{"id":5725,"date":"2026-01-04T01:45:58","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T01:45:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/fallen-05-unforgiven-kate-lauren\/"},"modified":"2026-01-04T01:45:58","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T01:45:58","slug":"fallen-05-unforgiven-kate-lauren","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/fallen-05-unforgiven-kate-lauren\/","title":{"rendered":"Fallen 05 – Unforgiven – Kate, Lauren"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Book Preview<\/h3>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n
\n
\"PROLOGUE\"PROLOGUE<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

C<\/span>am\u2019s boots touched down on the eaves of the old church beneath a cold and starry sky. He drew his wings close and gazed out at the landscape. Spanish moss, white in the moonlight, hung like icicles from antebellum trees. Cinder-block buildings framed a weedy field and a pair of splintery bleachers. Wind rustled in from the sea.<\/p>\n

Winter break at Sword & Cross Reform School. Not a soul on campus. What was he doing here?<\/p>\n

It was minutes after midnight, and he\u2019d just flown in from Troy. He\u2019d made the journey in a haze, an unknown force guiding his wings. He found himself humming a tune he hadn\u2019t let himself remember for several thousand years. Maybe he\u2019d come back here because this was where the fallen angels had met Luce in her last, cursed life. It had been her three hundred and twenty-fourth incarnation\u2014and the three hundred and twenty-fourth time the fallen angels had flocked together to see how the curse would play out.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

The curse was broken now. Luce and Daniel were free.<\/p>\n

And dammit if Cam wasn\u2019t jealous.<\/p>\n

His gaze swept across the cemetery. He would never have guessed he\u2019d feel nostalgic for this junkyard, but there had been something thrilling about those early days at Sword & Cross. Lucinda\u2019s spark had been brighter, keeping the angels guessing when they\u2019d once believed they knew what to expect.<\/p>\n

For six millennia, each time she turned seventeen, they\u2019d staged a variation of the same performance: the demons\u2014Cam, Roland, and Molly\u2014tried everything to sway Luce\u2019s alliances to Lucifer, while the angels\u2014Arriane and Gabbe and sometimes Annabelle\u2014worked to usher Luce back into Heaven\u2019s fold. Neither side had ever come close to winning her over.<\/p>\n

For every time Luce met Daniel\u2014and she always met Daniel\u2014nothing mattered as much as their love. Time and again, they fell for each other, and time and again, Luce died in a blaze of fire.<\/p>\n

Then, one night at Sword & Cross, everything changed. Daniel kissed Lucinda, and she lived. They all knew it then. Luce was finally going to be allowed to choose.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

A few weeks later they all flew to the site of their original fall, to Troy, where Lucinda chose her destiny. She and Daniel again refused to side with Heaven or with Hell. Instead, they chose each other. They gave up their immortality to spend one mortal lifetime together.<\/p>\n

Luce and Daniel were gone now, but they were still on Cam\u2019s mind. Their triumphant love made him yearn for something he dared not put into words.<\/p>\n

He was humming again. That song. Even after all this time, he remembered it\u2026.<\/p>\n

He closed his eyes and saw its singer: the back of her red hair woven loosely in a braid, her long fingers caressing the strings of a lyre as she leaned against a tree.<\/p>\n

He hadn\u2019t let himself think of her in thousands of years. Why now?<\/p>\n

\u201cThis can\u2019s busted,\u201d a familiar voice said. \u201cToss me another?\u201d<\/p>\n

Cam spun around. No one was there.<\/p>\n

He noticed a flicker of movement through the shattered stained-glass window on the roof. He edged forward and peered down through it, into the chapel Sophia Bliss had used as her office when she was the Sword & Cross librarian.<\/p>\n

Inside the chapel, Arriane\u2019s iridescent wings flexed as she shook a can of spray paint and rose off the ground, aiming the nozzle at the wall.<\/p>\n

Her mural featured a girl in a glowing blue forest. She wore a tiered black dress and looked up at a blond boy who held out a white peony. Luce and Daniel 4ever<\/em> Arriane sprayed in gothic silver letters over the bell of the girl\u2019s skirt.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Behind Arriane, a dark-skinned demon with dreadlocks was lighting a tall glass candle showing Santa Muerte, the goddess of death. Roland was making a shrine at the site where Sophia had murdered Luce\u2019s friend Penn.<\/p>\n

Fallen angels couldn\u2019t enter sanctuaries of God. As soon as they crossed the threshold, the whole place would go up in flames, incinerating every mortal inside. But this chapel had been desanctified when Miss Sophia had moved in.<\/p>\n

Cam spread his wings and dropped through the broken window, landing behind Arriane.<\/p>\n

\u201cCam.\u201d Roland embraced his friend.<\/p>\n

\u201cTake it easy,\u201d Cam said, but he didn\u2019t pull away.<\/p>\n

Roland tilted his head. \u201cQuite a coincidence, finding you here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIs it?\u201d Cam asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot if you like carnitas,<\/em>\u201d Arriane said, tossing Cam a small foil-wrapped package. \u201cRemember the taco truck on Lovington? I\u2019ve been craving these ever since we fled this swamp.\u201d She opened her own foil package and devoured her taco in two bites. \u201cDelish.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat are you doing here?\u201d Roland asked Cam.<\/p>\n

