Dark Awakening Read Free Page A

have come to you, Nadira to tell you how very important you are. Not only to my kind, but yours as well."
    "What the hell are you?"
    "You know what I am. You've known since you were a child. All those dreams of angels? All those books and obscure texts you've read. Have you not always looked about you and seen angels walking amongst you? Have you not seen them look at you with their black eyes and raise their fingers to their lips and whisper ‘shhh', to you?"
    Shit! Her struggling was revived with the revelation. This ... whatever he was, knew way too much about her.
    "You've sensed me in your life all along, don't tell me now that you do not know who I am or that you do not believe in us. Where is your faith, Nadira? Where is the little girl whose bedtime prayers I listened to?"
    "Sariel,” she said on a long rush of breath. Reaching up behind her, Nadira sought his face. Wet hair clung to his jaw and she followed the wet tips of hair with her fingers until her fingertips grazed the left side of his neck. On his skin, like a brand, were the markings she had once seen in a dream. “Sariel,” she repeated, “Command of God."
    "Yes,” he whispered as his palm, warm and strong, slid up her belly till it rested beneath her breasts. “But I come to you, by His command, as the Angel of Prophecy."
    "You're here for Mary."
    "I am not here for Mary. Another has come for her."
    "What do you want with me?"
    He looked down at her through his wet hair, his eyes were large and blue, not black like the angels she had seen as a child. His face was the face of the angel she had seen in her vision. He had been the first to fall from the sky. The one to put his fingers to her lips.
    "Yes, it was me you saw."
    "I don't understand any of this. I mean ... this is way too weird. Unbelievable."
    "You were born for an angel, Nadira.” She gaped at him. “Your heart, it is meant to beat for one of my kind. An angel is your destiny."
    "What are you saying?"
    "That tonight another will come to you, and you will accept him. You will take him into your body."
    "Another? Another what? An angel? A man? What, and I'm supposed to have sex with a stranger? Right, like I believe all this. You're an angel, and another angel is going to come for me and take me to bed. I'm not believing you. In fact, none of this is even happening. This is just a hallucination brought on by lack of caffeine."
    "The seeds of the prophecy will be sown tonight. You must have faith, Nadira, that what you do, what you're feeling, is right. That is all I can say."
    She looked away from him, her head swimming. Certifiable. That was what she was. Was she truly believing this guy's story? There were no wings on him, no shimmering halo above his wet head, no white robes edged in gold. Just a brown woollen trench and the strange feeling in her gut that told her to believe.
    "You must believe, Nadira. So much depends upon your faith. You've known all along that angels have been in your life—that I have been there with you. You always believed. I know you lost your faith, that it has been tested and tried. But you must find it again."
    "I gotta go,” she muttered, stepping away from him and heading toward the bridge that was now empty. God, she was losing it. Totally, fucking losing it.

Chapter Four
    Shaking off his hold, Nadira ran across the bridge that was now empty, before jogging up the grassy incline to the parking lot. Beneath a lamp pole her little yellow Sunfire gleamed in the rain.
    What the fuck was going on here? Was she going insane? Did she really believe he was an angel? That she was a part of some divine plan? Was her life so damn pitiable that she was reduced to experiencing a little excitement by conjuring up sexy angels who wanted to do her?
    Opening the car door, she slid down onto the seat and rested her head back against the worn out fabric of the headrest. Closing her eyes, she sought to calm her nerves, but instead, she saw flashes of the bronzed statue,