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  Chapter 1

  I could feel how intensely the sun scorched my face before I opened my eyes. My entire body felt like it was being weighed down by steel anchors, and my head pounded as if I had a brutal hangover even though I hadn’t had a beer in weeks.

  I tried to speak, but only a guttural groan came out.

  My arms were heavy as I wiped sweat from my face, and I slowly opened my eyes to squint at the pale, hazy sky above me. As my body started to wake up with my mind, I tried to remember what the hell had happened before I ended up lying on my back in the blistering heat.

  I had been at the town library. The whole thing had apparently gone up in flames from some freak printer accident, but I had my money on the local youths sneaking a smoke near shit-loads of books. I had seen teenagers lighting up there before, and I knew they weren’t careful with where they threw their cigarette butts.

  My department got there as fast as we could and found the whole damn building crumbling down in a mess of orange flames and rotting wood. I was the first firefighter through the door as we started evacuations, and I remembered carrying two screeching kids over my shoulders just as the place started to fully collapse. I turned to watch as flames engulfed the doorway, and it looked like we had gotten there just in time.

  Then I saw her. Laura, who worked down at the bakery, raced up to me howling like a dying animal. She screamed that her kid was still inside that burning pile of rubble in the back room. Apparently, he had gone in to grab a book as she went and got some shopping done. I knew she was a kind woman who worked hard to give her son a good life, and he was a sweet kid.

  By that time, the other officers were trying to calm her down, they told her it was too late and too dangerous to send anyone back inside. I remembered how I looked at the pain on her tear-stained face as she screamed for her son, and I knew I had to go back inside.

  Captain Wilson saw what I was going to do before I did it, and I could still hear his voice in my head as the scene blurred in my confused mind.

  “Ryan!” he’d yelled as I started to run. “Ryan, you’re never getting out of there alive if you go back in there. Your Air-Pak’s gotta be running on fumes by now! It’s too late! That’s an order!”

  The guy was a good captain, and I knew that what he said was proper protocol. You don’t risk your own life to save someone else’s. We’re only meant to go into buildings when we know damn well we will be able to get back out.

  But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t stand there and know there was a chance the kid was still alive. I wasn’t able to just leave him in there to die while his mom’s heart shattered outside.

  So I raced back into the burning library as Wilson tried to tackle me, and I jumped into the maze of flames. The heat was beyond stifling the moment I entered, and I knew I was pushing my luck on my bunker gear. It was still holding up for now, though, and I kept calm as I navigated through the orange fire to the back room of what was once the library. The building was utterly unsafe to be inside, and thick black smoke swirled around the flames. I was damn good at my job, and I knew from one glance that the ceiling would cave in at any moment. I had been a firefighter since my trainee days as a teenager, and I had never been so deep in smoke before in my life.

  The warning buzzer on my SCBA gear had been going off for a few minutes now, and I knew I was moments from running out of air. But I didn’t stop moving as I kept as low as I could to the ground. Then I finally saw a tiny, hunched-over figure up ahead. He was crouched right at the back of the building which was the only spot still recognizable as a library room. It was going down fast, though, and I knew it would only be a matter of seconds before the whole space was burning.

  The heat was intense enough to feel through my suit now.

  The boy’s name suddenly popped back into my head, and I coughed as I checked if he was still alive.

  “Andy?” I spluttered as I surveyed the space.

  The little boy looked up at me with wide eyes and raced over to hug me. I could tell he was already weak from the fumes, and his eyes had started to close as he gripped onto me. I didn’t waste any time scooping the kid up, and I clocked the shattered window way over to the left near the spreading flames.

  It was the only chance he had to get out.

  As I carried him over and smashed the last of the glass out, I knew the flames were almost upon us. My legs were scorching-hot underneath my suit, and my lungs were struggling to live off the final scraps of oxygen in my tank. I knew right then that he was the only one who would be getting out of the library alive.

  That didn’t matter to me at that moment. Getting Andy out to his mom was the only thing I had to do.

  I saw Wilson’s form far below me as I hauled the kid to the broken window, and the flames started billowing around the window pane on either side of me. One more second of hesitation, and the kid would’ve sustained serious burns, so I used the final supply of air in my Air-Pak to throw Andy down into the sea of outstretched arms. His mother cried as she ran alongside the crew who were rushing him to the ambulance, but then I finally ran out of air.

  I tore the SCBA off my face and gasped to fill my lungs, but nothing but smoke and scorching heat siphoned into my windpipe.

  Then Wilson howled at me to jump.

  “Come on, Ryan!” he yelled. “Get out of there!”

  But the fire had the floorboards now. It ate at the walls, the windowsill, and every last inch of the room around me, too. The wood snapped under my boots as I heard the ceiling giving way, and the blazing heat finally won out over my bunker gear. Smoke spewed from my suit as I crashed down and grappled to hold onto the flaming windowsill, but the pain was suddenly excruciating. The fire had me now, and in a few seconds, the whole damn place would cave in on top of me.

