A Cowboy of Legend Linda Broday
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Tempted Angel
BLACKWOOD UNIVERSITY 1
JEWEL KILLIAN
Copyright © 2024 by Jewel Killian
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover: Romancepremades.com
Editor: KKBookpolishing
Gofuckyourdemons. Butalso…
Forthegirlswhoweretoldtheirbodiesarefortheirfuture, inevitablehusbands.Youbelongtoyourself.
AND
Ifyouknowthenameonmydriver’slicense,fortheloveofLucifer, putthisbookdown.I’mnotkidding.Therearesomanydicksinthis book,andallforonegirl…I’dstillliketobeabletolookatyouat theholidays.
A note from the author
This book is medium-roast dark. There’s some fucked up shit in here but I wouldn’t say it’s dark dark. Your mental health matters to me. Protect it. If you don’t want spoilers, I’d suggest turning the page.
Possible upsetting content: forced public nudity, auctioning/sexual slavery, kidnapping/isolation, murder, parental abuse, parental death, SA outside the harem, attempted SA within the harem, blood/knives, degradation, vomit, violence, gore, religious cult, religious trauma.
Stalk me I’m into it
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Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Contents
Chapter 31
Afterword
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Chapter One
If an angel loses her Grace, her wings will wither like the parched lands of Cinder.
- The Book Of Grace Chapter 5 Verse 87
MALACHI UMBRA, Commander of the Seventh Celestial Host and newly appointed High Commander of Legions—and my father with his piercing violet gaze and broad build, is the greatest archangel in generations.
Great like the flood.
Great like the depression.
Great like my desire not to be here.
The floor trembles.
The air crackles with energy as blinding, electric blue flames surge up from the very center of our plane.
An answer to his call.
He isn’t an archangel people argue with.
Today is different.
“Look at me when I’m talking to you!”
For a moment, his thunderous order drowns out the hissing, sizzling fire leaping toward him. The flames encircle him, casting him and his war room in icy shades of blue-violet. He draws his wings in
close just as the fires draw closer, bathing his formal robes and white feathers in flickering light.
The flames lick closer still, teasing at the hem of his robes until they finally consume him completely.
My father steps forward and the flames settle around his neck, flowing down his back like a magnificent cloak.
It’s quite an image.
One that he’s cultivated over the centuries he’s held office, now emboldened by his newly appointed position.
I’ve never seen him without at least a touch of the Flames.
Embers at his fingertips.
Blue smoke winding around his head like a ghostly crown.
A single spark in his gaze.
So there’s never a doubt.
Not a single soul can forget, even for a moment, how powerful he is.
The only archangel in history to have the Flames of Celestus at his beck and call.
It’s been ages since he’s called on the plane’s fires in full. That he’s done so now doesn’t bode well for me.
And as the unnaturally hued firelight flickers over his features, painting him in unsettling shadow and light, a question tickles my mind.
What will he choose this time?
Compassion?
Empathy?
Doubtful.
He stares me down, anger crackling like lightning, burning just as bright as the fires at his back. “You cannot do this, Dove. I simply won’t allow it.”
There was a time when those words would have been enough. When even the mere thought of his raised voice would root me in place.
Would have kept me here.
But not for this.
“Father, I must. You know it as well as I do.” My voice falters, but I hold his gaze, craning my neck to do so. Because for as tall as Malachi is, I am short in equal measure.
One of the many ways I’m a disappointment to him.
The flaming cloak eddies out with his displeasure and bleeds into a shade of cobalt so dark, the room dims.
Our plane’s fires aren’t for burning. No heat comes from the billowing pyre at the center of our realm.
“It’s a fine impression of a blueberry, Father. It does wonders for your crow’s feet. But that doesn’t change my mind,” I say over the roaring cloak. My voice doesn’t falter this time.
His eyes narrow, darkening. “Careful, daughter.”
“Why? So you can stand there, high and mighty in your austere and righteous fire and proselytize to me, yet again? Try to convert me to your anti-Gael doctrine?”
My father sucks in a breath between his teeth and the flames grow darker, deeper, bordering on an inky indigo.
As long as they don’t go fully black.
