GrayReign

A precarious truce. A world-ending threat. Once the prophecy unfolds, which Gray will reign?

Out of the frying pan and into the fire. If there was ever a saying that LUNA felt described her chaotic life, that would be it. From Nephilim to Gray to full-blooded angel, her world has been turned upside down too many times to count, and yet again, she finds herself in a situation where everything feels beyond her control. She and Caleb might have escaped Alexander and found refuge, but at what cost? And how on Earth is she meant to be the Savior when she can’t even save herself?

CALEB chose his side the moment his grandfather refused to rescue Luna, and now, he will go to war with his bloodline if it means keeping his Goldilocks safe. With the academies on both sides of the divide in danger, and the ever-growing risk of Alexander exposing their kind to the humans, he will need to work with familiar faces and new to put an end to the threat facing them, once and for all.

With the prophecy hanging over their heads like a sword, the Darks and Lights must band together for one final battle. Will they tip the scales of fate in their favor and finally heal their ancient rift, proving love can prevail? Or will their efforts become just a footnote in history as the Destroyer conquers them all?

GRAYREIGN is the final book in the paranormal romance trilogy The Origin Prophecy, a loose Romeo + Juliet retelling about a pair of supernatural teens at the center of a prophetic war and the forbidden love they will fight to protect.

A flash of golden light burns across my vision, and suddenly, Alaric stands before me, shielding my body from Alexander’s wrath with his own. His arms spread out to the sides like great wings—as if, in this moment, he has finally Ascended—protecting me.

Always protecting me.

His name is a breath on my lips that’s instantly stifled by silence as the disbelief and shock of what I’m seeing consume me. This can’t be happening. This isn’t real. I’m imagining this.

Please… Please, let this not be real.

Time seems to slow as Alaric glances over his shoulder and meets my gaze, the handle of Alexander’s dagger protruding from his chest, a blossom of red blooming across his white shirt where the blade pierces his flesh, the gleaming steel buried to the hilt. 

There’s so much blood, and when he falls to the stone floor, the crimson seems to form a sea around him, engulfing his limp figure, much like the familiar tide of grief rises to swallow me. As it drags me, body and soul, down into its depths, I feel the water in my lungs, choking my breaths, filling me to the brim until I am only heartache and nothing else. And when I finally scream—the pain slamming against the dams of self-preservation that surround the fragments remaining of my sanity—something inside me cracks, letting the water burst through, flooding me completely.

I thought I knew what it felt like to be broken. I thought I had experienced the full extent of anguish.

But I was wrong. Only now, do I understand it.

Only now, do I feel its true and unrelenting hold.

I startle awake, my eyes bleary as the images of my nightmare linger for a moment before fading, granting me a much-needed reprieve. In their place, I struggle to make out my surroundings, and at first, all I can see is a hazy painting of blue, green, and purple tones smeared together and mixed with faint traces of gold. As I sit up, noting the shift of a soft mattress beneath me, the colors sharpen into definable shapes. A plush blanket. Pillows. A grand bed in the middle of an even more elegant bedroom.

My brow furrows as I scan the lavish space, taking in the exquisitely carved wooden furniture, ornate decor on the walls, and elaborately woven rugs, trying to figure out where I am. I don’t recognize this place, which under normal circumstances would scare me. Beautiful or not, this could be just another cage someone has erected to confine me. And yet, where I should feel uncertainty or fear, I feel nothing. 

Only a hollow ache in my chest that I’m not sure even time will be able to heal.

As the images of my dream return to haunt me and the familiar burn of tears creeps in, I fall back against the bedspread and bury my face in the nearest silken pillow, wishing I could claw the picture of Alaric in those final moments out of my head. The way he looked back at me with acceptance in his eyes, the subtle smile that turned up his lips knowing he had saved my life—that he hadn’t failed me the way he told me he had failed Alexander… 

The price for that sacrifice was too great. How many millennia had he walked this earth? How many years of his nearly immortal life were erased in the space of a heartbeat when that dagger tore through his flesh? He didn’t owe me that. 

No one owes me that.

I grip the pillow tighter. Who else will suffer because of what I am? Who else will I lose because of Alexander’s mad lust for power?

Another face fills my thoughts, and I bolt upright again, shivering against the prickle of apprehension creeping over my skin.

“Caleb,” I gasp. 

