Page 28 of Fallen: Darkness Ascending, Vol.1

L aphriel takes me to the strange stone room again, and I look at it with fresh eyes. It’s in the house, but not in the house.

A foyer that will lead me to the others when the time comes.

“This is an entrance to Hell, isn’t it?”

Laphriel looks over at me, something like sheepishness flickering on his face.

“Not yet,” he says. “But it will be, if I stay here.” He tilts his head toward the smooth, glassy pool.

“That water is from a wellspring tied to—to Hell. The first strand of a connection. But the entrance will grow over time, until it’s inseparable from the house. ”

The water glimmers invitingly, so transparent it looks like glass. The white stone gleams. If you had asked me what Hell looks like, it wouldn’t be this.

“You said we were in Florida.” I look over at him. “In this very room, in fact. So which is it?”

“Florida for now,” he says. “Somewhere else in the future.”

“‘Somewhere else?’” I arch an eyebrow at him. “You really don’t like saying the word ‘Hell,’ do you?”

Laphriel flinches. “We aren’t speaking your language,” he mutters. “We’re speaking mine. And those names are names of violence and pain and suffering…”

His voice kind of trails off, and he shoves his fingers through his hair.

“Like the suffering that’s your food?” I’m teasing him, like he’s some human man. But I like how it makes him squirm. Maybe something really is changing in me.

“My transformation will require me to adjust,” Laphriel says stiffly. “As will yours.”

There’s a mocking light in his eyes. So he’s teasing me back.

“I don’t know,” I tell him. “I can at least say ‘Hell.’” I grin. “Hell, Hell, Hell?—”

“Stop!” he orders, stepping up close to me. Then, to my genuine surprise, he wraps his hand around my throat. The six eyes in his face leer down at me. “If you really want this,” he says. “Stop talking and get in the water. If you don’t, you can leave. The hellfire won’t burn you.”

“You mean the boundary around the house?” He’s not squeezing my throat at all, but my breath comes out ragged anyway.

He nods.

“I thought it was holy fire.”

Laphriel hesitates. “I lied,” he finally says. “I didn’t want to frighten you, and you were still mostly human.” He smiles a little, his teeth glinting. “Now you’re worthy of the truth.”

A thrill shivers through me.

He walks me backward, guiding me toward the pool.

And I let him, my feet scraping against the cool, smooth stone.

I know I shouldn’t trust him. He’s a self-admitted demon, even if he won’t say the word itself.

An angel I saw fall from Heaven with my own eyes.

I know there’s a chance that I’ll step in that pool and it will burn like the holy fire or the hell fire or whatever it is, that oil slick shimmer wrapped around the house like a cocoon.

That I’ll become drenched in more pain for him to consume.

But there’s a chance that he’s telling the truth, because, for a few seconds, I did step into the past. I saw the Montcroix mansion at its peak, heard Frederick Montcroix’s soft, sparkling laughter. And that, Laphriel didn’t lie to me about.

All my life, I’ve wanted to escape this swamp, but there was only one way out: by going north. But what happens when I finally do that? I’ll still need a job. I’ll still have to pay bills. I’ll still be ordinary.

And what Laphriel has promised me is an escape in all directions. North, south, backward in time. Across universes. My wanderlust burns at the thought.

When my calves bump against the pool, Laphriel stops, his hand still around my neck.

“This is what I wanted,” he says softly, rubbing his thumb along a hollow place in my throat.

I swallow against the pressure, never taking my eyes off him.

“When I saw you, a frail little human looking down at me. I didn’t realize it then, couldn’t admit it to myself.

But I wanted it, this choice you’re about to make. ”

I take a deep, shuddery breath. “So I’m… what?” I ask. “Your first soul?”

He laughs, and the sound echoes around the room. “You’re much more than a human soul, Natasha. Now choose.”

His fingers tighten, just a little, and he presses up against me, the heat of his body alarming and comforting at the same time.

“Tell me what I’m choosing.” Even though I know. I just want to hear him say it. I want to buy myself a few more seconds before I either destroy my life or open it up completely.