“Gael and I are soul-bonded, Father. You know this. Just like you also know that I mustgo find him.” Why can’t he understand this?
The lightning in Malachi’s gaze hardens to steel and he slaps me across the cheek.
The blow lands too quickly for me to block.
Not that I could.
Warm metal on my tongue, a buzzing ring in my ears.
Still, I return my gaze to his face.
Now contorted into a snarl.
“Your place is here, where we—where I—can protect you from the creatures who only want to use and abuse you. Here, away from the temptation and savagery of the mortal realm.”
Hosts of angels, of dragons, and minotaur, and giants have all bowed to my father’s will. All have fallen in line.
And yet I, his only daughter, his defective progeny, defy him.
And the shame of it is, I knowhe knows all too well the power of a soul-bond.
My betrothed, the angel Celestus itself deemed my one true match, is stuck in that awful mortal realm just like I was.
Why can’t Malachi see that even if it weren’t for the soul-bond, even if Gael wasn’t my betrothed and our bond didn’t constantly beckon us to each other, I’d still have to find him?
Gael already did the same for me.
But his disapproval of my soul-bond hurts far less than the pain of my father’s refusal to believe in me.
“I don’t need protection anymore, Father.” The warble in my voice belies the conviction hardening deep in my veins.
He scoffs. A brutal noise, as grating to my ears as to my spirit.
The cloak shivers around him, almost vibrating.
Shaking.
With laughter.
I grit my teeth, anger singing through me, a welcome, bolstering accompaniment to my resolve.
Even the Fires themselves don’t believe in me.
“You certainly do need protection, Dove. If not directly from me, then from the host at large. You’re in the most dangerous part of your awakening.”
He pauses, and I already know he’s about to change tactics.
Commanding me didn’t work, so he’ll make an attempt at seeing the other side of the argument.
He won’t truly empathize.
He won’t put himself in my position.
I’ve seen him do it countless times with countless political opponents. I believe that skill alone earned him his newest title. High Commander of Legions. All the hosts now formally recognize him as their superior.
Because Malachi Umbra is fantastic at lookinglike he’s considered every angle, while in truth, he always and only pursues his own agenda.
He falls into his perfect, dimpled smile. Even his cloak of fire stops flickering, smoothing to steady indigo flames. “But for argument’s sake, let’s assume the mortal realm isn’t bursting with creatures who want nothing more than to siphon every bit of your
potential power for their own selfish needs. Let’s also pretend that with most of your power still dormant, you aren’t supremely susceptible to demonic influence.”
He pauses again, giving dramatic weight to his contrivance.
“Dove, you still do not have the skills to survive the mortal plane.”
My pulse speeds as heat flushes through me.
I don’t act. I say nothing, allowing my fury to lighten the weight of Malachi’s impending words.
“Not with your—affliction.”
The word makes my chest burn, and I clamp down on my tongue, biting until it hurts.
All to keep said afflictionin check.
“You simply cannot blend in with mortals.”
My father’s brow softens, his shoulders lower, and the cloak lightens back to bright cobalt. “It’s best to leave the boy there. He’s made his mess, Dove. Let him languish in it. You must end it now before the Rites of Consummation. It will ache less, dear daughter. This I vow.”
Blood fills my mouth as I bite back the words I want to yell at him. Scream at him. How could he suggest such a cruelty?
But as always, pain only holds the affliction at bay momentarily. It will always break free.
And this time, I don’t care enough to keep fighting it.
“Just because you’re miserable and alone doesn’t mean I should be, too. Losing your soul-bond with Mother—”
He smacks the words off my tongue, hitting me so hard a spray of blood hits the floor with a sickening plop.
Pain radiates through my face, and I stare down at the teardropshaped splatters, gathering my will.
Steeling my spine.
I’ve never defied him.
“Watch your tone, daughter. It’s better not to speak the words of a story you only know half of. Affliction or not, I won’t have you sullying your mother’s memory.”
I take a breath and slowly turn my head to face him once more. Heat rises in my cheeks, and I lock eyes with him.
And it may have only been the flames—now darkened and flickering with his wrath—casting shadows on his face, but I swear his eyes widen as I match the fury of his gaze.