What happened to him? What happened to my parents? I try to remember the events that brought me here, but there’s a frustrating hole in my memory situated between our fight with Alexander and my waking up in this bed, as if the moments following Alaric’s death have been completely erased from my mind. I remember watching as Gabriel and Lucifer faced off with Alexander and his cohort of faithful Nephilim. I remember the throne room erupting into chaos and fire. I remember watching as the Gray nearly killed Caleb in front of me, and I stood by, helpless to intervene or stop him—a victim to my own paralyzing terror. But I can’t recall what became of them after…or if anyone else made it out of the fray alive.

Ironically, cruelly, the last thing I remember is the one thing I wish I could forget.

Panic courses through my veins like adrenaline. Whipping the blanket aside, I jump out of the bed, barely registering the golden gown from Alexander still hugging my body or that my wings are out and on full display, my feathertips brushing the lush rugs underfoot. I’m aware of nothing else except the resurfacing anxiety that Caleb and I have been separated again, and that my parents are gone from my life so soon after finding them, our reunion cut short. Perhaps for good this time. 

That fear of never seeing them again pushes me across the room toward the door, and without a thought as to where I am or what danger might lurk on the other side, I throw it open, nearly tearing the wood off its hinges. The brass knob crumples beneath the strength of my grip, but I let it go almost at once, my hand snapping back as if the metal has burned me. I stop short just as quickly, pausing within inches of colliding with the familiar face blinking at me from across the threshold.

“Luna?” Caleb gapes at me, frozen in the doorway, seemingly as surprised to see me as I am to see him. An ornate silver tray laden with breakfast pastries and juice is held tight in his hands. 

My heart jumps into my throat at the sight of him standing before me, every fear, every anxiety I’ve had since waking up forgotten at the tender caress of his eyes on my face. I can practically feel the tension leaving my muscles as I drink in his presence, and yet, there’s a part of me that wonders if this is real—that remembers my time in my prison all too well, the tricks Mammon played to unhinge my mind teasing my every thought with doubt. 

My fingers ache with the urge to reach out and touch him, to prove to myself that he’s actually here. To take solace in the comfort of his arms, my one certain place in this world. 

Sensing my distress, Caleb nods for me to let him into the room and carefully places the tray on the gilded table beside the door—the wood inlaid with what looks like real gemstones—only turning to face me again once his hands are free. For a moment, we stand in awkward silence, and I watch, transfixed, as his tongue darts out to wet his bottom lip, his eyes sweeping up and down the full length of my body. Then, as if some spell between us has broken, he pulls me into his arms, his hands slipping under my wings, his palms pressing flat to the exposed part of my back. I relish the delicious warmth of his fingers where they touch my skin, their heat intense and almost searing—not painful, but if it was, it would be a pain I crave. Addicted to the sensation, I burrow into his embrace and rest my cheek on his chest, listening for each thump of his racing heart, the repeated ba-bums a needed balm to my nerves.

As my hands clutch at the back of his T-shirt, my nails pinching the fabric in a talon-like grasp, Caleb presses his lips into my hair, pulling me close and yet, somehow, never close enough. Desire and a barely restrained need for comfort overwhelm me, forcing my hands to clasp tighter.

“Well, good morning to you, too, Sleeping Beauty,” he murmurs with a breathy laugh.

My pulse thrums under my skin as he leans away just enough to raise his hand between us and tuck a lock of hair behind my ear. His palm then moves to my cheek, and when I lean into his touch, there’s a moment where I almost smile before the pain of reality drives a wedge into my battered heart, reminding me what we’ve lost. What was sacrificed to get us here…

Wherever here even is.

“Where are we?” I lower my voice to a whisper, my eyes shifting between every visible nook and cranny, searching the rare pocket of shadow in the spacious room, nervous Alexander might step out of the darkness to gut me the moment I let my guard down. He already tried to kill me once. I have no doubt he’ll try again.

“A safe place,” Caleb assures me, squeezing my shoulder.

I blink up at him, frowning. “How long have we been here?” 

“Two days.” Although he grins down at me, there’s an uneasy edge to his voice I don’t like.

“Two days?” I blurt out. “I’ve been asleep that long?”

I search his eyes, but I don’t find any trace of the apprehension I thought I heard in his tone. Maybe I imagined it. It wouldn’t be the first time I saw or heard something that wasn’t actually there.

As if determined to prove as much, he combs a hand through my hair, his smile turning mischievous as he tugs me toward him again. “Yup.” He drags the finger of his other hand up my spine, coaxing a shiver over my skin. “I was beginning to worry you really were Sleeping Beauty and I’d have to wake you with a kiss—”

I snort and he pauses, his lips just shy of brushing mine. He immediately pulls away, a look of mock affront on his face.

