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  Lilith © 2019 J.E. Taylor

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  Table of Contents

  Copyright Page

  Lilith | A Night Hawk Prequel | J.E. Taylor

  Lilith

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  About J.E. Taylor

  Lilith

  A Night Hawk Prequel

  J.E. Taylor

  Lilith

  Obsession puts Lilith within the grasp of immortality, but the price for living forever creates a different, much darker fixation.

  Chapter 1

  Who would have thought my quest for immortality would be the thing that finally killed me?

  But I’m not here to talk about my death. I am here to talk about what led me to that dark place where all I craved was life’s essence.

  It was an age of decadence, when angels mated with humans and God didn’t interfere with the unions forged. The hosts of archangels—Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, Uriel, and Lucifer—walked among men, living, instead of locked within the gates of heaven.

  Of course, the average human didn’t know divinity was in their midst. Even I was clueless for a time.

  I remember my first encounter with the light bringer. It was early morning, and the sun had not warmed the day yet. I knelt by the river with a basket full of soiled clothing sitting nearby. Instead of scrubbing the cloth like I was supposed to be doing, I was studying the plants lining the riverbed. Plucking the ones that interested me.

  As I studied one of the herbs in my palm, a throat cleared, making me jump and clasp my hand closed. I was on my feet with my hands behind my back before I realized the man before me wasn’t my father. I stared at him. He was perhaps the most beautiful man I had ever laid eyes on. Dark hair, blue eyes, strong jaw, and dimples that only grew deeper with a smile. His teeth were pristine white and his complexion like fresh cream, and as smooth as silk. His lips were full and inviting. His build was solid but not bulky, and he stood bare-chested with his wrap loosely draped around his hips.

  He stepped closer crowding me as he studied me with as much interest as I was studying him. When he reached out and pulled a handful of my hair towards him, I tried to step away, but instead of a graceful exit, I fell into the river. I gasped as the cold water soaked through my clothing.

  His eyebrows arched, and he cocked his head. “Curious little thing,” he said and offered me his hand.

  His voice warmed my insides. Deep and masculine and as musical as any harp I had ever heard. I reached out, letting him help me out of the water.

  He pulled me with such ease that I ended up against his chest. Just touching a man in this manner would have set my father in motion with the whip had he been within eyeshot.

  I stared up into the depths of the man’s eyes and forgot about any transgression I may have been making against our family. “What’s your name?”

  “Lucifer. And what do they call you?” he purred and ran the fingers of his free hand through my red hair.

  “Lilith,” I answered, still captivated by his gaze and the smooth skin under my fingertips.

  “Lilith,” he repeated softly as if he were trying it out on his tongue.

  The sound of my name on his lips was enough to suddenly make me glad I was dripping frigid water. Without it, I probably would have burst into flame by now. Then he flashed a devastating smile, and the chill was replaced with a stirring heat. My knees wobbled, and his grip around my waist tightened.

  My name echoed on the wind, and it took me a second to realize that Lucifer hadn’t been the one to call me. With the spell broken, I pushed out of his grip and stepped away, distancing myself. Although every fiber of my form wanted to be back in his arms, I had to heed the warning in the distance. If I didn’t, my back would support bloody welts by nightfall.

  I turned, squatted next to the basket, and started dipping the soiled clothing into the river, paying Lucifer no mind. His shadow faded away.

  “What happened to you?” my father grumbled as he reached my side.

  I glanced up at him. “I slipped on the shore and fell in.”

  “I thought I saw someone with you,” he said, glancing around.

  I scanned the area and shook my head. “No one is here, Papa,” I said and started scrubbing again, wondering where Lucifer had disappeared to.

  “Finish your duties here. Once you hang the clothes to dry, your mother needs help in the kitchen.”

  “Yes, Papa.” I hated doing laundry and my father knew it. I would rather be helping prepare the meals or better yet, mixing the medicinal herbs for the sick. Curing illness was more satisfying than anything else, and someday I would find a cure for death.

  He left me to the unenviable task of scrubbing the dirt out of the clothing in the cold river water. I concentrated on cleaning the clothing until a shadow crossed over my shoulder.

  “Tell Mama I am almost done,” I said without turning.

  “Who is Mama?” he said in that heavenly voice that made me tremble in shock.

  I wrung out the last shirt and threw it in the basket before turning towards Lucifer. I scanned the landscape, looking for anywhere he could have disappeared behind, but there was nothing.

  “Where have you been hiding?” I asked after my gaze returned to his impossibly handsome face.

  He waved his hand nonchalantly and smiled down at me.

  I picked up the basket, balancing it on my hip as irritation flushed my skin. His lack of an answer racked my nerves. “I need to go hang these to dry.” I hooked my thumb towards where the town proper sat.

  He tilted his head and looked from the basket to me. A crease appeared between his intense eyes.