  But at least I’d saved everyone I needed to. Even if I couldn’t save myself.

  That was the last thing I remembered.

  So why was I looking at a clear sky with a burning sun right above me? Where the hell was I?

  Had I somehow made it? I could be laid out on the sidewalk outside the library waiting for an ambulance…

  I grunted as I tried to push myself up, and my fingers dug into the sand underneath me.

  Sand?

  It took a second to prop my aching body up into a sitting position, and I finally managed to open my eyes properly. I blinked heavily as I glanced at the pale blue sky, and then down at the endless land of pure orange desert in front of me. There was nothing but sand for miles and miles, and it was very clear I was nowhere near the town library. To add to the strangeness, I looked down to see I was wearing my jeans, shirt, and boots that I’d worn to the station earlier that day. My bunker gear and station uniform seemed to have disappeared, but that’s what I’d had on during the fire, so how the hell was I in my civilian clothes now?

  I moaned as a cramp hit my foot, and I stretched it out as the sun stung my eyes.

  “Am I dead?” I muttered as I slowly got to my feet.

  “Kind of,” someone said behind me.

  I spun around to see a beautiful woman standing there, except she definitely wasn’t like any woman I had ever seen before. I rubbed my eyes to check I wasn’t hallucinating, and even then I wasn’t so sure if I was or not.

  The woman’s ivory skin was speckled with tiny, golden flecks, and her entire body glistened under the sun. She had a strong but slim physique that was covered by a glittering golden dress that skimmed her thighs and showed off her impressive cleavage at the top. Glossy waves of burgundy hair tumbled over her shoulders, and her side bangs were pinned back with red clips. Her face was sharp and sculpted with high cheekbones and full, red lips, and she studied me with golden eyes that seemed to flicker with orange light.

  But the strangest thing about her was that she had large, folded wings on her back. They were made of deep maroon feathers and had shimmering golden highlights at the tips.

  She was the most stunning person I had ever seen in my life, and I was even more confused than I had been a few seconds before.

  “Hi,” I said after a moment, and I realized how dry my throat was.

  “Hello,” she sighed in a strong, sultry tone. “I just wanted to check if you were alright, and you are. So let’s go.”

  The burgundy-haired woman started to walk away from me with long, purposeful strides, and she glanced either way as if she was crossing a street.

  My brain felt like it was going a million miles an hour as I tried to process what the hell was going on, but I knew I didn’t want to let the winged woman leave without explaining it to me.

  “Hey!” I yelled as I forced my body to jog after her. “Hey, where am I? Is this still Arizona? Who are you? What do you mean I’m sort of dead?”

  As I caught up with her and fell into her walking pace, she glanced at me with her glowing golden eyes and just raised a dark eyebrow.

  “I’m Ryan,” I said. “Ryan Moore. I’m a firefighter and paramedic for the Tucson Fire Department. Last thing I remember was working at th e library, and now I’m here. I have no idea where I am.”

  “I’m Cyra,” the woman said without stopping. “We need to walk faster. I would carry you and fly, but you’re too heavy.”

  I looked around and still couldn’t see anything but desert. The sun was scorching the back of my neck, and I had never been so thirsty in my life. Maybe this was what being dead was like. You just had to run after a pretty angel woman and try to figure it out. What did she mean I was dead in that world but alive in this one?

  I shook my head and decided I needed to organize my thoughts or a million jumbled questions would just keep spilling out. It was in my blood to keep calm in stressful, bizarre situations. I had her name, and that was a good start.

  “Cyra,” I repeated. “That’s a nice name. So you’re… an angel?”

  “Well spotted,” Cyra sighed. “I’m actually a Throne angel, so let’s remember that part. Put some respect on the title.”

  “What the hell is a Throne angel?” I asked. “I’ve only learned angels are real in the last three seconds, I’m not quite caught up on the different variations.”

  I could have sworn a smile played on her lips at that, but she quickly returned to her straight-faced scowl as she kept striding over the sand.

  “I’m taking you to the nearest city,” Cyra said. “Then we will go our separate ways.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I think. But I could really do with some answers since I just woke up in some fucking desert with no clue how I even got here. Let’s start with you. What exactly is a Throne angel?”

  Cyra glanced over her winged shoulder, and she surveyed the hazy sky before she answered.

  “Thrones are the highest-ranking angels,” she explained. “The gods put us in charge of the most important tasks, and we are responsible for taking care of the mortals in this world. We can travel between other worlds, too, if we like, and we deliver messages between them.”

  “Right,” I said. “And when you say gods…”

  “All angels serve different gods,” Cyra interrupted. “I serve the God of Flame. Well, I did before he left. Now I serve myself.”

  The angel didn’t look at me as she spoke. She kept her golden eyes on the horizon, and she kept checking every direction as we walked as if she was expecting someone to leap out of the sand at any moment. I was well trained in emergency situations, and I could tell from every inch of her body language that she felt she was in danger.

  “Are you okay?” I asked, and she suddenly shot her eyes over to me.

