The Souls
of Rain (Heavens Trilogy, # 1)
By Diana
Nixon
COMING Out December
18th, 2013
Synopsis
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The secrets of the
heavens had always been carefully guarded. Until one day when the angels
realized that what they used to believe in was nothing but a cruel game between
heaven and hell.
And Claire’s life is a part of that game too. She is a guardian angel.
She always thought
that her existence was perfect. But perfection is a very relative term, and no
one is protected from making mistakes.
Everything changes
the moment Claire gets a new assignment. Guarding humans has never been easy,
and this time won’t be an exception.
Alan Rosenford is a
spoilt party-boy, whose life is a hurricane of risk and adrenaline rush. His
soul is damaged, his heart is bleeding, and there are so many things he prefers
to keep private….
The words they have
never said before …
The sins they have
never committed….
How much does
forgiveness of the heavens cost?
Or maybe even the
heavens make mistakes?....
Watch BOOK TRAILER:
Trailing my fingers over the lines of your
face,
Kissing your lips and melting in your embrace,
Enjoying the warmth and drinking in the moment,
Leading multiple lives feels like a pure
torment.
Falling even deeper in love with you,
Discovering all the things I never knew,
Evolving into someone better and someone new,
I’ll stay for one more day, or maybe for a few,
To build up my strength to live centuries
without you.
I’ll follow you to the deserts and across the
oceans,
Desperate for changes and overwhelming
emotions;
I’ll stay with you on the earth, or follow you
to the sky,
Only with you can I breathe and feel myself
alive.
Holding hands, we walk between the silver
raindrops,
With the snow-white doves flying around us;
Leaving for the memories we shared, lives ago,
Can we put them back together? No one knows.
Look around and tell me what you see,
There’s no one else in sight, but you and me,
Chasing away the darkness and stormy clouds,
Just the way it was always meant to be.
Living like there’s nothing left to lose,
No one to forgive, no one to accuse.
When the bridges of hope come crashing down,
In the bewitching sounds of love we drown,
As we kiss away each other’s worst fears,
Banishing regrets, pains and bitter tears.
Take a breath and wait for the long tomorrow,
If I disappear in the shadows, find me and
follow,
Rescue me in the midst of my endless night,
Turn the pale moon into bright daylight,
Make this heart of mine miss a beat,
Only with you is my soul complete.
Prologue
Three angels were standing in the middle of a round,
crystal room. Their long, silver cloaks were swaying slowly in the wind; the
rustle of their wings was the only sound breaking the intense silence. One of
them, a woman with curly, strawberry-blond hair that went to her feet, raised
her hand and a huge, white cloud formed in front of her.
“The girl deserves to know the truth,” she said to the
others.
“This is insane,” a male angel replied, shaking his
head. He ran one palm through his messy, sandy hair; his big, blue eyes seemed
to be brighter than the sky itself. “What if something goes wrong?” He stared
nervously at the picture appearing inside the cloud.
“We are losing control over her.”
“She’s right,” the other male angel said. “It’s not
safe to keep her here.” His golden eyes shifted impatiently between his
companions. “We need to send her back to the earth.”
“You will follow her,” the woman said, looking at the
blue-eyed angel. He was the youngest of the three of them, and his age was the
only thing that stopped him from breaking the order. He didn’t want to spy on
anyone. He used to be one of the best guardian angels, until one day he made a
mistake and was obliged to follow the orders of the top-ranked angels. It was
the worst part of his punishment; he hated being told what to do.
“You didn’t have to say that,” he snapped, meeting the
woman’s emotionless eyes. Sometimes it was really hard to believe that she was
an angel, and not a demon wearing snow-white wings. “You know I would have
never left her unprotected.”
“Right.” The other angel smirked.