  “Chores,” I said, and the line deepened as if he had never heard such a word. I turned and headed towards home. When Lucifer fell into step beside me, my heart jumped into my throat. “You cannot follow me home.” I gasped, glancing toward the small village. “My father wouldn’t approve,” I added after a moment.

  My father would beat me blind if he saw me walking with a half-naked man, but Lucifer didn’t need to know how full of violence my father was. He didn’t tolerate my interest in medicinal herbs and potions, and if he had caught me gathering the plants at the river’s edge instead of Lucifer, I would have been far worse off than just a fall into the cold water.

  Lucifer stopped and reached out, taking my forearm in his warm hand, stopping my progression.

  “Your voice shakes,” he said. “Do you fear me?”

  Astute observation, but it wasn’t the man standing next to me who I was afraid of. Although I probably should have been, but I couldn’t seem to find reason to tremble at his innocent gaze.

  I shook my head. “No. I don’t fear you, but I do fear my father.”

  His lips twitched into a smirk, and he dropped his grip on my arm. “Ah. Fathers.” He glanced around and sighed. “Perha
ps I will see you again?” he asked when his gaze trained back on me.

  My heart picked up at the prospect. “Perhaps.” I smiled back at the flash of teeth he gave me and then turned back towards the village. After a few paces, I turned to ask when, but the road and fields beyond me lay empty.

  I swallowed the surprise and scanned the area. There was no sign of the strange man. Only stillness, like he had up and disappeared on the breeze.

  Chapter 2

  As soon as I pinned the clothing to the lines, I put the basket back in the house. Instead of helping my mother with the meal, I crossed to the shore closest to the town and began foraging different herbs and plants. I knew there had to be a combination that would stave off death, and I was hellbent on finding it.

  The ones that I knew were toxic I kept separate from those that were of healing origin. I learned early on the difference between water hemlock and celery. One would kill, and the other added flavor to soups and stews. I could remember my mother berating me after she had seen me cutting up the hemlock for the stew she had on the fire.

  She had shook me and screamed at me, and I swore I didn’t put the greens into the pot. I hadn’t had a chance. After that day, she made a point of bringing me out to the river’s edge and pointing out the different plants. Drilling into me what was safe and what was deadly.

  I learned everything about mixing herbs to heal the sick from my mother and the local shaman. If I could get away with sneaking out of the house to visit Josiah, I would. He was even more of a wealth of knowledge than even my mother.

  My father never approved of my visiting Josiah. He said I needed to learn trades that were useful to a husband, not wasting my time learning about plants. He didn’t appreciate the power found within nature.

  With a basket full of both healing and toxic plants, I snuck by our house and slid down the winding path that led to Josiah’s cabin. He lived far enough away for the air to still around his little hut. I followed the thin trail of smoke until I rounded a bend in the path. Josiah’s home sat in the midst of lush green trees. The ground alternated in circles around his abode. The farthest path was rock, which led to dusty dirt, and then thick moss closest to the cottage.

  Josiah sat in the old rocking chair on the porch, whittling a piece of wood. His long white hair stirred in a breeze I hadn’t noticed. His gnarled hands seemed much nimbler as he whittled than any other time I had seen him. His dark wrinkled face was a mask of concentration.

  “What did you bring this time?” he asked in a frail, shaky voice, but his concentration never wavered from the wood between his fingers.

  “Nightshade, parsnips, and a handful of castor beans.”

  His fluffy white eyebrow rose. “Quite the deadly combination there, my girl.” He stopped whittling and glanced up at me. “Are you still on that silly quest to cure death?”

  “It’s not a silly quest.” I pouted, then made my way across to his porch and put my basket of offerings at his feet.

  “It is one thing to ease someone’s sufferings with herbs and potions. That is a noble pursuit. But to try to cheat death... That, my child, cannot be done.” His kind gaze met mine. “I will continue to teach you the healing ways if you promise to drop this quest.”

  My stomach twisted, but I nodded, lowering my gaze to my quarry. I set the basket down in front of him. I wasn't sure I could honor my agreement though. I still believed there was a way to cure all illness. To cure death as he’d put it.

  He raised an eyebrow as if sensing my lack of commitment.

  "Fine." I crossed my arms and leaned against the side of his home.

  His eyes narrowed, inspecting me. He seemed to be debating. What he saw in my face must have convinced him because he put his whittling knife down and picked up the basket.

  0"Come," he said and entered his house with my herbs.

  When he dumped the basket into the fire in the center of the space, my mouth dropped open. It had taken me a bit of time to find the nightshade, and he burned it to a crisp within seconds. I snapped my mouth closed as he turned in my direction.

  "We don't want to grab the wrong herb," he said and flashed a smile.

  "What are we mixing today?"

  "Honey and ginger." He stepped out the back of the cottage and crossed to the trees where bees swarmed, but that didn't deter him. With slow progression, he reached into the hole in the tree. When his hand came out, he had a small honeycomb between his fingers.

