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  THIS book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  Milayna's Angel

  Copyright ©2015 Michelle K. Pickett

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 978-1-63422-055-2

  Cover Design by: Marya Heiman

  Typography by: Courtney Nuckels

  Editing by: Cynthia Shepp

  ~Smashwords Edition~

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  To the readers of the Milayna Series.

  You are seriously full of awesomeness!

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  If a man is not rising upwards to be an angel, depend upon it,

  he is sinking downwards to be a devil.

  ~Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  1

  Xavier

  I bolted upright in bed. Sweat covered my face and slithered like a snake down my spine. I hadn’t had the nightmare since I’d last seen Azazel three months ago. When he’d tried to kill me. He wanted me to switch sides and work for him in Hell so he could absorb my demi-angel powers, or he wanted me dead. I didn’t switch sides. I wouldn’t work for him… for evil. But he wasn’t able to kill me either. On my eighteenth birthday, the exact time of my first breath, I became stronger than him. He was too late. Defeated. And with no power over me, he crawled back to Hell where he belonged. When he left, so did the nightmares.

  They were back.

  ***

  Reaching over my mom’s shoulder, I grabbed another piece of toast. “See ya.” I planted a jelly-smeared kiss on her cheek.

  “Ugh, Milayna, I’m not a napkin.” She smiled and wiped the sticky mess from her cheek with a towel.

  It was Monday morning. I hadn’t seen him all weekend. He’d been out of town with his parents visiting family. I couldn’t wait until chemistry, and it wasn’t because it was lab day or my chemistry teacher was a riveting lecturer. No, he’d be there. Just thinking about seeing him made my stomach fill with butterflies.

  I’m probably the only student actually looking forward to school this morning.

  I nearly ran through the halls to class, blue and gold lockers whizzing by. I darted between students saying hi as I passed. My heart fluttered faster and faster the closer I came to my chemistry class and then… there he was. He sat at the table, his head bowed as he doodled on his notebook. A lock of hair had fallen over his forehead. It’d been four months since we started dating, and he still made my heart, and other places, do funny things.

  He looked up, like he sensed I was there. “Hey,” Chay said, giving me a crooked grin. He stood to pull my chair out for me.

  I sat next to him, inhaling his familiar scent. He leaned in for a kiss. It was warm and tender, and my toes curled when his tongue dipped between my lips. Bliss.

  “I missed you,” I whispered when his lips traveled from my lips to the hollow behind my ear, making me shiver.

  “I missed you, too,” he murmured. His breath made wisps of my hair move, tickling my neck.

  “Don’t leave me again.”

  He pulled back and looked at me. “I’ve already informed my parents that I’m not going next time unless you go, too.”

  “You informed them?” I asked with a laugh.

  “Well, I asked nicely.” The side of his mouth hitched up.

  “Mm-hmm, that’s what I thought.”

  Something caught my eye, and I looked toward the door. He walked into the classroom with confidence, maybe even a slight air of arrogance. The lights reflected off his jet-black hair, so glossy it looked wet. He swept the room with piercing blue eyes. Every girl there, and a few guys, wanted his gaze to land on them. I could practically hear them swooning. A shiny new toy for them to fight over.

  “There’s a seat open behind Milayna; you can sit there,” I heard my chemistry teacher tell the new hottie… I mean, student. “Milayna, raise your hand so Xavier knows who you are.”

  I raised my hand. Chay gripped my other hand a little too tight when Xavier walked by. I squeezed his back and rolled my eyes. It was only first hour and Xavier was already causing ripples in the high school pond. The girls were envisioning dating him and the guys were already jealous of him.

  “Hi.” He looked at me before sliding into the seat behind me.

  I smiled over my shoulder. The way Chay squeezed my hand, I was afraid to do more or I’d suffer a broken finger or two.

  “Milayna?”

  “Yes, Mr. Ferguson?”

  Please, please don’t ask me to do what I think you’re going to. Chay will bust a nut if you do.

  “You won’t mind showing Xavier around a little today, will you?”

  And you had to ask.

  “No, sir.” Chay’s grip on my hand increased. “Ouch,” I whispered, jerking my hand free. “What’s the matter with you?”

  Chay’s eyes flicked toward Xavier behind me and back to mine.

  “What was I supposed to do? Say no?”

  He shrugged a shoulder in answer. I hated that.

  “It’s one day. Geez, are you jealous?”

  Chay glared at me, and I smiled.

  He is jealous.

  “Knock it off.” I laughed when he bent over and kissed me behind the ear. He knew that was my favorite spot, my weakness. The place that made me go weak in the knees and curled my toes.

