eyes and then from his skin. It grew so fast there was nowhere to escape to and nowhere to hide. But the pain Gabriel had expected never came as God shot from right beside her and into the frozen waterfall. The glass-like downpour erupted, cracking and spraying out in cold, jagged shards. Gabriel covered her head and turned her back, feeling small nicks and slices cut through her shielding arms before her cocooning wings took the brunt of the blast.

And then all fell quiet.

Gabriel retracted her wings and spun around. God was gone, and as she looked down at the eerily still pond—so was her view of Lucifer.

Find out if Gabriel’s vow can save Lucifer, and what new dangers are on the horizon in Breaking Lucifer.

Continue reading for a sneak peek…