  We reentered his house and he set the honey aside. He started grinding a gingerroot in a bowl.

  My mind drifted back to the stranger from the river and I sighed.

  “You have not listened since I started breaking this root down,” Josiah said.

  My gaze snapped from the flames of his fire to him. I raised my eyebrows. I couldn’t exactly argue with his assessment because it was correct. I had not been present in the room as he droned on about the process.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “Where is your brain, girl?” he asked, still pummeling the root into a fine powder.

  I pressed my lips together and glanced at the door. Trusting Josiah with my aspirations about beating death wasn’t as dangerous as trusting him with my secret stranger. He might be inclined to tell my father, and then I would be punished for my transgression.

  But Josiah was my only true friend.

  I sighed. “I met a strange man this morning while I was washing clothes at the river.”

  His gaze narrowed in the same way I imagined my father’s would if he had actually caught me with Lucifer. His root grinding stopped and his inspection of me caused the skin of his face to redden in a way that made my heart pump a frantic beat.

  “Did you speak to him?”

  I nodded and lowered my gaze. “He surprised me, and I fell in the river.”

  The arch of Josiah’s eyebrow worried me. It planted the seed of doubt that he would indeed keep my secret.

  “He helped me out of the water, and then I went back to my chores.” I fidgeted under his intense stare.

  “Where was he from?” he asked, his voice edged with a bite.

  I shrugged.

  He pressed his lips together and returned to grinding the ginger into fine powder. When he finished, he picked up his sieve and put the honeycomb into it. He ground that into a sticky mess and set it on top of a deeper bowl. With the honey slowly draining, he turned to me and crossed his arms.

  “You expect me to believe you fell into the river because you were washing clothes?”

  I pressed my lips against a smirk and glanced towards the fire where my herbs had been reduced to ash. When I slid my gaze back to Josiah, he turned back to the task at hand.

  “I did not think so.” He looked up from the straining honey with a single raised eyebrow. “Be more careful next time. The river current is strong enough to sweep a girl like you away.”

  “Like me?”

  “You are a wisp of a thing.” He waved his hand at me. “And it would be a waste of talent to see you swallowed by the river.”

  I didn’t tell Josiah that I had swum the river before. That was how I collected some of the more questionable herbs that he had forbidden me to collect.

  Chapter 3

  The next day I delivered the ginger honey to one of the village elders. Unice had the whitest hair, and her eyes were nearly opaque with age. She hobbled to the door and snatched the jar from my hand while she covered a phlegmy cough with the other.

  Not even a thank you for bringing the medicine to her. She just opened the jar and stuck two fingers inside before she licked them clean. It was one of the vilest actions I had ever seen. I wondered why Josiah would take the time to give this woman relief from whatever ailed her.

  “What are you still doing here?” she growled.

  I turned and marched away, frustrated with the lack of gratitude. Instead of going back to our hut, I let my mind wander as I walked up the river’s edge until the town was just a dot behind me.
r />   Something disturbed the tall grass to my right, and I stopped, scanning the terrain. My skin flushed with fear. I had gone farther than I ever ventured, and the feeling of being watched overwhelmed me. The grass rustled, and green feline eyes stared through the blades. My heart lurched in my chest.

  Hands descended on my shoulders. I yelped and spun.

  Lucifer stood behind me with a peculiar grin on his face.

  I pointed at the crouched jaguar in the grass as panic braised through my body. We needed to run but I couldn’t form the words.

  “He won’t harm you.”

  A high-pitched, crazed laugh escaped from my mouth. My laughter died the moment the cat hissed and turned away from us without another glance.

  When I’d first looked, it was ready to pounce, jade eyes zeroed in on me, as if I were a lost gazelle. But after Lucifer put his hands on my shoulders, the jaguar slinked away like a scolded child. It was as if a larger, more dangerous predator had entered its territory.

  I glanced up at Lucifer and shivered.

  “Where did you come from?” I hadn’t heard his approach, but I had heard the rustling of the grass. It made no sense.

  “I followed you. Given the dangers lurking, I believe it was the right choice.”

  I couldn’t argue with his logic. I stepped around him, heading back the way I came.

  “Do you not collect unique plants?” He waved towards the purple and blue flowers surrounding us.

  I scanned the abundant field of wolfsbane and belladonna. My gaze jumped to his in surprise. With the small, empty basket I used to carry Eunice’s medicine still perched on the inside of my elbow, I bent, pulled a handful of the deadly plants from the ground, and dropped them into the basket. The belladonna gave way to a small patch of nightshade, and I did the same to it, careful not to disrupt any of the berries from the vines.

  I lost track of Lucifer as I headed toward the village. I’d been so focused on the vegetation since he had pointed it out. When the green plants thinned, I found a few castor bean plants, and I added them to my deadly greens.