A/N: So this is kind of different from my past fics. Okay, a lot different, but I've wanted to write an angel fic for so long. I have an affinity with angels. I always have. An angel fetish, you might say. What can I say, I swoon for an avenging angel. My mother claims I used to talk to Gabriel when I was 2. I have no memory of this, but hell, I wish I did! I wrote more than half of this as an original fiction and wasn't sure what to do with it, but then I figured, why not, I'll just convert it and post it here. This fic is kinda/sorta biblically correct, and then pure fiction. I have taken fallen angel names from the Book of Enoch, and some I made up. Dashiel, for instance, is made up. There is mention of Yeshua Ha Maschiac (aka Jesus), but just that. You don't have to be religious to get it, and it won't be preachy, but it will be mostly biblical canon. Dashiel will sometimes speak in Hebrew. But mostly just to swear when he's frustrated ;)

This fic is rated M for a reason. It's going to get VERY DARK. There'll be no rape, or anything like that, but some mention of the demons modus operadi and other such evil shenanigans. There will, however, be murder. A lot of it. Mostly angel on angel. They will battle and shit will get bloody and gruesome. Edward will also get fairly sadistic towards some. It's written from Edward's/Dashiel's POV. No POVs from Bella.
I am 25 chapters in, and I'm going to update once a week. The chapters will be around 2-3k long. I'll try my hardest not to fall behind. I'm deliberately keeping chapters shorter for that reason, and I'm not beta-ing at the moment, so I'm pretty freed up. Chapter one will be uploaded with the prologue. It's backstory in the beginning.
So, I guess that's it. It's not going to be everyone's cup of tea, but hope you give it a go.
And thank you to my spankee doodle loveling, Sammy Hale, who takes the art of fangirling to a cringey new level, but I love her immensely.

The Fallen

Prologue

I hate to be born. Never let it be said that the infant does not feel the pain of childbirth. They do. I would choose any method of torture over it, and the prospect of having to endure it for hundreds of years to come makes the idea of being cast into Hell a very desirable alternative. I envy that humans forget it almost immediately. I remember; I've remembered all ninety-one of mine. Ninety-one lives and over four thousand years of human existence, and still I'm no closer to returning home.

At the end of the twentieth century I am born for the ninety-second time. My parents, a professional, happily married couple in their late thirties, are from Connecticut in the United States. It's the third time I've been born in North America, and for that I'm somewhat grateful. While the US is not devoid of corruption, I no longer have the tolerance to be born in a country wracked by pestilence or war. I don't need to be reminded of how pitiless and barbaric humans are capable of being.

I'm an only child, and a long awaited one at that. My mother cries as she holds me, my father gazes down at me with pride, while hospital staff comment on how alert I am. Edward, they name me. A strong family name. Edward Anthony Cullen. It's how I'll be known for the next two decades, but it will mean nothing to me. And while these names I'm given are only temporary, they're a constant reminder of what I've been condemned to. I discard them as soon as I'm forced to run, along with all remnants of my human life; gladly, but it changes nothing. I am still an angel stripped of my position within the Celestial Order and cast out of Heaven; my real name shunned.

Dashiel I was once called; a name given to me by the Father of Creation Himself. Dashiel, pronounced Dash-ee-elle, and meaning Heart of God. The same God who has long since forsaken me; who has abandoned me to over four millennia of existing alongside humans. The same humans He claims to love above all else and yet allows them to suffer constantly throughout the ages; something I've been forced to bear witness to more times than I care to recall.

The human race never really had much hope. Flawed from their inception and bound and dominated by their flesh and blood bodies. More often than not they're primitive and irredeemable. Their faults far outweigh their attributes and they're capable of more horrors than all the demons in Hell. At least, that's my opinion after scores of centuries of living among them, but I didn't always think this way. Once I believed far differently, and all because of one.

Her.

My human father in this life, Carlisle Cullen, is a Cardiac Surgeon; a man of high esteem in his profession. He's intelligent, which will work to my advantage; they'll expect me to be as equally smart. So, when I start speaking in sentences before I'm a year old it shouldn't come as too much of a shock to them. My mother, Esme, is a freelance writer. Writing is her passion second only to the love she has for my father. They're two humans I probably wouldn't have been so averse to being born to under any other circumstance, but I'm not born to be a part of their family, or anyone's. I was never intended to have a place within humanity.

I remain detached from my parents as a rule. It makes the inevitability of leaving them easier. I'm unable to relate to them, or any human, and I don't by the very nature of my existence require the nurturing normal human children do. Still, during my first several lives I felt a strong sense of loyalty and protection towards them; traits inherent to every member of the Angelic Host, and something I had to fight to resist as a matter of my own survival. My human family can be incredibly dangerous for me as I am to them. They're a burden I'm forced to bear until I go through the earthbound angel's bar mitzvah; when my wings come in.

When human males go through puberty their voices break. I, on the other hand, sprout a pair of wings that span over nine feet when fully extended. My wings, pale grey as opposed to the stark white of my celestial brothers and sisters, are my biggest detriment, because the moment they shoot from my back they signal a beacon to every member of the Sons of God who walk the earth. That includes those who are fallen.

A/N: Yay? Nay?