“What exactly are you implying, Goldilocks? Are my kisses not magical enough for you?”

Another smile tempts my lips, but the ache in my chest obliterates any happiness in this moment, and all I manage instead is a weak grimace. Maybe I’m not even capable of smiling anymore.

With a faltering sigh, I step out of his embrace and rub my hands along my upper arms, my body struck by a sudden chill despite the warmth in the air.

“If it’s been two days,” I begin, shaking my head, “then my parents—”

“Are wearing holes in the floorboards waiting to speak with you,” he finishes. “Kali would obviously never say as much to their faces, but you can tell she’s getting aggravated with their constant pacing and lurking. I don’t think she’s used to having so many people crash here.”

“Kali?” I ask, cocking a curious eyebrow. Just like this place, I don’t recognize the name.

“Our host,” Caleb clarifies.

A soft “Oh” is all I can think to say in response. 

“Don’t worry,” he adds, closing the distance between us again and taking my fidgeting hands in his. “I’ll take you to meet her later if you’re feeling up to it. She’s actually pretty cool. I think you’ll like her.”

I nod, but meeting yet another new celestial is the last thing I’m concerned about. My mind wanders, and my insides twist at the thought of seeing Gabriel, of meeting her again after everything that’s happened. The image of her appearing behind Alexander in a blaze of golden light, her body adorned in her armor from the Great Battle of Heaven, sword held to his throat as she demanded he hand over her daughter is branded into my memory. I haven’t had a chance to even process what occurred at the citadel, let alone examine that moment too closely, but one thought does find its way to the surface above all the other noise in my head.

She came for me. 

Despite what I’ve learned about my birth, despite what she thought about me in regards to the prophecy, despite the danger of going to battle with Alexander—despite all that, Gabriel came. And when I heard her call me her daughter, it was like the entire world had turned upside down, and all the resentment and anger I felt toward her as I watched her fight for me was gone. Or at least, momentarily forgotten.

But now… Now, I remember it again, and I’m not sure how I should feel or if I’m ready to see her. With distrust and lies as the foundation of our relationship, where do we even begin to cross the chasm between us? Do I forgive her for locking me away for thousands of years, even if part of me can understand what drove her to do it? 

Does she even want my forgiveness?

Or did she only intervene to lock me away again? To prevent the prophecy from coming to fruition, no matter the cost.

“Are you hungry?” Caleb asks, interrupting my thoughts. When I look up at him, blinking away the haze of my worries, he gestures toward the tray by the door.

“Not really,” I mutter. If anything, I feel nauseated just thinking about everything I’ve been avoiding. 

Things I know I can’t put off any longer.

“So…” I hesitate, pausing to swallow around the sudden tightness in my throat. “You’ve seen my mother? How did that go, considering…” I trail off, wincing at the thought of Caleb coming face to face with the Archangel without me there to act as a buffer. The words of warning she spoke to me back at the Serapeum are still fresh in my head, and I can only imagine what she might have said to him in my absence. 

“The divide exists for a reason, Luna.”

“Keep your distance from that one.”

After seeing her with my father, I can’t help wondering if those were really her true feelings or if she was just speaking from a place of pain, irrespective of her responsibility to ensure the divide. After all, I saw how Lucifer reacted when he arrived to find her injured after Alexander escaped. There was an intimacy in their exchange that, even lost in the throes of agony as my wings pierced my skin, I would’ve been blind not to notice. 

Whatever they once shared—the forbidden love that led to my birth—still lingers millennia later, even if they aren’t together. I assume that’s why she tried to warn me away from Caleb back at the Serapeum and why she’ll probably try to do it again, especially now that she knows who I am to her. I wonder if she even cares that Caleb is the only reason I’ve survived this long. The only reason I didn’t break sooner.

Then again, things are different now. Me being a Gray changes everything. And unlike her and my father, I don’t fit on either side of the divide.

I straddle the line. 

Caleb scoffs, snapping me out of my thoughts. “Oh, you mean considering I helped set a vengeful angel whose cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs free from imprisonment and then stabbed her with a dagger that could’ve ended her immortal life?” He considers for me a moment then shrugs, his expression unbothered, although his eyes say something else altogether. “Quite well, actually. She only sometimes looks like she wants to kill me.”

A strangled breath parts my lips. “I should probably talk to her. And to my father.”

My father. It still feels weird to say it aloud. After so many years as an orphan, alone in the world, part of me suspects it always will.

