Dynasty
The wind is knocked out of me when my gaze collides with Camille’s.
My mother.
There’s no doubt. Like River said, seeing is believing, and I’m a carbon copy of her. She sees it too, as her eyes glide over what feels like every inch of me.
Her hand covers her mouth, and a tear glides down her cheek.
“It’s uncanny,” she whispers. “River told me he was certain, but this is such a surprise. I didn’t allow myself to hope—” The word gets caught in her throat, and she shakes it off.
“Never mind that. You’re here now. Please tell me all about yourself,” she says to quickly change the subject, wiping away the moisture from under her eyes and straightening her hair off of her shoulder.
I remain speechless, dumbstruck by the revelation.
Same blond hair, similar build—athletically slim, with curvy hips and breasts on the larger side, although she is at least an inch shorter than I am.
“Victoria, say something … please,” she weeps.
What does one say when they meet the mother they never knew they had?
“You know my name,” I say lamely, at a loss for intelligent words.
I don’t know what this woman knows about me. She’s a stranger, and that truth stabs at my heart, because deep down I know it’s not the way she wanted it.
It’s in the way her breath catches as she looks at me. I see it in her glassy blue eyes, filled with tears. She was robbed of a relationship with me just as much as I was.
“Of course I know your name. It was my one request to God,” she says, barely holding back a sob.
He dainty hand falls over her heart as her other raises back to cover her mouth. A river of moisture runs down the sides of her face. She’s trying to keep her composure.
She shakes it off, sniffling and straightening her shoulders, perfecting what I’m sure is the control she mastered over the years having to rule a kingdom.
“You should know, my mother … your grandmother’s name was Victoria.”
“I have a grandmother?”
She smiles sadly. “Had. She died many, many centuries ago. She was human.”
I nod, because I was told as much.
“She lived in a small village of what’s now called Ireland. Our family’s descendants over the years migrated to the Americas and settled in Louisiana.”
I perk up to this news. “That’s where I’ve been living on Earth.”
“Your soul was called there. Blood ties are strong, Victoria. Ours are the strongest of all, due to our angelic lineage. The English family remains a strong line there today.”
“English?”
“Our surname. It was changed over the centuries to English. Why do you look so pale, Victoria?”
Camille’s concern is warranted. I feel faint. After I take several deep breaths, my heart settles and the fog begins to lift.
“When I fell, I chose English as my own name at random.”
She tsks. “Nothing random about it. As I said, it was your soul doing the work.” She smiles. “Victoria English. It suits you.”
My lopsided smile is born from happiness at meeting the approval of my mother.
“You have his eyes.” She smiles, and more tears trickle down her delicate face, but she doesn’t swipe them away. “His name is Michael.”
And there’s the confirmation that Michael is indeed my father.
It hurts knowing that all along, we were in the same space, working alongside each other at times, and never knew.
It’s especially heartbreaking because of how things have been between us since my fall.
Oddly enough, I always kind of looked at him as a father figure before he turned his back on me.
Some cuts run deeper than others, and Michael’s might’ve been the deepest of all.
“I know Michael,” I admit, and her eyes widen.
“You do?”
I offer a tight-lipped smile.
“I always hoped that if I couldn’t be with you, God would see fit to keep the two of you together.”
Her happiness is misguided, because although we were together, we were still kept apart.
“I wasn’t allowed to know what became of you. You were both kept from me as my punishment.”
I nod, knowing that part too. “I was raised in Heaven. Michael and I did train together and fight alongside each other, but who he was to me was never disclosed,” I explain, and her face falls into despair.
“I’m not surprised. It would’ve been dangerous for the other angels to know what we’d done. What is he like?”
Camille’s strong facade drops and a childlike giddiness creeps in as she waits for me to tell her about her former lover. Unfortunately, I have very little to offer.
“He’s likely the same Michael you knew. Stoic. Fierce. A warrior, through and through. But we’ve had a sort of falling out as of late.”
Her smile falls. “You and I knew a very different Michael.”
My brow rises in question, and she sighs. “Come. Sit,” she says, taking a seat on a settee and patting the spot next to her. I take a tentative step. “I won’t bite, Victoria.”
Her teasing nature instantly puts me at ease. I take the seat next to her and inhale the lavender fragrance that wafts from her.
“Michael is—was—all of those things. A fierce warrior who was stoic in the presence of his peers. He was an archangel of the highest rank and he lived up to that.” Her head dips and pink stains her cheeks. I wonder what memories she’s recalling in this moment.
“With me, he was tender. Full of life. Funny even.” Her bright eyes shine as she remembers her time with him.