Cam leaned against a cold marble pillar and shrugged. \u201cI left my Les Paul in the dorm.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAll this way for a guitar?\u201d Roland nodded. \u201cI suppose we\u2019ve all got to find new ways to fill our endless days, now that Luce and Daniel are gone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cam had always hated the force that pulled the fallen angels to the cursed lovers every seventeen years. He\u2019d left battlefields and coronations. He\u2019d left the arms of exquisite girls. Once he\u2019d walked off a movie set. He\u2019d dropped everything for Luce and Daniel. But now that the irresistible pull was gone, he missed it.<\/p>\n

His eternity was open wide. What was he going to do with it?<\/p>\n

\u201cDid what happened in Troy give you, I don\u2019t know\u2026\u201d Roland trailed off.<\/p>\n

\u201cHope?\u201d Arriane grabbed Cam\u2019s uneaten taco and downed it. \u201cIf, after all these thousands of years, Luce and Daniel can stand up to the Throne and seize a happy ending, why can\u2019t anyone? Why can\u2019t we<\/em>?\u201d<\/p>\n

Cam gazed through the shattered window. \u201cMaybe I\u2019m not that kind of guy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all carry pieces of our journeys within us,\u201d Roland said. \u201cWe all learn from our mistakes. Who\u2019s to say we don\u2019t deserve happiness?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cListen to us.\u201d Arriane touched the scars on her neck. \u201cWhat do we three jaded birds of prey know about love?\u201d She looked from Cam to Roland. \u201cRight?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLove\u2019s not the exclusive property of Luce and Daniel,\u201d Roland said. \u201cWe\u2019ve all tasted it. Maybe we will again.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Roland\u2019s optimism struck a dissonant chord with Cam. \u201cNot me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Arriane sighed, arching her back to spread her wings and rise a few feet off the ground. A fluttering sound filled the empty church. With deft slashes of her can of white spray paint, she added the subtlest hint of wings above Lucinda\u2019s shoulders.<\/p>\n

Before the Fall, angels\u2019 wings were made of empyreal light, all of them perfect, one pair indistinguishable from the next. In the era since, their wings had become expressive of their personalities, their mistakes and impulses. The fallen angels who had given their allegiance to Lucifer bore golden wings. Those who had returned to the fold of Heaven bore the Throne\u2019s hint of silver throughout their fibers.<\/p>\n

Lucinda\u2019s wings had been special. They had been purely, stunningly white. Unspoiled. Innocent of the choices the rest of them had made. The only other fallen angel who had preserved his white wings was Daniel.<\/p>\n

Arriane crumpled the second taco wrapper. \u201cSometimes I wonder\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat?\u201d Roland asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you guys could go back and not screw up so epically in the love department, would you?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s the point of wondering?\u201d Cam asked. \u201cRosaline is dead.\u201d He saw Roland wince at the mention of his lost beloved. \u201cTess will never forgive you,\u201d he added, looking at Arriane. \u201cAnd Lilith\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

There. He\u2019d said her name.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Lilith was the only girl Cam had ever loved. He\u2019d asked her to marry him.<\/p>\n

It hadn\u2019t worked out.<\/p>\n

He heard her song again, throbbing in his soul, blinding him with regret.<\/p>\n

\u201cAre you humming?\u201d Arriane narrowed her eyes at Cam. \u201cSince when do you hum?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat about<\/em> Lilith?\u201d Roland said.<\/p>\n

Lilith was dead, too. Though Cam had never known how she had lived out her days on earth after they parted, he knew she would have left this world and ascended to Heaven long ago. If Cam were a different kind of guy, it might have brought him peace to imagine her enfolded in joy and light. But Heaven was so painfully distant, he found it best not to think of her at all.<\/p>\n

Roland seemed to be reading his mind. \u201cYou could do it your own way.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI do everything my own way,\u201d Cam said. His wings pulsed silently behind him.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s one of your best traits,\u201d Roland said, looking up at the stars through the ruined ceiling, then back at Cam again.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat?\u201d Cam asked.<\/p>\n

Roland laughed softly. \u201cI didn\u2019t say anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAllow me,\u201d Arriane said. \u201cCam, this is totally when everyone expects you to make one of your dramatic exits into that pocket in the clouds.\u201d She pointed to a rope of fog dangling from Orion\u2019s Belt.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cCam.\u201d Roland stared at Cam, alarmed. \u201cYour wings.\u201d<\/p>\n

Near the tip of Cam\u2019s left wing was a single, tiny white filament.<\/p>\n

Arriane gaped. \u201cWhat does it mean?\u201d<\/p>\n

It was one white fleck amid a field of gold, but it forced Cam to remember the moment his wings had changed from white to gold. He had long ago accepted his destiny, but now, for the first time in millennia, he imagined something else.<\/p>\n

Thanks to Luce and Daniel, Cam had a fresh start. And only one regret.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have to go.\u201d He fully extended his wings, and brilliant golden light flooded the chapel as Roland and Arriane leaped out of the way. The candle tipped and shattered, its flame dwindling on the cold stone floor.<\/p>\n

Cam shot into the sky, piercing the night, and headed toward the darkness that had been awaiting him since the moment he\u2019d flown away from Lilith\u2019s love. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Read the full book by downloading it below.<\/p>\n

DOWNLOAD EPUB<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Book Preview Cam\u2019s boots touched down on the eaves of the old church beneath a cold and starry sky. He drew his wings close and gazed out at the landscape. Spanish moss, white in the moonlight, hung like icicles from antebellum trees. Cinder-block buildings framed a weedy field and a pair of splintery bleachers. Wind … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5724,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[393],"class_list":["post-5725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-lauren-kate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5725\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}