Fallen Academy: Year Three (Fallen Academy #3)

by Leia Stone

For you.

No one that evil should be so pretty.

Sometimes that’s all we needed, one friend rooting for us when we couldn’t root for ourselves any longer.

I didn’t want it, but it wanted me.

“I was you once. In order to survive here, you have to play the bad girl. The Dark Prince wants to surround himself with the most evil beings alive. He doesn’t trust good or light, so you need to find that darkness. That darkness is what’s going to get you out of here alive.”

Nothing mattered and everything hurt, yet I couldn’t feel anything.

The Devil. A name he had earned.

The homeless man I’d thought I was taking care of all these years, was actually taking care of me?

“I just want you to know that I heard every prayer, felt every ounce of pain and desperation, and I’m so incredibly proud of the woman you’ve become.”

A tingling trickled across my chest and then down my arms, tears pricking my eyes as I felt this incredible unconditional love wash over me. I didn’t understand the world, or why bad things happened. If we all had guardian angels, then why the hell couldn’t they just jump in and save us from that car accident, or bad relationship? But none of that mattered right then because in that moment, there was a perfect love filling my body, one I hadn’t felt in a long, long time. One that reminded me of my father, Shea, Lincoln, and every good thing I’d ever cared about in my life.

“Lucifer is not all powerful. What was never agreed to cannot hold,” he stated cryptically.

Everything I went through down there, every dark and awful thing, it was all worth it. There had been times I’d wanted to give up on life, but feeling my family holding me now was one of the happiest moments of my life.

“Going home is no longer important to me. Protecting humanity is.”

“I forgot how passionate human soul mates are. It’s very endearing,” Gabriel said casually.

“I understand that, but nothing is more important to me than finding Lincoln. Nothing is more important to Shea than being with me, and nothing is more important to Noah than being with Shea. It’s a chain reaction. If I go, they’ll fight to come with me. I know it.”

“Human relationships are so complicated,” he sighed. Michael was grinning. He had a human wife and a daughter, so he knew exactly what I was talking about. “God help the person who tries to keep soul mates apart.” He was looking at Raphael.

I never thought I could love that man more, but my heart expanded in that moment, making more room to love him.

What makes you different from me, or Michael or Lincoln or Noah?” I frowned. “I have dark magic, black wings.” Raphael shook his head. “So does Lucifer. What about you is unique from everyone else?” A lightbulb went off in my head, then shattered. “Both. I have both light magic and dark magic!”

“It’s… been a while,” I confessed. Other than a mild self-healing, I hadn’t done anything along those lines in months. He looked over at me, all glowy and golden, and took my palm in his. “One doesn’t forget what they were made to do.”

Sometimes when you felt like you were losing hope, you needed others to hold the hope for you.

After all my time in Hell, I’d just wanted to come back to Earth, but now that I was here, I realized it was just like Hell in some parts.

With a nod, I pulled on that power inside of me, no longer trying to distinguish what was light and what was dark. Whatever it was, it was me. All of it.

“I missed every part of you.”

“Highlight of my day was hearing Shea argue with Michael that he needed to get ordained online.” I burst out laughing, pulling away from my mom’s embrace. “You didn’t!” I just stared at her. Shea shrugged. “I need to make sure this wedding is legally legit. Archangel or not, he needs to get the certificate.”

“Life can be gone in a blink of an eye, and I’m ready to live mine to the fullest for whatever time I have left.”

Time slowed and I just breathed in the moment, grateful for every single second of it.

“And I thought… wow. If this beautiful woman can get so angry so easily, I’d bet she loves just as fiercely.” He paused. “And she does.”

“I’ve never met a more passionate and loyal soul than you, Brielle Atwater. The spark of fire within you that keeps your soul burning is what I love most. You would do anything for your family, and you have a heart of gold. But most of all, you make me see the world differently. I see it through your eyes. You don’t leave family behind, and you don’t take no for an answer, and that’s what I love most about you.”

“I can’t wait to watch you become more and more of the woman you were meant to be. I promise to love your family as if they were my own, and I look forward to starting our own family together one day. I know your path is one filled with more danger than most, but I vow to be by your side every step of the way, through the good and the bad.”

“By the online ministry power invested in me, I now pronounce you husband and wife!”

For a few hours, I wasn’t the girl with black wings, and Lincoln wasn’t the guy with scars on his wrists. We were just two people in love. I wanted to stay in the moment forever.

“No honeymoon?” I grumbled. I’d had my heart set on Hawaii. “We’ll honeymoon when Lucifer’s dead,” he declared.