“Speaking about her is hardly sullying. Now, if I were to say Mother was a fallen whore who jumped on as many cocks as she could find, thatis truly sullying her memory.”
My cheeks grow hotter still, this time with embarrassment.
My father’s flames fan outward, shifting to an even deeper iron blue, a shade I’ve never seen before now.
I brace for another blow.
But it doesn’t come.
Malachi Umbra knows when it’s the affliction that takes hold of my tongue.
On the mortal plane, they call it frontal lobe disinhibition.
The inability to keep thoughts from becoming words, no matter how hurtful.
And another reason Father doesn’t want me going back.
But I divide my life into two parts.
Before Gael and after Gael.
See, he found me on the mortal plane after the accident that left me unconscious and bleeding in a ditch.
The human nurses said the impact threw me from the car. Right through the windshield. That is, they said it when I woke up from my coma several weeks later.
An angel in a coma?
Preposterous, right?
Except, I wasn’t of age. I hadn’t received my Grace yet. And an angel without her Grace on the mortal plane is just as vulnerable as a human.
Granted, if I’d died while on the mortal plane, my soul would come back to Celestus, where I’d be born once more.
But since my injury happened pre-Grace, pre-immortality, and since I was stuck on that plane for so long, the damage became permanent.
Gael didn’t have his Grace either. He couldn’t simply shimmer us back to Celestus. To our healers.
I think he still feels guilty about that.
When we finally returned, the healers did what they could. They smoothed the scars and strengthened the muscles that had wasted away. But they couldn’t fix the damage to my mind.
If I’d gotten back sooner, they might have mended me fully.
I wish they’d never told me.
Never said it loud enough for Gael to overhear.
But as difficult as it is having a brain that refuses to filter thought from speech, that says the most inappropriate and hurtful things, I don’t regret the accident.
I can’t.
It’s how Gael found me.
Feeling a soul-bond lock into place is like finally taking a full breath. It’s like finally seeing the world in color.
It’s discovering a newcolor.
And my father is determined to strip me of the air, the color. He lets out a long breath. “All are attracted to the light, Dove. You know this. Humans will want to be near you and not know why. Spellcasters will try to steal your light, your power. And Celestus help us if a demon catches scent of you.”
Don’tsayit,Dove.Don’tsayit.Ifthere’severatimetoholdyour tongue,it’srightnow.
I use every trick I have. Biting my tongue, clenching my fists until my nails dig in. I even hold my breath.
Because the demons are exactly where I’m heading.
They know where my soul-betrothed is. And with luck, I’ll convince them to help me free Gael.
“They’ll make you fall, Dove. Steal every virtue, every purity. They’ll take your power, unlock what’s dormant, and steal it for themselves. You know this, daughter! You can’t risk—”
For the first time in my life, I interrupt him.
“I won’t leave Gael behind, Father.”
I stand straighter and stare into his vicious violet gaze, conjuring the same in mine. “And short of taking my wings, you can’t stop
Chapter Two
Anangel’spower manifestsinthreeparts:by Birth,by Grace, andbyRites.
-TheBookofGraceChapter23Verse78
SERA SURVEYS my face with the trained eye of an angel who’s spent more time in the mortal realm than anyone else in Celestus. Her rainbow gaze locks on mine, full of earnest concern.
“You’re certain? Because before you complete the Rites, you can still technically renounce the bond.”
The Rites of Consummation. The ceremony where Gael and I finally come together as two soul-bonded are meant to.
Sharing bodies is the last step, formalizing our bond and unlocking the rest of our dormant power. After which, no one can tear us apart.
Not even Father.
That’s not to say Gael and I haven’t been together in otherways. Everyother way. We’re simply saving the real thing for the Rites.
Like every other soul-bonded in Celestus.
“You know I can’t renounce him, Sera.”
“Good. I was only checking.” She steps back, eyeing me with an uncomfortable amount of scrutiny. “But there’s no way you can pull that off.” Sera gestures to my face with a grimace. She yanks the
charmed ring off my finger and slides on another in its place. “Here’s hoping number six does the trick.”
“I can’t possibly look awful in every glamour.”
