The Magical Healing and Dangerous Awakening of Nathaniel Gray
There’s something electric about a story that takes you by surprise—even when you’re the one writing it.
Angel Touched began as a quick, hopeful story about healing. Instead, it became something much darker: a supernatural awakening laced with temptation, hidden magic, and the dangerous pull of destiny.
Set within the Jack Mac Paidin Universe, Angel Touched introduces fifteen-year-old Nathaniel Gray—a boy who has spent far too long fighting for his life and is about to discover that surviving may only be the beginning.
Meet Nathaniel Gray: A Miraculous Healing With Unexpected Consequences
Nathaniel’s story begins in a hospital room.
At fifteen, he’s been fighting cancer for far too long. He’s bitter, exhausted, and reaching the point where he’s ready to give up.
Then he meets Faith Portner, a girl descended from an ancient angelic bloodline.
Faith visits Nathaniel’s hospital as part of a youth group. Her only intention is to offer comfort to a sick boy.
But one touch changes everything.
Nathaniel is healed.
Completely.
Magically.
It should be the miracle he’s been waiting for.
Instead, it’s the spark that ignites something far more dangerous.
When Healing Becomes a Supernatural Awakening
Nathaniel soon realizes that being healed isn’t the only thing that has changed.
Something is different inside him.
His strength. His senses. His awareness of the world around him.
Abilities he doesn’t understand begin emerging, and the boy who had resigned himself to dying suddenly finds himself confronting an entirely different question:
What exactly has he become?
The answer becomes even more complicated when another figure from the Jack Mac Paidin Universe enters Nathaniel’s story.
Ethan and the Dangerous Pull of Power
One of my favorite moments in Angel Touched is a dream encounter between Nathaniel and Ethan, a mysterious figure with glowing eyes and a history far darker than Nathaniel realizes.
Ethan isn’t there simply to explain what’s happening.
He’s there to tempt Nathaniel into embracing it.
“You’ve noticed it,” Ethan said. “The strength. The senses. The clarity. It’s not a curse. It’s the gods reminding you what you are — what you were always meant to be. The sooner you stop fearing it, the sooner you can decide what to do with it… before someone else decides for you.”
Ethan understands something Nathaniel is only beginning to discover:
Power can be intoxicating.
And Nathaniel has spent so long feeling powerless that the temptation to embrace his newfound abilities may be especially difficult to resist.
How Angel Touched Fits Into the Jack Mac Paidin Universe
Although Angel Touched stands on its own as a YA fantasy novella, it also expands the mythology of the Jack Mac Paidin series.
Readers of the series will recognize Faith Portner, who first appears in The Magical Legacy. Angel Touched reaches back into Faith’s earlier timeline and reveals the miraculous healing that sets Nathaniel’s supernatural awakening into motion.
It also gives readers another glimpse of Ethan and the increasingly complicated relationship between power, identity, temptation, and destiny that runs throughout the Jack Mac Paidin Universe.
What begins as one extraordinary act of healing creates consequences that extend far beyond a single hospital room.
Do You Need to Read the Jack Mac Paidin Series First?
No.
Angel Touched was written as a standalone story within the larger Jack Mac Paidin Universe, so you can meet Nathaniel and experience his awakening without having read the main series first.
If you’re already a Jack Mac Paidin reader, however, you’ll recognize familiar characters and connections—and discover another piece of the larger story.
Either way, Angel Touched offers a darker doorway into a world of ancient bloodlines, supernatural abilities, dangerous choices, and magic that rarely comes without consequences.
Enter the World of Angel Touched
If you enjoy YA fantasy, supernatural awakenings, angelic bloodlines, morally complicated characters, hidden powers, and stories where magic has a darker edge, Angel Touched may be your kind of story.
Nathaniel Gray has been given his life back.
Now he has to decide what he’s going to do with the power that came with it.
Angel Touched is available now on Amazon.
More From the Jack Mac Paidin Universe
Angel Touched is part of the expanding Jack Mac Paidin Universe, a fantasy world filled with ancient magic, extraordinary abilities, hidden realms, complicated families, and a battle between forces far older than the children caught in the middle.
Explore my books, the Jack Mac Paidin series, and more from my fictional worlds at TracyPartridgeJohnson.com.