Caleb gently knocks me under the chin, tilting my face upward when my eyes drift from his. When I meet his gaze again, there’s an intensity in the warm swirl of his irises that wasn’t there a moment ago. “Don’t let your parents or anyone else rush you if you aren’t ready to talk. If you need more time to…process everything, I can tell them all to fuck off.”

Everything meaning Alaric.

Tears threaten at the edge of my vision, but I blink them away. As much as the thought of the older Nephilim pains me, the guilt of his death a stain on my conscience, I know I can’t stay in here forever. I need to come out at some point. 

More than that, I need to face reality, even if it hurts.

“You can talk to me about it, you know,” Caleb says softly. 

I shake my head. “I don’t think I’m ready for that.”

“Well, whenever you are”—Caleb cups my face in his hand again, grazing his thumb across my cheekbone—“I’m here.”

Forcing a watery smile, I nod. Then I curl into the comforting loop of his arms again, wishing time could stop and freeze us like this, just for a little while. I want to believe we really are safe here, but Alexander doesn’t strike me as the patient type when it comes to exacting revenge—not after thousands of years waiting and plotting in his cell. Having witnessed his brutality and seen the madness in his eyes for myself, I can’t help wondering how long this peaceful interlude will last. How long before he returns to finish what he nearly accomplished before Alaric stepped in to save us? How long before he tries to kill me again? Or Caleb?

How long before he succeeds?

Shuddering at the thought, I grind out, “We need to come up with a plan. Your grandfather will be out for blood after what happened.” Not to mention, there’s still the threat of the Council to consider. 

I can’t bring myself to voice that last part. Not when the threat of Alexander alone seems like an insurmountable hurdle. 

Caleb exhales a strained breath, and I feel the hum of his words against my hair when he mutters, “I know. And we will. We’ll figure something out. We have help, and now that your parents are with us, we have some serious muscle on our side. If anyone will know what to do, it’s them.”

I hope you’re right.

And I wish I shared his confidence in that belief.

I offer a noncommittal “Mm” then reel back just enough to peek up at him. “First, though, I need to talk to them about what Lilith told me. I want their side of the story.” Especially Gabriel’s.

As if he was expecting me to say this, Caleb unlatches his arms from around my torso and holds out one hand for me to take before signaling toward the open door with the other. “Oh-kay, then. Let’s go hunt them down. Not that we’ll have to look very far.” He mutters that last part under his breath.

My brow reaches for my hairline in question, but he says nothing else, instead interlacing our fingers when I take his proffered hand. Despite his silence, I can feel the tension radiating off his body like heat, and as he leads me over to the door, his aura whips and laps across his skin, more agitated than I’ve ever seen it.

Eager to know what’s bothering him, I tug on his arm, stopping him just short of the threshold. He looks over his shoulder, his expression half bewildered and half something I can’t quite put a name to.

“What’s wrong?” I ask, unnerved by the strange apprehensive look flitting across his face.

He flashes me an uneasy smile and laughs once—a stilted, choked sound I’ve never heard him make before. “Uh, maybe, while you’re speaking with your parents, you can slip in a few kind words on my behalf? You know, so they stop prowling around this place like two hungry lions who want to rip my guts out.” 

I stare at him for a moment, confusion lancing through me when I note the obvious tremor in his voice. It’s almost like he’s nervous. No, that isn’t quite right, I realize the longer I look at him. He’s not nervous. 

He’s afraid.

Surely, that can’t be possible. Caleb is fearless. I’ve seen him outnumbered in a fight and still come out on top. I’ve witnessed him bravely take on Nephilim millennia older than him, not to mention he cut off Mammon’s wing and double-crossed his own grandfather—an angel an entire band of ancient celestials together struggled to subdue—just to rescue me. He kept it together when we were at the citadel despite the horrors we both experienced there. Plus, he back-talks to Hammurabi so often I think he has a death wish.

I scan his face, assessing every detail, right down to the almost imperceptible twitch of his lips. 

No, I say to myself again. Caleb isn’t frightened of anything.

Is he?

“Are you…afraid of my parents?” I whisper. 

I’m not sure how I would feel if he is. On the one hand, I can understand it. He’s a Nephilim and they’re full-blooded angels with the power and years to crush him like a grape. But I also don’t ever want him to have a reason to feel uncomfortable in my presence. Because if there’s anything I’ve learned from my time in the mortal world, it’s that fear pushes people away.