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “You seem worried about something,” I replied. “Is someone trying to hurt you?”

  The angel laughed, and her bright smile illuminated her face as she looked at me, but she didn’t answer. It didn’t seem like a joyful laugh particularly, more like I had said something painfully close to the truth.

  My body was starting to ache less as I moved all my muscles, but my throat was still dry as hell as we walked. I ran a hand through my hair and had never wished for a shower more than in that moment. My heavy boots were not ideal for desert walking, and my jeans were way too thick for the heat.

  “You said your god was the God of Flames?” I asked as I eyed her maroon wings. “Does that mean you’re a… flame angel or something?”

  “Fire angel.” Cyra nodded.

  “I was a firefighter,” I said. “So maybe we have something in common.”

  “We have nothing in common, human.” Cyra pushed her burgundy hair back.

  “Okay, then…” I tried not to glance down at her impressive figure as her long legs strode over the sand. I wondered if all angels were as stunning as her, and I tried to reorder the million questions I had.

  Whatever this woman’s story was, it was suddenly becoming even more interesting to me.

  “So, where is he now?” I asked. “Why did the God of Flames leave this place?”

  “They all left,” Cyra said. “All the gods have gone from Dracoria.”

  “Dracoria,” I repeated. “Is that the name of this place?”

  “That’s the name of this whole land.” Cyra nodded. “Well, the lands are all separate now, so Dracoria isn’t exactly a united world anymore.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Why did they all leave?

  “Because they saw the way the mortals acted,” Cyra said. “Everyone in Dracoria has magical powers, which makes it a very vibrant place, but they began to constantly war over stupid things like money and land.”

  I nodded, and I wondered if maybe this new world wasn’t so different from my old one after all.

  “It just became too much,” the angel continued. “With all these different kinds of abilities, it turned into a full-on magical war that never seemed to end. The gods were furious that mortals would fight when they were in a world with so much opportunity and resources.”

  “So they just left?” I asked. “That doesn’t sound very god-like.”

  “They tried to stop it,” Cyra said. “They warned everyone that they would punish the whole world if they didn’t stop this needless violence and greed.”

  “Let me guess,” I sighed. “They didn’t stop fighting because claiming the biggest bit of land seemed more important than the fate of the whole world?”

  The red-haired angel raised an eyebrow as she looked at me, and she shot me a half-smile as if she was amused that I’d gotten it so right. I smiled back at her, and she hurriedly looked away with a roll of her eyes.

  This whole story she was telling me sounded crazy, but it wasn’t any crazier than waking up in the desert with a beautiful angel woman.

  “The people continued to fight.” Cyra nodded eventually. “And so, as a first warning, the gods took away the dragons.”

  “Dragons?” I chuckled, and the angel shot me a hardened look. “Sorry. I’m just not used to hearing about these things. Please, carry on.”

  “The dragons were a symbol of hope,” Cyra said. “They are creatures of the gods, created to bring the mortals of this world good fortune and luck. Each dragon has a different power depending on the god who created them, just like angels.”

  “Awesome.” I grinned. “Did you have one as a pet?”

  “A pet?” Cyra gasped, and she swung around to look at me.

  I was startled again by how beautiful she was, even if she was looking at me like I was the crazy one in this situation. The golden flecks in her skin glistened in a way I’d never seen before under the desert sun, and her golden eyes seemed to have those orange flames burning in them again.

  “I guess not, then?” I asked.

  “They’re dragons!” Cyra said as she waved her arms expressively. “Ancient, wise, powerful creatures of the gods. Not some little moon mouse you can slip in your pocket!”

  “Alright!” I said and stifled a chuckle. “I’m sorry, no offense meant to the dragons. Also, what the hell is a moon mouse?”

  “A little animal,” the angel said. “Furry, big ears, whiskers, glows in the dark.”

  I nodded even though what she was saying was too bizarre. I could feel little beads of sweat trickling down my chest, and true to my Arizona upbringing, I did the first thing that came to mind. I pulled my shirt off to tuck it into my pants pocket.

  Cyra’s eyes widened slightly as she looked at my muscular frame and biceps. Then she hurriedly looked away and kept walking again, but I could have sworn she kept checking the horizon in my direction more than usual after that. I knew I was in great shape since I had to be for my job, but I usually didn’t notice my build much until I caught women staring at my biceps. Still, I was a little surprised I could turn an angel’s eye, but maybe she’d just never seen a human man’s chest before.

  “So, the dragons left,” I said. “Then what happened?”

  “The gods punished the people,” Cyra said. “They split Dracoria up into different lands and left each of them in a Hellish prison of their own design, so to speak. Nobody from each land would be able to leave, and so they couldn’t fight anymore.”

  “And the gods?” I asked, and a flicker of sadness appeared over Cyra’s face.

  “They left right after that,” she said in a quieter tone. “The gods turned their backs on Dracoria. They left it to perish.”

  “Shit,” I said as I glanced up at the hazy sun. “What did all the people do?”

 

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