“Step in the pool and become something like a goddess,” he says. “Leave and suffer out in the world, a human poisoned with demon magic.”

“Well, when you put it like that…” I laugh.

His fingers tighten. His lips brush my ear and make me shiver. “Choose, Natasha.”

My heart thunders. Demon magic , he said, and I can almost feel it pulsing through my veins, hot and burning like the hellfire that trapped me here.

This is what I wanted, isn’t it? This is what I’ve been fighting for since that horrible night my parents died, when the humidity of the swamp felt like it might strangle me in my sleep.

All I’ve ever wanted is to escape.

So I lift one foot and trail it over the side of the pool until I feel the water, surprisingly cool and strangely satin, like the soft, urgent licks of Laphriel’s tongue. I lower my foot down until I’m straddling the pool’s rim.

Laphriel’s eyes flare. He nods hungrily, encouraging me to go on, and slides his hand away from my throat.

I turn away from him and bring my other foot into the pool. The water comes up to my knees, and I sink down until I’m kneeling in it. It’s like bathing in starlight, cold and bright and distant, and I can feel something spark inside me.

I’m not afraid anymore. Not of anything. Certainly not of Laphriel.

I turn around and find that he’s slid off those stupid oversized trousers. He towers over me, naked and beautiful and suffused with cold light, his hard cock jutting toward me.

Then he steps into the pool with me and slides his fingers through my hair to drag me forward. I gaze up at him, meeting the weight of his eyes.

“You need to be submerged,” he says softly .

“Baptized, you mean?”

He doesn’t answer except to drag my head forward and push me face-first into the water. I keep my eyes open and breathe out, making silvery bubbles stream around me, and I can taste how sweet the water is. Like nectar.

Laphriel drags me back up, water streaming over my face and my bare breasts. I gasp in a draft of air, partly to fill my lungs and partly from the shock of the cold water and the warm room.

And then I feel it. A power surging through my body.

There’s a sudden, overwhelming moment when I swear I can hear everything in the swamp—every chittering insect and slithering snake and splashing alligator.

And then I hear something else, below the swamp.

The screams and moans of sinners. It sounds like music.

He didn’t lie. I have become something else.

Laphriel still stands over me, his chest heaving, his hand distractedly palming his cock.

“You liked that?” I ask, peering up at him through the web of my hair. “Corrupting me?”

He nods and squeezes his cock tighter. I push forward through the water and take him in my mouth, because if I’ve given in to one desire, why not give in to all of them?

Laphriel shouts in surprise, and I pull him deeper into my throat.

He gasps out my name, or tries to. I let him go and look up at him, my fingers wrapped around his hardness. “What’s the matter? You’ve never had a blowjob before?”

“I told you.” His words are strangled. “This kind of pleasure—it wasn’t allowed to us. Only the Fallen get?—”

“Get to fuck?” I wrap my lips around his cock again, although I keep my eyes turned upward so I can look at him as I slowly bob my head over his length.

His cock is fiery hot, hotter than his touch, but I don’t mind.

In fact, I slide my hand below the water to play with my clit as I suck on him, moaning softly with my mouth full .

For the last three days, I fought against this. And now I can’t even fathom why.

Laphriel moans, grabbing at my hair again. He rocks his hips, thrusting himself into my mouth, and I can taste the sin of him, like smoke and brown sugar.

Then I drag my mouth away, giving one final lick around his throbbing cockhead, and lean back against the side of the pool with my legs spread.

“I’m guessing you haven’t actually fucked before, either.”

Every single one of Laphriel’s eyes fixes on me as I slide two fingers up into my pussy.

“No,” he says hoarsely.

Then he flares his wings out and gestures for me to stand. I don’t move except to keep toying with my pussy, refusing to give in to his demands.

“Natasha.” He growls my name like a warning.

And then the water slides over me, soft as silk, and I’m rising out of the pool on some invisible tether. I cry out in surprise, but then I relent to the sensation. It’s not exactly flying, but it’s close.

I reach out to him, drifting through the air, and his mouth splits into a hungry grin.