“Albert,” the woman hissed, warningly. Her voice
sounded calm, but the intonation said it all — she didn’t approve fights
between her subordinates. “This meeting is over. I’ll see you two later.” And
just like that she disappeared, making the air in the room crackle. Albert
grimaced at the force of energy left after her disappearance. He wasn’t as
strong as she was, and the powers she possessed always made him uneasy. He
looked one last time at the blue-eyed angel and followed the woman.
Left alone, the angel stared at the picture of the
girl he was supposed to spy on. The girl was a guardian angel. She was slim and
beautiful; with long, black hair and big green eyes, shadowed by the curling
lashes.
She was walking down the alley surrounded by the
age-old oaks, watching her fosterling. She seemed to be relaxed, but in reality
her every instinct was on alert. Her wings were outspread, and though no human
could see her like that, the creatures of the heavens always knew when she was
on duty.
“I won’t let
you down, Claire,” the angel swore in a whisper, making the cloud in front of
him turn black. “Never again….”
Chapter 1
I was staring at the file in my hands. It was thick
and heavy, and I didn’t have the slightest desire to read it.
“What’s this?” I asked Bert, my trainer.
“Your new assignment,” he said, walking down the hall
that led to the training rooms.
I raised my eyebrows in surprise. “My new assignment?
Seriously?”
“Yes. Why?” He opened the door to one of the rooms and
led me to the wall with crystal daggers.
“I was reassigned just a few days ago, remember? No angel
changes humans so often!”
“It’s not your call, Claire. They give commands, you execute
them. Period.” He gave me one of the daggers to replace the one I broke last
night, trying to kill a demon following my fosterling. “Be careful with the
weapons. You are the only guardian angel who breaks them so often.”
“I’m also the only guardian angel who destroys the
biggest number of demons.”
“True.” Bert smiled briefly, and looked at the wound
on my right wing. “Close your eyes, I will heal it.”
I sighed and obeyed, waiting for Bert’s powers to deal
with the wound. It didn’t hurt much, but the feeling wasn’t pleasant either.
Guardian angels couldn’t heal themselves. We always needed the help of other
angels, whose powers were different from ours.
My thoughts switched
back to my new assignment, and I sighed again. Bert was right, I couldn’t help
matters. And neither could he. He was just a messenger in this case. I answered
to him for my every step, but when it came to the orders of Santunary, he was
as helpless as I was.
No one could ignore the words of Ledons — top-ranked
angels. They formed the Santunary: the highest and the cruelest governmental
authority, and the most respectful body of the heavens (except for God, of
course). There were no ‘ifs’ for
Ledons. They accepted only ‘yes’ or ‘no’. The last word was better not to
pronounce if you cared about your life.
Ledons were followed by Deerons, our trainers. They
guarded the gates of the heavens. No one could come or go without their
permission, even the souls.
Then there was us, the guardian angels, followed by
our loyal servants, the Pastreens. I didn’t know what exactly their duties
consisted of, but they were a real pain in our necks; always watching us and
laughing at our mistakes. Though sometimes they were really helpful, especially
when it came to doing my hair or cleaning my wings.
“So who’s my new baby?” I asked the trainer. We called
humans our babies, because we felt like their nannies that were always there
for them, no matter how bad or good they really were.
“Why don’t you open the file?” Bert winked at me. Oh,
no…it was a sign of bad news.
“Alan Rosenford,”
I read the name, written on the file’s cover. “Who is he?”
“Just don’t tell me you’ve never heard about him! How
long have you been working in New York…for two years? And you’ve never heard
about Alan Rosenford?”
“I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I haven’t.”
“Well, this is probably for the best.” Bert smirked
and vanished. Literally.
Angels always appeared out of nowhere and disappeared
as abruptly. But I hated when Bert did that. He never answered my questions,
and he always left without saying good-bye. Not that it was the only unpleasant
thing about my life. Nothing about it was normal actually.
Sometimes it felt like my life was an endless cascade
of ups and downs. I could fly and I could walk; I could save and I could
destroy. Heaven was my home, and the days I spent there couldn’t be compared
with anything else; they were special.