  “I’m not jealous,” he whispered, another thing that drove me wild, feeling his breath against my skin as his silky voice dipped low in a way he only used when talking to me. “I feel bad for the guy is all. Having to be around you all day.”

  “And you’re delusional. You love me.”

  “I didn’t say I don’t love you. But it’ll be horrid being around you all day—”

  “Yeah, yeah. You feel bad for the guy. I heard you the first time,” I interrupted before he could stick his foot any further into his mouth.

  “When you’re with someone else,” he finished with a smirk.

  Okay,
so his remark wasn’t the catastrophe I thought it would be. I smiled and kissed him on the cheek. The teacher looked at us and cleared his throat. I blushed. Chay ducked his head, looking at me through his dark lashes.

  Geez, he’s gorgeous. If he only knew Xavier has nothing on him.

  When class ended, I pushed my things into my book bag and left it lying on the table. I didn’t even try to pick it up anymore. Chay carried it to and from my classes for me. He wouldn’t let me touch it. I’d given up arguing with him. I decided I’d become an independent woman’s rights activist after high school. During school, I was going to let him do all the heavy lifting and door opening I could.

  I turned around and faced Xavier. My breath hitched in my throat. His eyes were such a piercing shade of crystal blue. I’d never seen eyes so… sparkly before.

  Focus, Milayna.

  “What’s your next class? We’ll walk you,” I said.

  “Oh, ah.” He flipped open a folded piece of paper and scanned it. “AP calculus,” Xavier answered. He even had a great voice. No wonder all the girls were drooling.

  “With Ms. Morzetti?”

  He looked at his schedule again before answering. “Yeah.”

  Chay groaned. I elbowed him in the ribs.

  “That’s our next class, too. Let’s go. Her class is on the other side of the building.”

  Chay and I went directly to our assigned seats when we entered the classroom while Xavier stopped at the teacher’s desk to check in and receive his seat assignment.

  “Who’s he?” Muriel asked, eyeing Xavier.

  “New guy. Xavier.”

  “I want one.”

  I laughed out loud. “You and every other single girl in the school.”

  “Probably some not-so-single girls, too. What’s he like?”

  “He seems nice, I guess. I haven’t been around him long enough to know.” I shrugged a shoulder.

  “Does Chay know him?”

  I almost started laughing at her question since Chay was already in the Anti-Xavier Fan Club. In fact, he was the president and founding member. “No, why?”

  “You three walked in together.”

  “Oh, Mr. Ferguson asked me to show Xavier around today. That’s all.”

  “Some girls get all the luck,” Muriel muttered and pulled her homework out of her binder, passing it forward.

  As it turned out, I would have been lucky… if I’d been interested in Xavier. He shared five out of seven classes with me. Thankfully English, which I shared with Chay, wasn’t one of them. I wasn’t up for the jealous boyfriend thing. He was acting possessive enough knowing Xavier and I had so many classes together. Not that it mattered. My heart belonged to Chay, no matter how sinfully gorgeous and sexy Xavier was. And he was all of those things and a bag of chips.

  ***

  My stomach twisted painfully and my head started to pound like someone dropped an anvil on it, like in cartoons. A vision. That was how they started. My duty as a demi-angel was to protect humans—a demi-angel was the child of an angel and a human. When I was able to step in and change a situation, to right a wrong, I had to. I had no control over the urge, and I couldn’t fight it. The visions were something else I had no control over. They came whenever and wherever I was. Sometimes, I’d go days without having one. Other times, I’d have three or four in a day. I never knew what my day would hold. It made scheduling a bitch.

  That day, I was on number two. The sights and sounds of the students in the hallway faded and were replaced by images of things that hadn’t happened yet.

  Sela. Tears. Falling.

  Sela. I could see her face clearly in my mind. She was crying as she ran up the stairs, her heavy books in her hands making her unsteady. She was going to slip and fall on the wet tile. I could see blood seeping onto the step beneath her. The images ran in front of my eyes like a slide show. I could see everything before it happened—I had to step in and stop her before she got hurt.

  Water. Falling. Blood.

  “Sela,” I called.

  She kept going. The vision didn’t change.

  “Sela. Wait up.”

  She stopped and looked at me. Her face red and eyes swollen from crying. “What?”

  “Don’t take those stairs. They were just mopped. See?” I pointed at the yellow ‘Wet Floor’ sign.

  “Crap.” Fresh tears fell from her eyes, and she swiped them with the back of her hand. I held out a tissue and she took it, giving me a small smile. “Thanks.”

  “You want to talk about it?”