“I envy you,” he says. “Choosing this instead of having it forced upon you.”

I grab his shoulders and wrap my legs around his waist, brushing my cunt against the top of his cock. He groans and grabs at my back, the palms of his hands scorching my skin.

“You promised me you would show me the universe,” I tell him, rolling my hips against his cock. Teasing him with my arousal. Teasing myself, too.

“I’ll show you right now,” he rasps.

And then he thrusts into me.

The heat of his cock sears through my core, burning me from the inside out. But it doesn’t hurt. It feels good, especially when I start to rock against him, rubbing my clit against his belly and squeezing him with my pussy walls. He groans, his mouth on my neck, and digs his nails into my back.

“Sublime,” he mutters. “You are sublime.”

I whimper in response, pleasure shuddering through my belly

Laphriel flaps his wings, stirring up hot wind. Then he shoots straight up as I rut against him, desperately chasing my orgasm as we pass through the floors and rooms and roof of the Montcroix mansion.

And then we pass through the hellfire that had trapped me here. But it doesn’t burn. Instead, it washes over my skin like the satiny water of the pool, like a million desperate kisses.

And then we’re free.

Laphriel spirals us up over the swamp and into the blue, cloudless sky, his wings glinting in the sunlight.

As he flies, he fucks me, his thrusts shuddery and frantic.

I grind into him, angling my pussy so that my clit rubs against the base of his cock and his fullness strikes against my G-spot.

Pleasure pulses from both places, an avalanche of sensation heightened by the dizziness of winging through the hot, open air and spotting, just for a second, the ocean and the swamp below us, like illustrations on a map.

I moan, throwing my head back to take in the vast, empty sky surrounding us, as blue as the ocean. My clit throbs and sparks, my pleasure peaking and peaking and not quite spilling over.

“I’m going to come,” I gasp, falling against his chest.

“I know,” he rasps into my ear. “I can taste the agony of it.”

And like that, hurdling through the thin, howling air, I break.

I scream through my orgasm as my body shudders around Laphriel’s cock.

He tilts me back until I’m horizontal and then pounds into me, his furious thrusts drawing out my crashing, wild orgasm.

The vast emptiness beneath us is dizzying and enormous, but I’m not scared.

I’m not human anymore .

Laphriel lets go of me, but there’s no risk of falling.

I grind against him, relishing the sense of weightlessness as he runs his hands over my belly and squeezes my breasts, his fingers rough and grasping.

Our bodies meld together as we fuck, locked in a steady, perfect rhythm.

I can taste his need, his lust, as he plows into me over and over, his grunts hungry and animalistic.

“Nothing,” he pants. “Nothing… like this pleasure…”

Then he roars, slamming his cock so deeply into me that it hurts. But I welcome that hurt, relish it, and the pain electrifies me as much as any orgasm. Especially when Laphriel unrolls his long black tongue and licks my suffering away in long, greedy slurps.

Then he pulls me up to him, his cock buried in my pussy. We stare at each other, drifting through wispy clouds and weak air. His hair streams away from his face, and all his eyes are filled with fire.

“It wasn’t so long ago that I was here,” he says softly, stroking his hand over my hair. “Falling to Earth.”

“You’re not falling now.”

We spiral around like leaves, and through the tatters of clouds, I see Florida jutting out into the blue water. It’s not like looking at a map anymore. It’s a globe. We’re so far up, I swear I can see the curve of the earth.

Dizziness sweeps over me, but Laphriel grabs my chin and directs my gaze back to him. “No,” he says. “I’m not falling. Neither are you.”

“You promised me sights no human could comprehend,” I remind him. “This is a good start.”

He grins at that, feral and sharp. “You’ve seen nothing.”

And then he flaps his wings, and the same hot fire that kept me prisoner surges around us. But it doesn’t burn. It propels us upward, higher and higher, until we’re flying together through time and space.

But not falling. Not anymore .

The End

I hope you enjoyed “The Meteor!” If you’d like to read more of my work, I suggest checking out Bird on a Blade , a dark slasher romance. Get it out here: https://buy.bookfunnel.com/om2ycqelo7