She shrugs, lavender-blonde hair falling over her shoulder. “It’s not my fault your features are so typically Celestial. You’ve looked awful as a ginger, brunette, and dirty blonde so far.”
Part of infiltrating the mortal realm is making sure I’m not immediately recognized as an angel. Most mortals—even most magic users—have never seen my kind, but they sure are good at telling human from not. The slightest variance rattles something in their primal brain.
I found that out the hard way before my accident, but that was before I had my Grace. My features weren’t quite so Celestial before then. Now it’s exponentially more difficult. I might as well shimmer down in a white robe and a halo because iridescent white hair and luminous skin is a dead giveaway.
Sera’s been hard at work finding a convincing glamour that doesn’t make me look ridiculous.
It’s been hours. A labor of love only the closest friend would abide.
And she is. Sera’s one of the very few who knows how cruel my father can be to his own progeny.
She’s always been the one to heal the bruises and split lips when my hands shake too much to do so on my own.
“I still can’t believe you called your mother a fallen whore to his face.”
Not my finest moment. “Ididn’t truly say it.”
“No. You just thought it,” Sera says with a smirk, as if thinking it is somehow worse than saying it out loud.
My father’s public persona is so cultivated, so impeccably maintained, no one would believe how often his raised voice leads to a raised hand. To the rest of Celestus, Malachi Umbra is a ruthless leader, but a doting father. The hosts eat up the contrived persona.
They’re all too happy to assume I’m the only one who sees his softer side, but the reality is far more grim.
I’m the closest to his temper.
The number of times he’s paraded me—smiling and coiffed—to full host functions where he can publicly praise me as his strong, determined daughter, all the while squeezing the hidden bruises under the guise of fatherly affection…
“You know, this would be so much easier if you weren’t going to the only place where you can’t use your own magic to do this right. Now let me think.” Sera crosses her bedroom to the dresser and searches through the pouch of charmed items once again.
Her sleeping quarters—which I always think of as warm and soft because of the amber-toned light she favors—have always been close to mine, but not because we’re friends. Sera is my only cousin. The only angel remaining on her father’s line. So she’s always understood the unique pressure of being born into a high-profile family.
And Sera is the closest link I have to my mother.
Our mothers were sisters, pregnant with us at the same time. We were born just a few moons apart. Audra, Sera’s mother, always said we were destined to be fast friends.
Even when Aunt Audra left my father’s host for another, Seraphina stayed here.
With me.
Forme.
“Now remember,” she says, locking eyes with me in the mirror as she dumps the whole pouch of charmed baubles onto the polished wooden dresser. “Humans don’t speak like us. Don’t fall into that formal shit you do with your father.”
Malachi has always demanded precise words and clear meaning when speaking with him. It’s such a habit that sometimes I catch myself even thinking that way.
“And they don’t speak like all that garbage TV of theirs you still watch.
“Hey! First of all…”
Sera purses her lips at me.
Yeah, OK. She’s right. My taste in mortal realm entertainment is questionable.
But an angel’s got to have her guilty pleasures. And it’s not my fault I got hooked on it. There wasn’t much else to do in the hospital besides listen to nurse gossip, endure physical therapy, and watch trashy TV a term I learned on said trashy TV.
I was only conscious for a week before Gael got me out, but that’s all it takes to get hooked on the dopamine of watching horrible people do horrible things.
I’d paid a tinkerer a ridiculous sum of latinum to smuggle a device back to Celestus and magic it to receive mortal realm media.
“Fine. What else?”
Sera’s special interest in university was Angel-Human relations. She’s spent nearly three years at a human college and is the closest thing I have to a mortal realm expert.
She was incredibly lucky to have the chance.
The only reason my father allowed her on the mortal plane was she’d already performed her Rites with Thaniel, rendering her light and magic practically invisible to demons and humans alike.
She can mingle freely with humans without drawing their attention because as a fully-fledged angel, her magic is naturally cloaked. It doesn’t draw humans and spellcasters in.
I can’t do that yet.
If only Gael and I had waited.
“Definitely keep a lid on how much you resent being there and how much you hate their plane.” She puts a comical amount of emphasis on the idiomatic phrase, likely chosen on purpose as a test.
