Fallen Souls by Linda Foster Read Free Book Online Page A

betraying the
Creator. Betraying them all.
    Betraying her .
    It was hard to even look at him. If
the rumors were true – and from what little she saw, they appeared
to be – then the fate of Heaven truly did rest in Adrian’s hands.
He was gathering angels – thousands of them – and trying to start a
revolution. Against the Creator. A revolution that no one knew
about.
    No one except Michael. And her. Which
meant that it was her job to save the Heavens. It was a danger to
be here, and it could mean her life, but it was also the only way
to protect her world.
    Before Adrian could say
anything, she heard Michael’s voice echoing through her
head. Don’t fall for his tricks,
Kali . Adrian is
cunning and charming. He will do anything to convince you that he’s
doing something for the good of the angels, but you must not be
fooled. You are our only hope. She
straightened her shoulders and narrowed her eyes, preparing
herself. Michael was right – Adrian was a smooth talker. And she
wasn’t going to fall for it.
    “ This isn’t at all what I
expected,” Adrian said in his musical voice, breaking her from her
thoughts. She repeated Michael’s words to herself, and tried to
smile in a somewhat normal manner. Normal, that would be the trick.
Adrian knew her well, and she was going to have to keep it together
so that she didn’t tip him off.
    Seraphine dropped to her knees and
bowed, though, and Kali couldn’t hide the shocked look on her face.
Her mouth popped open, her eyes going wide, and she almost grabbed
the girl, but managed to hold back. Seraphine was just playing the
part of an angel who saw Adrian as her new savior and leader, she
realized abruptly. In fact, if Kali were smart, she’d probably do
the same. Despite that, however, she couldn’t force herself to bow
to him. Instead, she closed her mouth and turned back to him with a
smile, hoping that he wouldn’t expect that kind of behavior from
her. She needed to convince him that she was here to join his
followers in destroying Heaven. But surely there were ways that
didn’t require her to grovel in the dirt.
    “ Seraphine told me about
your last meeting,” she explained, looking down at the girl and
knowing that she was going to have to do something big to sell
this. She crossed her arms and glared at him. “I was surprised when
she informed me of your plans, and shocked that you hadn’t told me
yourself.”
    “ I didn’t think you held
the same views as myself and the others,” he told her, his eyes
widening in shock. He reached down to put a hand on Seraphine’s
shoulder without breaking eye contact. Seraphine flinched, but if
Adrian noticed, he didn’t react to it as he helped her up. “Angels
like us believe the Creator to be an unfit leader. These are the
angels who believe in their hearts that I should be above Him, and
that I deserve to rule. I wasn’t aware that you might be part of
that group.”
    “ He made the humans and
told us to love them as much as He did,” Seraphine cut in
convincingly, playing the loyal follower. “He created a flawed race
and gifted them with free will. That free will makes them evil to
one another, and then He charged angels with protecting them from
themselves. Angels have died protecting them from their own sinful
race. Which means the Creator put them above us.”
    It was true, and Kali herself was one
of the angels Seraphine spoke of. She’d been sent to Earth,
entrusted with protecting humanity from the demons. When the
Creator first made the human race, He’d also made Hell, where He
sent the souls of those humans unworthy of Heaven. Those souls
whose actions during their lives on Earth were too dangerous, or
sinful. And these souls rotted away in Hell, slowly losing their
humanity – and their minds – and eventually becoming what the
angels had started calling “demons.” Deranged beasts with no human
emotions, only hatred in their hearts.
    And an appetite for
violence.
    It hadn’t taken