No Angel - Excerpt and Links

Futuristic urban fantasy short

EXCERPT: 
Copyright 2014, Pippa Jay
All rights reserved, Breathless Press

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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Praise for No Angel

"...deliciously dangerous incubus quick read..."

4* Sofia Grey at The Gemini Girls

"The layered characterization that Pippa slowly peels back to show us the love story at the core of these characters is wonderfully done."

Kate Corcino, author of Spark Rising

"Superficially, this is a funny, quirky story, but as always Pippa Jay’s stories have more depth that will keep you thinking about them long after the story ends."
5* Liza O'Connor, author of A Long Road to Love series

Meet Lucien de la Vae