But her suggestion—idiom or not—is easier said than done. The mortal realm forever changed me. It made me deficient in ways that can never be fixed. Only managed.
I resent that place more than is probably healthy, especially considering it’s where I found Gael.
Sera lifts an eyebrow at me, a question lurking in the sparkling rainbow of her gaze.
And since I don’t like the condescension in her silent question, or her assumption that I can’t parse her inane idiom on my own, I take a shot at her.
“All it takes is context, Bullseye,” I say with a smirk.
Sera frowns at the use of her grade-school nickname.
Because while I think she’s lucky to have the most uncommon combination of both her mother’s and father’s eye color, Sera hates them.
Aunt Audra’s golden-green and her father’s striking teal somehow gave Sera rings of blue and green around a deep russet center.
She thinks they look like archery targets.
But I imagine it’s nice not having your murderous father’s angry violet eyes staring at you in the mirror. Between his eye color and his dimples, I only see him when I look at myself.
Sera shakes her head, choosing to believe the affliction spoke the nickname.
I’ll keep her in the dark about that one.
See? Idioms are easy.
“Anyway, humans never say what they mean. Ever. So don’t get caught up trying to say the right thing all the time.”
I nod again, filing away all her tips in a neat little folder in my brain, and Sera approaches with another ring.
“And remember to adapt to their terms. They don’t call fast-travel shimmering. The demons call it blinking and witches say something else entirely. Oh, and watch your exclamatory phrases. Don’t give yourself away by calling on the Flames or asking Celestus to help you.”
“Right. Any suggestions?”
“There’s always oh my gods, hells, infernal. If you wanted something a little more human, you could go for balls, or any of their curse words, really. Or you can riff on the seven realms phrasing. You’ve got options, just don’t say anything Celestial-adjacent.”
“OK. I’ve got it.”
“Good. Now, here’s hoping for a miracle,” she murmurs and jams the ring on my index finger.
A warm sheet of foreign magic skates down my skin.
At least that’s an improvement. The other charms felt like wet wool pasted against me.
“Huh.” Sera steps back, regarding me more intently than before. “I think we have something here.” She spins around, grabbing something I don’t see from her dresser. “Close your eyes.”
I oblige her.
“Looks like I was thinking about this all wrong,” she whispers. “I was trying to find a humanized version of your natural features.”
She rubs something over my eyelids and lips and steps back. “Look at me.”
I do, and Sera’s mouth drops. “Fuuuck.”
Fuck is the only bit of slang I have trouble with. It can mean literally everything and sometimes context doesn’t help.
“Fuck good or fuck bad?” I ask.
Sera doesn’t answer. She simply holds up a mirror.
And now my mouth falls open at the painted demon staring back.
“Sera!” I touch the black horns sprouting from the top of my head and run a hand through my new shiny black hair, before staring into my own black-rimmed violet eyes and deep dimples.
My skin, my face, remains untouched by magic. Only makeup.
“You’re too Celestial to make human. So I stopped trying,” she says with a shrug.
“Sera, there’s a difference between infiltrating a demon school and becoming one myself.”
But as I protest, as my heart thuds with the wrongness of my new appearance, I can’t take my eyes off the mirror.
“I know, I know. The plan was to make you a witch, but those human glamours looked like bad Halloween masks.”
I glance back at her. “What’s a Halloween mask?”
Sera doesn’t bother rolling her eyes at me this time. “It’s not important. The point is, the others wouldn’t convince a blind nun. This…” She looks me up and down and lets out a slow whistle. “This is some of my best work, Dove. Feel free to say thank you any time.”
My new face pulls my gaze to the mirror again. “I don’t know, Sera.”
“Are you crazy? You look fantastic.”
I bite my tongue against the flurry of affliction-born, selfaggrandizing phrases begging to be set free.
I do look incredible. Sexy, confident, and dark. I make a convincing demon. But looking good, looking convincing, that’s not the problem.
“There’s no way I can pull off being a demon in a university full of them. They’ll know I’m an outsider with the first social misstep.”
Sera smiles, a knowing glint in her gaze. “Yeah, and you’ve got a built-in excuse. That’s why you won’t try to convince anyone of anything. Now, let’s figure out what a hot demon chick wears.”