But there were also days that I had to spend walking
down the roads of sinful earth. Everything about them was even and painfully
predictable.
Unlike those humans I guard, I don’t need to count
seconds; I have a whole eternity to live. I don’t need sleep or food, though
cakes and ice-cream are my weaknesses and the best things about my perfect life.
I don’t have a
family, and I never had one. I was created by the heavens. I don’t have
friends, but I do have enemies. And all of them are demons — soulless, cruel
creatures that make people do things they will have to spend forever in hell
for.
My job is to protect humans from demons, making their
lives better and happier. Funny enough, I’m the unhappiest creature in the
world. It feels like my happiness is always near, and too far away at the same
time.
There are things that I will probably never be able to
understand. I don’t know what love means. It always felt like something
mysterious and too unreal. But unlike humans, I can live perfectly well without
it. As well as without boys, parties and other essential attributes of every
girl’s life.
But there is one thing that I can’t live a single day
without. My wings. They are my faith and an essential part of me. I can’t show
them to humans, and every time I let them see me, they think I’m just a girl in
my early twenties. Too bad no human girl knows how to cross the distance
between two places in seconds.
I closed my eyes and imagined myself standing in the
middle of my sky-blue living room. I liked the color. It reminded me of my true
home and the sky that I liked gazing at so much.
I had a two-bedroom apartment not far away from
Central Park. I didn’t have much time to spend there, but there were times,
like today, when I wasn’t on duty. My last assignment, a five-year-old Annabel
Walders left for a few days to visit her grandparents, but I couldn’t leave New
York, so she was guarded by one of the local angels of Washington.
It was supposed to be a free weekend: no work, no
demons; only freedom and me. Yeah, too good to be true….
I looked back at the files I was still holding in my
hands. I never read people’s files. I liked making my own opinion about them.
No matter how bad or perfect they were, the only thing I cared about were their
souls. And even a criminal’s soul can be pure. Because when people kill or lie
it means that demons win. It also means that angels lose. And we lose only if
we don’t take our duties seriously. Usually it leads to becoming Pastreens. Or
fallen. Both variants close the doors to the heavens and leave us wandering
around the earth forever. And no matter how heavy the sin we commit is, we
always want to be forgiven and returned to the heavens.
Speaking of sins….
“Nolan, what are you doing here?” I asked the fallen
angel, standing behind me.
“Good to see you too, Claire.” He smiled, taking a
seat on my couch. The guy didn’t need my permission to make himself at home.
Nolan was the only fallen who never wanted to be
forgiven. At least that was what he was saying every time I asked him about his
life. He liked living among humans. Though I never asked him about the rule he
broke to be kicked out of the heavens.
“I heard about your new assignment,” he said, turning
on the TV set.
“Why do you even care?” I crossed my arms, watching
him curiously. I didn’t understand why Nolan liked spending time with me. My
life was a picture of everything he couldn’t have.
“Because we are best friends. And friends always care
about each other.”
I rolled my eyes. “We are far from being friends,
Nolan. Let alone best friends. You
are stalking me. This is how it calls.”
“Whatever you call it, the fact remains — I’m here,
and I want to know how you feel about being Alan’s new babysitter.” He smiled
again, and I desperately wanted to slap him in the face. God, forgive me.
“What is wrong with the guy that everyone is so
worried about me guarding him?”
“Nothing’s wrong. He’s a good guy actually. He likes
drinking, smoking, girls, and car racing.”
“Sounds like a typical description of a good guy.”
“Sarcasm doesn’t fit your pretty face, my angel. And
Alan is a good guy. You will see.”
“Can’t wait,” I muttered, heading for the kitchen to
get a piece of a strawberry pie I made earlier today.
“How can you think about food when your human is
dying?” Nolan shouted after me.
I stopped and turned around, barely breathing. “What
did you say?”
“Alan Rosenford was taken to the St. Mary’s hospital
about an hour ago. He kissed a tree with a bumper of his new car.”