“He tried very hard to please God, which is why it came as such a shock when the news broke of what we’d done.
” She shakes her head, the light dimming from her eyes.
“I’ve never seen God so angry. Of all his children, Michael was the one he never thought would stray from his vows.
” She laughs somberly. “It couldn’t be helped, Victoria.
The first time we went to Earth together, we fought against the feelings, knowing it was likely Earth’s pull. ”
I know far too well about that pull. It’s exactly what I’d thought the first time I met Luke. That my longing for him was the human emotions sprung on me when I was on Earth to do my duties. Like hers, the pull didn’t lessen when I returned home.
If anything, a deep, soul-crushing ache filled me until I almost burst.
Camille takes a deep breath, raising her head so that we’re once again looking into each other’s eyes.
“But things didn’t change when we got back to Heaven.
My feelings for him remained when they shouldn’t have, and that’s when we knew.
What we had transcended the eternal love of Heaven.
It wasn’t supposed to, but it did. I loved him. ”
My head bobs as tears fill my eyes.
“Victoria,” she says, raising her hand to my face and placing a piece of hair behind my ear. “What’s wrong?”
“I know that kind of love.”
Her eyes widen. “Oh? You’ve … fallen in love with an angel?”
“I fell from Heaven.”
She gasps. “You what? When?”
I place my hand over hers, hoping to calm her down. Her heart is racing; I can feel it through our touch.
“A human?” she whispers.
I shake my head back and forth very slowly. How does one tell their mother that they not only fell from Heaven, but they fell for the devil himself?
I opt to tell the long story, hoping by the end of it, she’ll understand.
“I was a legion general of virtue angels. While fulfilling my duties on Earth one night, I stumbled upon a man and woman in a cemetery. The woman was mortally wounded, and the man begged me to save her. She was newly widowed and pregnant. She’d been in the cemetery that night visiting her lost love’s grave when a herd of demons attacked. ”
“The man was her lover’s ghost?” she asks, eyes squinted in confusion.
“No. He was another bystander … or so I thought.”
I relay every detail from that night to Camille, who listens with rapt attention. I tell her about his charm and the way he cared for the woman who was a stranger to him.
Lucifer might claim that it was an act that night—one orchestrated to gain my trust and keep me in the cemetery longer—but I know better. He meant it when he said she didn’t deserve to die. He wanted me to save her and her unborn children.
He’s a good man, despite his station.
“I gave him my name.”
“Oh,” she says, eyes wide. “It appears the apple didn’t fall far from the tree.” She chuckles. “Your grandfather did the same thing.” She shakes her head, full of mirth. “Azazel was the second angel to fall, Lucifer being the first.”
I stiffen at the mention of Luke.
“Azazel? That’s … my grandfather?”
She nods. “The human church has written about him in their scriptures, but it’s all wrong.
They believe him and Lucifer to be one and the same, but they’re not.
” She sighs. “Humans have many truths hidden within the incorrect accounts of Heaven. My father was a scapegoat. One used to scare further angels from coupling.”
“What happened to him?”
She looks at me out of the corner of her weary eyes. “He’s in Hell. Lucifer made him a high demon after his fall.”
My eyes widen. My grandfather was in Hell? How close had I been to him? Does Luke know? So many questions swirl through my mind that I don’t hear Camille calling my name.
“Victoria,” she says, voice raised in concern. “Are you all right?”
“No … I mean … yes,” I shake my head. “It’s just, I was in Hell.”
“What?” she screeches, jumping to her feet. “Why, Victoria?”
“A demon, Nolda, kidnapped me and dragged me to Hell. He caged me, humiliated me, and planned to torture me.”
“My god, Victoria. I had no idea. I would’ve come for you myself.”
“I’m fine. River thwarted most of the vile things Nolda had planned. Lucifer, Michael, and two other angels came for me.”
“Angels were in Hell?” she gasps.
“As you know, Nolda is trying to unseat Lucifer. That can’t happen, Camille.”
Her eyes narrow. “You side with Heaven then? Even after falling?” She’s confused by my allegiance.
“Despite my misgivings with parts of Heaven’s agenda, I do side with them. I’ve lived on Earth, Camille. Humans are helpless. Women and children would be slaughtered. I can’t stand by and watch that happen. The balance must be preserved.”
“Lucifer and Michael were … together?”
I nod. “They are united in ensuring Luke remains on the throne in Hell.”
“Luke?” her brows knit together, and her lips pinch tightly.
I take a deep breath and steel my resolve. Here it goes.
“I fell from Heaven for Lucifer.”