Caleb averts his gaze, and the column of his throat shifts when he swallows, the sound audible in the abrupt silence between us. Even if his writhing aura wasn’t a dead giveaway, I can practically smell how anxious he is. But why? 

What happened while I was asleep?

“Caleb?” I hedge. Desperate for him to look at me, I touch a hand to his cheek, but his eyes still refuse to meet mine.

Finally, he says, “I’m not afraid of Gabriel or Lucifer. I’ve lived almost my whole life around Nephilim way older than me and Archdemons who could fold me into an origami swan with basically zero effort.” He swallows again, more loudly this time. 

My heart rate quickens. “Then what’s wrong? Caleb, you’re scaring me.”

He lets out a raspy laugh devoid of humor. “Spending the last handful of months with my gramps made me realize that, in some respects, angels and demons are like animals. When it comes to their blood, they’re territorial and violent, possessive in a way humans can never understand. They would cut down anything and anyone in their way—without thinking or remorse—to claim something they believe to be theirs.” The or someone in his comment goes unsaid.

Panic is a bubble in my chest about to burst.

“Is this about Alexander—” 

But before I can get the full thought out, he grabs me by the sides of my face and crushes his mouth to mine, kissing me long and deep like he’s worried it will be the last time he ever will. My lips part on a shaky inhale, my knees buckling slightly, but despite the pain in my heart that threatens to pin me to the floor, the taste of him dulls the sharp edges of my grief as I sink into his touch. I feel it everywhere. In the smooth slide of his tongue across mine. Where his fingertips dig into my scalp as they wind around the strands of my hair, pulling me closer. In the heat building between us where his body presses against mine.

But, too soon, he lets me go.

“I’m not afraid of your parents,” he says again, more fervently this time, his warm breath a kiss of its own against my lips. “But I am afraid they’ll take you away from me. You haven’t seen it—the way they resent that I’ve kept them from you. They want to stake their claim, and when they do, I’m terrified it will push me out of the picture. Hell”—he rakes a trembling hand through his hair—“I think part of me is waiting for it.”

My eyes widen, my thoughts a confused jumble as my mind is violently torn one way then the other. On the one side, I hear those words again—“stake their claim”—and while I can picture my father feeling that way, it’s hard to imagine my mother sharing such a sentiment. Of actually wanting me and viewing me as anything other than a burden. A mistake from her past that’s finally caught up to her. 

But before I can look at that thought too deeply, my mind is jerked in the opposite direction and I’m focused on Caleb again—and on the visceral fear of what he’s saying. Of my parents actually trying to tear us apart, even after everything we’ve been through.

“That won’t happen—” I begin to protest, but Caleb cuts me off.

“What if they make you choose?” True, unadulterated fear shines in the wells of his eyes, and my heart breaks at his words. That he could ever think I’d let that happen… That I would ever willingly let him go, especially after I came so close to losing him at the citadel…

“If they do, then they’ll be disappointed,” I retort. “Because I will choose you.”

Caleb winces. “Luna—”

“No,” I growl. I know what he’s thinking. That this is my second chance to have the one thing I’ve been deprived of my whole life. But what he doesn’t understand is that, as much as I crave that connection with my parents, I don’t need it. 

Not like I need him. 

“You don’t get to look at me like that and say these things and then act as if there’s even a choice. There isn’t. I don’t care if they’re my parents. They haven’t been here. They weren’t the ones who came for me when I was in that prison—” My voice breaks, and I draw in a ragged breath, shaking my head. “Gabriel gave up any claim to me when she locked me away. She doesn’t get to dictate my life any longer or tell me who I can love.”

His aura responds to that word—love—and I glimpse a flicker of hope in his eyes. 

“What about Lucifer?” Caleb presses. “He never locked you away.”

“Lucifer fell for love,” I remind him. “He would never make me choose.”

Caleb worries his lower lip between his teeth then whispers so softly I almost don’t hear it, “Not even if he thinks I’m not good enough for you?” The confession is sour, tainting the air and plunging my heart into a tumultuous tempest of pain.

After everything he’s done for me, how could he think that? No one will ever be right for me the way he is. We fit. And even if this world will never accept us together, I would rather waste a thousand lifetimes in a cage than spend even one without him.

Snaking my hands around the back of his neck, I yank him toward me and kiss him again. It’s rough—a clash of teeth and lips—and hungry, with a raw desperation I’ve never let myself submit to before. When we pull apart, I finally say, my voice hoarse, “If he thinks that, then screw him. I love you, and I will never let anyone keep us apart. I promise.”

For as long as we have together…even if it isn’t forever.