No more details were needed. I closed my eyes and sank
into the red vortex of a bittersweet smoke that took me straight to the
hospital ward.
The moment I opened my eyes the smell of drugs hit my
nostrils. I hated hospitals. To me they always looked overcrowded. Hundreds of
lost souls, whose physical bodies died and were not allowed to ascend to the
heavens, were flying everywhere, making people shiver and shrink from the pure
cold they consisted of. Humans didn’t see them, but I did. And they did see me.
“He doesn’t look good,” Nolan said, coming closer to
the bed where a guy in his mid twenties was sleeping. He was on a drip; about a
dozen multicolored cables went from his body to the monitors on his left.
“I’m sure you wouldn’t look any better being him,” I
said, examining the numerous bruises and scratches on the guy’s body. “How bad
was the crash?”
“The boy will need a new car. But I don’t think he
cares about a few more scars. It’s not his first accident.”
“You said he’s a car racer, right? How often does he
get into accidents?”
“Every week or so.”
“Does he even care about his life?” I didn’t like people
who risked their lives just to get an adrenaline rush. It meant their souls
were hurt. And they didn’t want to do anything to heal them. Stupid humans…they
didn’t know that losing a soul meant becoming demons.
“You didn’t read his file, did you?” Nolan chuckled at
his own words. He knew I didn’t. “You should probably start reading files,
Claire. It would save you plenty of time.”
“Thanks for the advice, Nolan. Maybe one day I will
follow it.”
I took Alan’s hand in mine and tried to feel his soul.
I was good at feeling souls. Not every angel could do that. It was one of my
angelic powers that I had been trying to perfect every day, for the last seven
centuries of my existence. And with every passing day I could tell more and
more about the souls I was guarding.
“He is a good person,” I said, knowing that Nolan was
still there with us. Every time I tried to feel someone’s soul, it felt like
sinking into the depths of multicolored oceans, where every single word, action
and thought had its own shade.
“I told you,” he said, and I smiled; my best friend liked being right.
I let go of Alan’s hand and breathed a sigh of relief.
Guarding good people was always easier. Demons couldn’t get to their souls, and
fighting them was as simple as anything.
I was good at fighting demons. They didn’t stand a
chance with me. Especially when I was guarding children. They were like little
angels to me, and I always felt sorry for the couples that couldn’t have them.
It felt like the worst curse ever.
My new assignment wasn’t a child anymore, but
something about him wasn’t right. His soul was too fragile and sensitive. Not a
regular picture of a man’s soul. Maybe I should have read his file after all?…
“Hey…Claire, you okay?” Nolan asked.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I replied absently, still watching
the guy on the bed. “How old is he?”
“Will turn twenty-five next week.”
Even with the dark-purple bruises all over his face
and a swollen lip Alan looked much younger than his real age. I couldn’t say
the same about his soul. If I didn’t know it belonged to him, I would say it
was a soul of an eighty-year-old man. Suddenly I wanted to know what happened
to make him get old too soon.
“Read the file, Claire,” Nolan said, as if reading my
mind. “I need to go now, but if you need anything, call me, okay?”
I nodded and the fallen angel disappeared. He was
always saying the same thing, “Call me,
if you need me.” And we both knew that he would never be able to help me if
I actually needed help. We played for different teams.
Copyright @ 2013, Diana Nixon
ADD THE BOOK TO YOU READING LISTS
Cover Design by Jennifer Wieland
(J.M. Rising Horse Creations)
OTHER BOOKS by Diana Nixon:
Love Lines Series (YA/paranormal)
Hate at First Sight (A contemporary
romance)
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About the author:
Diana Nixon is a poet and the author of fantasy
and contemporary romances.
She was born in Minsk, Belarus, where she
currently lives. In 2008 she graduated from Belorussian state University. She
has a Master of Law degree and speaks several foreign languages, including
English, Polish and Spanish.
Official page: http://www.diananixon.blogspot.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/DianaNixon9
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