  “Just guy stuff. John dumped me in history class. A little ironic, huh? Dumps me in history… we’re history.”

  John’s a jerk. I never knew what you saw in him in the first place.

  “I’m sorry.” I could feel the pain radiating from her—another of my freaky demi-angel powers.

  “He could’ve at least waited until after school so I didn’t cry like a fool in front of everyone,” she said through clenched teeth, tears still running down her face.

  He’s an idiot.

  “Guys can be insensitive, but I don’t think anyone thinks you’re a fool. We’ve all been there.”

  “Thanks, Milayna. I have to go. I have to run to the stairs on the other side of the hall. I’m gonna be late for class. See ya.” She jogged away with a wave.

  The pain in my stomach and head eased. The vision was over. I’d kept Sela from falling on the stairs. That would have been just what she needed… getting dumped in class and leaving crying, feeling like a fool, only to fall up the stairs and break her nose.

  A typical Monday in high school.

  ***

  That night after school, I saw them. I hadn’t seen Azazel’s demons since my eighteenth birthday. On November first, all Saint’s Day, thirty-seven seconds after one in the morning, they disappeared. February twenty-eighth, they were back. But I wasn’t scared. I was stronger. Untouchable. I knew it. Azazel knew it, too. So he sent someone else.

  Someone to kill me.

  2

  The Return

  There was a hierarchy in the demon world. Azazel was one of the demons at the top of that hierarchy. Hell’s angel—pure, unadulterated evil. His sole purpose was to turn angels and demi-angels from good to evil, make them switch sides. If he couldn’t get them to switch, his next objective was to kill them. As a demi-angel, he was my ultimate nemesis.

  When I turned eighteen, I fully matured as a demi-angel. And since my father was a high-ranking official in the Iri council before he decided to become mortal, I was a high-ranking demi-angel. That made me stronger. I was untouchable by Azazel. He could try to manipulate me into changing sides, but he couldn’t force me and he couldn’t kill me.

  But there were more like him. I was sure of it. No one knew how many high-ranking demons there were in Hell other than Azazel. I was sure there were more. And that scared the hell outta me—or into me, I wasn’t sure which.

  The second level consisted of demons. They were ugly, strong, and almost as evil as Azazel. They lived in the depths of Hell. They were not something you wanted to meet alone in a dark alley. Well, anywhere, really.

  As if the demons in Hell weren’t enough to deal with, there were demons on earth. Demi-demons made up the third level. They were like demi-angels, but instead of having an angel for a parent, they had a demon, children of fallen angels. Their human parents were usually atheists, or they dabbled in the occult. Either way, their children were as strong as demi-angels and probably the most dangerous form of demons for us to deal with. There was nothing to differentiate them from other humans. Demi-angels didn’t know who the enemy was until the demi-demon decided to reveal themselves, which was a dangerous position to be in.

  The fourth level was Evils. They started out as demi-angels, but switched sides, becoming one of Azazel’s followers. Every demi-angel he turned, he absorbed some of their power, leaving the Evils with less strength. They were troublemakers, but they rarely had enough power to do any damage
unless they teamed up with a demi-demon, which they did a lot.

  Hobgoblins were the lowest of all the demons. They were the harbingers of news from the underworld. Hell. A place I’d been fighting to stay out of since before my eighteenth birthday. Hobgoblins were almost cute with their short, roly-poly bodies and childish behavior, but if you got on their bad side, their little faces turned demonic and all cuteness vanished. It was this type of demon I was looking at in my backyard.

  “What are you doing here?” I glared at the hobgoblins running around my yard on their stumpy little legs, their round bellies jiggling. Their girly, high-pitched squeals pierced my ears.

  These two particular goblins seemed to be assigned to me. My very own demon buddies. The same pair always visited. One was friendly. He looked and acted like a toddler. With a tuft of black hair standing on end on top of its oval head and chubby checks framing its puffy lips, it was almost cute… until I remembered it was a spawn from the very bowels of Hell.

  The second was moody and temperamental. I, not so affectionately, called him Scarface. He had a deep scar running from his left ear to the side of his mouth. As young and friendly as goblin number one acted, Scarface was his polar opposite. He acted like a cantankerous old fart.

  “We’re here to play!” Friendly said. It was his standard answer whenever they made an appearance.

  “I’m not in the mood to play. Why are you here?” I crossed my arms over my chest.

  “We’re here to play,” Friendly said again, swinging on my childhood swing set. His stumpy legs pumping back and forth to make the swing move, he cackled in delight as he swayed back and forth.

  “We’re here to warn you,” Scarface grumbled.

  “About what?”