He was forcing me to the ground, and I was helpless to do anything but wait for the impact.

Suddenly my body hit the hard earth; every molecule in me screamed with brutal pain. Dirt, rocks, the soft mud below surface level skyrocketed around us like we were a bomb that hit the ground. Fountains of gritty earth erupted toward the sky like mighty geysers; we dug into the earth as if we would become one with it.

My Light faded as I flickered back and forth between human-form and Angel. Every single bone felt broken; every inch of my skin burned from the scraping impact. My head felt like it was split in two. I almost wished that it would detach from my neck, so I didn’t have to suffer a moment more of this agony.

The Fallen that had taken me down slowly detached himself from me when the dust settled around us and struggled to his feet. I took most of the impact, but not all of it. He was suffering too.

Good.

His face was streaked with red dirt and his clothes and hair completely dust-covered. I assumed I looked just as stellar, but I couldn’t find the will to care. I couldn’t even find it in me to get up and fight this guy.

My body finally settled on human form as I sucked in a choking breath filled with polluted, dusty air. It immediately set me off coughing and sucking in oxygen to sustain consciousness. I was barely succeeding when he stumbled toward me and kicked me in the jaw.

I was dug deep into the ground, propped up in a crater of my own making. When his boot connected with my jaw, my head snapped back and hit the corner of a rock before falling forward again. My head snapped back and forth like an elastic rubber band.

Blood ran from my mouth now, too. I wondered idly if my teeth would fall out, and if so, would they grow back like my bones? Or would I be toothless forever?

A hot stream of blood spewed from the back of my head, down my neck, soaking my shirt. He- Saul, I recognized Saul- lifted his boot again to wind it back for another swing. I tried to block it with my hand or at least soften the blow to my face, but my right arm was completely out of socket; I couldn’t even drag it around on the ground it rested on. It hung next to me, completely useless.

Before I could even contemplate checking out my other arm, his foot connected with my neck this time. I felt my trachea compress in my throat. I couldn’t breathe for long, gasping moments as I struggled to retain consciousness and to breathe again.

I discovered that my left arm worked well enough to claw at my throat, encouraging it to work again, fighting for it to open up and send air in and out of my lungs. Finally, after what felt like forever, I started to receive oxygen; they were painful, burning breaths, but there was no better feeling.

Saul stood before me and unsheathed the sword he kept strapped to his side. The afternoon sun glinted off the silver blade, blinding me momentarily. He moved slightly so I could see his face as the sun lit up the horizon behind him, like a brilliant spotlight on all his evil deeds. He studied me in a detached, curious kind of way. And if I wasn’t already delirious with pain or half-unconscious, I probably would have had something very snarky to say.

As it were, I focused on my scarily raspy breaths and not passing out. I, at least, wanted to see this- see what he was going to do with me.

Vaguely I realized I wouldn’t be able to get up, to even have my honor, when he beheaded me. My hip, or pelvic bone or something sitting at my waist was absolutely shattered, not giving my legs any kind of ability to move. I was trapped.

And he was determined to kill me.

There wasn’t even anything I could do about it. My body was beyond the ability to turn back into its natural state, and my mind was too confused by the searing pain, to figure out a defensive strategy.

Saul took a step forward and raised his sword. He crossed it over his body with two hands and didn’t even offer any wise goodbye words. I expected something from him, at least an acknowledgment that he was about to kill me.

Instead, his face contorted into a mask of hatred. He screamed out a battle cry so fierce and raging, spittle dotted his mouth and cheeks, and a long strand of drool hung from his bottom lip.

I tensed, anticipating the impact; my eyes shut naturally. Then the pain became unbearable; behind the dark shades of my eyelids, a blinding light burst into life. I began to hallucinate.

I felt like my eyes opened and instead of meeting Saul’s sword across my throat, I saw Seth instead. He landed on his feet with the force of a semi-truck and a sword already in action. Before Saul could even turn to his attacker, Seth had sliced his body in half with one fluid motion. Blood exploded from the clean cut like a geyser coating my body and Seth’s beautiful face.

He wasn’t finished though.

He leapt into the air and spun around. Raising his sword again he brought it down with staggering power against Saul’s neck, detaching his head before the top of his body ever hit the ground.

All three pieces of my enemy’s body landed in separate piles at the same time. Seth landed too, right in front of me. He sheathed his sword with another swift lift of his arm and was in my face before I could feel reality again.

He touched my jaw with careful fingers- fingers that belied the deadly force that he truly was, fingers that trembled with care at the sight of my broken body. And just before I found the sweet relief of oblivion, I heard him whisper words that would have changed my life if this weren’t the end, if I wasn’t about to meet death face to face.

“Don’t go, Stella,” he whispered. “Don’t leave me. You are my reason. You are my truth. Stay,” his voice cracked with an emotion that seemed to flood even my muddled brain. “Stay with me!”

My body was on fire. And I was surrounded in darkness. This had to be Hell. It had to be.

I felt my mouth work, trying to let lose a scream of suffering, but my throat was too rough and sore to allow that to happen. Instead, I heard the pathetic whimper that fell from my lips and into the void of pain beyond me.

That’s all I felt- all I knew. Pain. And more pain.

It felt infinite. It consumed me. There wasn’t a part of my body that remained quiet; every molecule, blood vessel, bone and organ screamed with misery. Tears followed the agonizing pain- tracking down my face, leaving wet trails that pooled in my neck and shoulders.

And then nothing. I sank back into the black void of no feeling, no pain, and no thoughts. Just….. nothing.

----

The next time I found consciousness again, I was able to open my eyes and realize I wasn’t in Hell after all. I was in my bedroom, in my bed and under my own covers.

My eyelids felt too heavy to open, but I forced them up so I could see for myself that I was home. I didn’t know how I got here, or how I did not die, but I didn’t care at this point.

I started crying again, but this time it wasn’t from pain. It was from relief, relief that I wasn’t dead, relief that I wasn’t still in that unnamed desert with an enemy sword at my throat, relief that I wasn’t burning in Hell.

I was home.

“Hey, hey,” Seth whispered softly when the first tear dropped to my cheek. “Are you still in a lot of pain?”

I shook my head, drinking him and his perfection in. Although he didn’t look very perfect right now, he was to me. He couldn’t have been more perfect. His hair was a mess, tussled and wild like he had been pulling his hands through it for days- and maybe he had been. His jaw had a solid day’s growth of facial hair. It wasn’t as thick as I imagined it would be one day when he was a full-grown man, but it was just scruffy enough to highlight his sharp jawline and high cheekbones. His clothes were wrinkled and stretched out. His hands were trembling, actually shaking as he observed me from the end of my bed.