A God to Fear (Thorn Saga Book 5) Read Online Free PDF

His head and paced in a circle. “I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know. What, uh—what would you guys do?”
    Flabbergasted at God’s casual question, the angels in the room glanced anxiously at each other. Though God appointed many advisors, He never asked for advice.
    No one spoke for a long moment.
    “We should at least wait to see how the demons react to Thorn,” Thilial finally said. “Maybe this situation will benefit You in the end after all.”
    “Ha.” God huffed at her. “Sure, whatever. Let’s wait.” Gleannor opened her mouth to protest, but God raised a finger at her. “Ready the armies, though. If it turns out that My plans have to go out with the garbage, I guess they might as well go out with a bang.”
    Gleannor bowed to God. She peered at Thilial out of the corner of her eye, and Thilial couldn’t tell whether her gaze held malice or mere pride. Gleannor and her fellow advisors strode away with forceful gaits.
    “And I guess I should punish you, too, huh?” God said to Thilial. He lumbered between her guards, His face tired and blank, then stopped centimeters from her. “For aiding Thorn, your punishment will be to lead a legion of angels into battle in Atlanta, if it comes to war. That is My will.”
    “Yes, Lord,” Thilial said. “I am Yours.”
    “Guards, leave her. She won’t make the same mistake thrice.”
    The guards bowed, then marched away in formation. God returned to the edge of the cliff. Silhouetted against the majesty of Heaven, He looked strangely small. Save for His wardrobe, He could easily have been just another angel, slinking down against one of the House’s many pillars.
    Thilial wanted to avoid the disrespect of flying above God, so she flapped her wings and flew back toward the waterfall entrance.
    Troubled thoughts clouded her mind. Never in her lifetime had angelkind hovered so close to war. She had no problem with killing demons. Yet after having spent a night talking with Thorn, she found her empathy toward humankind extending to include him as well. She knew that war among humans was wrong, that the killing of humans was wrong… By extension, wasn’t it also wrong to kill demons like Thorn? Certainly killing all of the demons would be wrong.
    Yet God had acknowledged that wiping out demonkind might be necessary, so it necessarily became moral.
    But as Thilial raced the falling water down toward the river below, she wondered if the exact same command would have been immoral if it had been made by anyone other than God.
    Lord, I am Yours. Keep me safe and give me Your strength.
    •
    Something big rustled in the dark and brushed against the walls and ceiling. Hadn’t that ceiling been much lower back where there’d been light to see it? Now the world was lost in absolute darkness wherever Brandon turned. The blood dribbling over his eyes didn’t help matters. The hallways seemed to consume ambient sound; nothing echoed or reverberated, so the slightest noise sounded clear and precise. Brandon couldn’t be sure how close the thing stirring in the darkness was.
    It growled. A deep guttural rumble. Heather gasped, and he felt her hand leave his. He reached for her, but she’d stepped away. Trying to ignore the pain bursting from his left arm, he felt around in the darkness for his wife. He didn’t dare say her name for fear of alerting whatever was out there to their presence.
    Where the hell are we? He’d been too dazed by the plane crash and his injuries, and too distracted by Heather’s urgent fleeing to consider what was happening. Now that full awareness had returned to him, fear clawed at him as well.
    The behemoth in the darkness shifted again, and Brandon thought he heard heavy footfalls thumping against the floor. They were moving in his direction.
    Brandon turned and stumbled forward, trying to keep his own footsteps quiet. He reached out and—thank goodness—felt a wall. The wall gave him enough reference to move forward more