Curse of the Fallen by Eve Archer

Chapter Seventeen

Dominick

“Get her in the car!” I yelled, as more Fallen raced from the villa, demons staggering after them.

Sara’s shocked gaze had never left us, though, and she barely reacted when Rami pushed her into the backseat of an SUV and hopped in beside her. With a final glance back at the carnage behind us, I ran around to the other side of the vehicle and jumped in as the car began to move.

Pulling the door closed as we accelerated down the drive and back onto the dusty road, I flinched as Sara’s hand hit my chest.

Ow. She might not be big, but the woman could hit.

I blocked her next hit with my own hand, grasping her by the wrist. “I understand you might be upset.”

“Upset?” she shrieked loud enough to make the Fallen who was driving cut his eyes to us in the rearview mirror, and the one in the passenger’s seat crane his neck to look back. “You’re some kind of dragon or demon. Of course, I’m upset.”

“I’m not a dragon or a demon,” I said, keeping my own voice steady as she struggled to free her hand, no doubt to hit me again. “And you were never supposed to see that.”

I cursed myself in several ancient languages for forgetting the human was in the cars, and for getting so caught up in the battle against Jaya and the demons—and in my fury at not finding Ella—that I’d flown in front of her best friend.

“I’ll bet I wasn’t.” She looked between me and Rami, who sat on either side of her, boxing her in on the backseat. We hadn’t planned it, but I now realized that our bodies were probably the only things keeping her from leaping from the moving car.

“We can explain,” Rami said, then clamped his lips together when she spun around to face him, her eyes blazing with rage.

“Unless you two are stunt men, and we happened to walk onto a movie set where you’re playing some sort of flying monkey, I’m guessing I’m not going to like your explanation.”

“Flying monkey?” I shook my head. I’d been called many things, but flying monkey was not one of them.

“Does Ella know about this?” She swung her head back to me, her eyes unblinking. “Is that why you two got split up? Was she running from you because you’re a winged monster?”

“We are not monsters,” I said, my voice sharp. “We are angels.”

She tilted her head at me as she absorbed this. Then she slitted her eyes at me. “With black wings?”

“Fallen angels,” Rami said.

She looked over at him, nodding and apparently deciding that he was trustworthy enough to be believed. “That sounds more like it.” She gave him a quick once-over. “You both fit the bill, not that I ever spent much time imagining what fallen angels would look like because, you know, I never thought I’d run into one.”

She’d stopped flailing at me, so I released her wrist. “To answer your question, yes. Ella did know about me.” I inclined my head toward Rami. “About us. She didn’t believe me at first, but then I was forced to reveal my wings.”

“Yeah.” Sara rubbed her wrist and gave me a dark look. “That would pretty much do it.”

“I’m sorry you were startled by our appearance,” Rami said. “We were distracted by the battle.”

She gave him a slight smile, and I couldn’t help thinking that she’d never smiled at me like that. Or accepted my apologies.

Sara swiveled her gaze back to me. “That’s another thing. I thought we were going to pick up Ella, and all of the sudden there’s a huge fight breaking out. Your goons wouldn’t let me go inside, but I could see that you were ambushed.”

“Demons,” I said under my breath, as if the word was a curse.

Sara held my eyes before twisting back to Rami. “Is he serious? Those guys in black leather who looked like they belonged in a motorcycle club were demons? You were fighting off actual fire-and-brimstone devils?”

“Yes, I’m serious,” I said, before Rami could answer, irritated that she was questioning my authority to my second-in-command.

“The demons here on earth don’t come from hell,” Rami explained. “Not usually, at least. These demons are the remnants and descendants of Nephilim, who have roamed this realm with us for thousands of years. And there is only one devil, and he is in hell.”

“And he’s not a demon,” I muttered. “He’s a fallen angel, like us.”

I wouldn’t have minded if Lucifer—known to me as Samiel—joined our fight, because he would undoubtably choose to battle on the side of the Fallen. Even though he’d dwelled with demons for millennia, he was still one of the Fallen. He’d just fallen much earlier than we had.

“Forgive me for not being up on my angel trivia and demonology,” Sara mumbled, shooting me a side-eye glance. “It doesn’t come up in everyday American life.”

“Don’t feel bad,” I told her. “Humans rarely notice the things that are around them.”

She ignored my statement. “So, I’m taking it Ella wasn’t in that house that you guys just tore up?”

I clenched my jaw at the reminder of our failure. “She was not. From what Jaya said, she was taken away.”

Rami glanced at me over Sara. “You believe her?”

I shrugged. “Ella wasn’t there. It makes sense that Jaya would lure us to the house for an ambush but take the prize away in case she was defeated.”

“Did you seriously just call my best friend ‘the prize?’”

“Dominick was using a figure of—“ Rami started to say.

Sara threw up one palm. “Oh, I understand what he meant. Ella is some pawn in your demon angel war. She didn’t disappear. She was taken. I’m guessing by demons, right?”

Rami cleared his throat. “You are right.”

I sighed loudly, pinning my friend with my gaze. Did he intend to tell the human everything? Did he not see that she was unstable?

“It’s crucial you keep this information to yourself,” I said. “For Ella’s safety, as much as anything.”

Sara let out a mirthless laugh. “You really think I’m going to run around telling people that there are fallen angels and demons? I might be considered a free spirit, but I don’t want people to think I’m full-on crazy.” She looked from Rami to me and back again. “There isn’t some mind-clearing spell you’re going to cast on me to keep me from remembering?”

“We aren’t witches,” I said. “We’re angels who now occupy the mortal realm.”

“What does that mean? Do you have powers?”

“We are powerful immortal beings, but we can no longer perform miracles,” Rami said.

“Or wipe memories,” I grumbled, even though if I could clear memories, I’d gladly clear my own mind of any trace of this aggravating human.

“What about Ella?” Sara asked. “You’ve been asking me a bunch of weird questions about her and her family. What’s the deal with her joining up with you, and don’t even think of telling me it was a coincidence, or she has nothing to do with any of this angel-demon thing because I’ll know you’re lying.”

The woman might be annoying, but she was clever. I bit my lower lip in hesitation. I’d never purposefully revealed our secrets to humans—aside from Ella—and it went against every rule I’d spent thousands of years following.

“Your friend carries an angel’s mark,” Rami said, before I could determine how much—if anything—I was going to tell Sara.

“What?” Sara whispered. “What does that mean, an angel’s mark?”

I glared at Rami, but he continued. He was clearly entranced by this female and not thinking straight, something he and I would be discussing very soon.

“She was either saved by an angel’s intervention, or her birth was angelically aided.”

Sara cocked an eyebrow. “So, she’s here because of some sort of angel miracle, and that means she’s marked?”

“Not physically,” I said. “She carries the trace of the angel that celestial beings can sense.”

“So, you could tell she was marked by an angel when you met her?”

I nodded. “The instant we touched.”

“Does it make her more desirable to you?”

I shifted in my seat but nodded. “It makes her impossible to resist.”

“So, you’re obsessed with her, then? That’s why you’re flying all over to find her?”

“I’m not obsessed,” I snapped back as the car came to a stop on the tarmac where our plane sat ready to depart. “I’m in love with her.”

There was a beat of silence in the car. Even the Fallen in the front stiffened at my confession. Then Sara twisted to face me and slapped me hard across the face.

Rami sucked in air, and both Fallen in front spun to face us.

“That’s for dragging my best friend into all this and putting her life in danger.” She touched a hand to her black hair and gave me a half smile. “Now, are we going to go find her or what?”