CHAPTER ONE
Toren scowled and forced himself to sit still and ignore the other Archangels. Being required to pull a Superman phone booth style disappearing act only five miles from Samantha did not make him a happy camper. Samantha, or Sam, as she thought she preferred to be called, consumed his every thought since the day he looked into her soul. His entire being focused on preparing for her.
Sitting in statue form and waiting for Uriel to arrive in the War Chamber, Toren revisited the age old concept of patience. How odd. The feeling circulating his mercury mindset could only be identified as anxiety, a sensation utterly unfamiliar to him. And it had little to do with whatever news he would hear in hopefully the next sixty seconds, but everything to do with that human woman.
From the moment she gave him that soft as silk kiss, something happened and he needed to see her and explore the extent of this paradoxical dent she put in his mercurial nature. He found himself wondering over the oddest things. How would she receive him? When should he tell her he was an angel? How would she take that? What was she like when she wasn’t in the middle of dying?
Would she remember him?
He’d never been torn or worried in his existence. But he found himself wanting her to remember, and yet praying she didn't. How could he hope she might remember even a shred of such a horrible experience? Just so she could remember a fragment of something he thought was special hopefully making it easier to win her?
But then he realized. He really didn't want her to have remembered a single bit of that horror. There was really only one thing he wanted her to recall.
The kiss.
Toren thought about all the information he’d gotten from Samantha's Guardian. He’d listened intently to every detail. Anything could prove useful to the mission. She was the only child of a father who wanted a son but got a daughter. A spitting image of him, according to her guardian. Samantha was what humans called a tomboy—a young female displaying mostly masculine characteristics—but when she was fourteen, her father insisted she dress and behave like a girl. A hired hand she'd had a crush on broke her heart by rejecting her budding femininity. She decided being a woman wasn’t in her genes and eventually joined the convent to avoid an arranged marriage her father cooked up like vittles on a Monday night campfire.
Out of all the understandable issues Samantha struggled with, considering herself masculine puzzled Toren the most. Perhaps something about her body gave that impression? It surely was nowhere in that delicate spirit he’d touched through those crystal pure eyes.
The mercury in his body raced as he relived the vivid memory of her soft lips on his. Followed by the one question his shield sought to answer in order to bridge the gap responsible for the enigmatic angst plaguing him. What, exactly, would it all feel like in human form? His lips pressed against hers?
Judging by his mercury’s reaction to the foreign concepts, he guessed the experience would be pure, unadulterated power. His shield, at its unalloyed core, craved whatever she would give. And Toren couldn’t seem to cooperate with the irresistible instinct fast enough.
The air in the War Chamber stirred with energy and Toren’s mind snapped to full attention. Finally. Uriel, commander of the Brotherhood of War Archangels, materialized in the act of striding across the room, decked in his emerald battle gear.
The muted clank of full armor reminded Toren that the enemy actively worked to bring about the downfall of goodness. “An update.” Uriel folded emerald wings as he sat, eyes sparkling with crisp determination. The massive archangel had no need to wait and ensure the complete attention of his subordinates. “The genetic abominations Socerith has created, those Kharef propagated on his human captives, are a botched prototype. Useful, but not fully functional. What he’s aiming for is a creature that can be used as a world-wide riot accelerator. He needs something able to morph on command between the forms of its genetic contributors, rather than being jammed in a conglomeration of them like Kharef's progeny."
"You mean the monkey men?" Zool’s tone ground with his thirst to bring down the adversary. Perhaps he would be the one to find the key to defeating them.
Uriel nodded. "Yes. And interestingly, those created most recently seem different from those Kassern's triumvirate encountered. A little more advanced. Refined." He paused to let that sink in. "Some of you have encountered beings in the field that transmuted according to emotions, like fear, anger, hunger or pain, making them predictably unpredictable. We aren't sure yet exactly what they are, but they're not feasible for riot accelerators either.”
“Accelerators,” Lassin said. "You used that term twice."