Falling for Angels

Hi, I'm Pippa Jay, author of SciFi and the supernatural with a romantic soul. And just lately, I've had a thing for angels. Early last year, my latest publisher - Breathless Press - had a few submission calls up on their board. Usually I struggle to write to sub calls and fit them within the deadline, but the July Camp NaNoWriMo was coming up. Since you can set your word count for the Camp version, I decided to use it to finish up the YA dystopian romance I had going, and to attempt an angel story.

Now, I don't know a lot about angels in literature (I'd read precisely two stories featuring them) and I'm not religious. But I'd already done some research on succubi for a SciFi romance, and the idea of doing a fallen angel turned incubus for his sins got muse's attention. My bad angel started as a combination of Peter Capaldi as the Angel Islington in the BBC's adaptation of Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, and Jude Law's portrayal of Gigolo Joe in A.I. The futuristic setting was inspired by Bladerunner, so I still managed to sneak a little SF even into a demons and angels story. As for His Infernal Highness as featured in the story...well, the casting there amused me. But you'll have to read it to find out who I see as the Devil himself. :P

Blurb:

How far would you fall for love?

Centuries ago, guardian angel Lucien committed a terrible sin. He gave into his own desires and revealed himself to the mortal woman he'd been charged to protect. By kissing her, he condemned himself. Torn of his wings and his angelic powers, thrown down into the City Below, Lucien now serves Satan as an incubus who claims souls for his master from the City Above, and who feeds on the energy stolen from his mortal lovers. Dark, sexy and charming, he's been top of his league for decades uncounted.

Until His Infernal Highness decides to send Lucien looking for a lost angel. Lucien has no idea what he did to deserve such a punishment, and the touch of an angel could destroy him. Yet the challenge and the potential kudos of seducing one of his former heavenly kin leads him on.

But when he finds the angel, he learns he still has more to lose than his already forsaken soul.

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Excerpt:

A new burning consumed his body. He wanted to reach out and hold her. Wrap his arms around her, and drown in her kiss. But even as he took one shaky step toward her, the light and goodness within her scorched him and he staggered back a step, one arm thrown up to shield himself.

"Lucien." Her voice washed over him like a sweetly scented summer breeze. He dared to drop his arm and look at her again.

"Miranda." Her name came out as a growl, and he cursed himself for it.

Her frown deepened. "Lucien, what's happened to you?" She took a step closer and he shied away. No matter how she'd come to him, welcomed him, her angelic powers could still be deadly. "Oh, my love, what have you become?"

My love. The words cut him as deeply as the priest's forgiveness. The pain stirred his resentment. She had been the cause of his fall. The reason for his torment. And now she was scolding him for it?

"What I am is what you helped turn me in to." He raised his head, glared at her. "What I am is because of you."

She shook her head. "Is that really what you think? That it's all my fault?" Tears glimmered in her eyes. "I've watched you for a long time now. Waiting for the right time to come to you. I've seen how your existence has come to trouble you more in the last decades. How the tasks set to you have crushed what remains of your soul."

Lucien snorted. "My soul? I lost that with my heart. And my wings."

"No. You didn't. You hate what you do. You sealed your heart in stone to protect yourself, but you can't bring yourself to fully give into the darkness, no matter what."

Lucien shuddered. "You're wrong."

"You know I'm not." She took another step toward him, and though he tried to back away he found himself trapped against the brick wall. She put up her hand, palm outward, as if to touch him. His breath stalled in his chest and his whole body might just as well have become stone. He couldn't move.

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