Curse of the Fallen by Eve Archer

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Dominick

“Is she dead?”

Even though Ella shook as I held her, her expression was intense as she eyed the stone ledge Lilith had flown over. I curled one dark wing over her shoulder to warm her, bending my head down and tucking her head beneath my chin.

“She’s gone,” I assured her. I couldn’t promise the demon was dead. She was Lilith, after all, and I doubted one fall would finish off the creature who’d survived for thousands of years.

I leaned my head toward the ledge, peering over the side and seeing no body at the bottom. Not that I’d expected to see one.

Muffled sounds drew my head up. “What’s that?”

“Oh!” Ella wiggled from my grasp. “Rami and Sara are trapped behind the rocks.”

She ran to a pile of rubble covering what had been the entrance to the tunnel connecting the dungeon with the cliffside path to the cove. I joined her, appraising the pile and the size of the rocks. There were a lot, which explained why Rami hadn’t managed to dig himself out yet.

The air stirred behind us, and Gadriel and Asbeel landed with soft thuds on the path.

“What’s this?” Gadriel smoothed a hand across his bald head as he eyed the hidden tunnel, which was now much more hidden.

“Rami’s back there,” I said. “Courtesy of Lilith.”

Both angels growled their displeasure, tucking their wings behind them and joining me in tossing the rubble aside. Even Ella helped move the rocks, although her human strength was no match for ours.

“I see light!” Sara’s voice from inside the tunnel was shaky.

We kicked aside the last few stones, waving away the dust that had puffed up as Rami led Sara from the tunnel and into the light.

Sara launched herself at Ella, wrapping her arms around her friend’s neck. “I thought you were a goner. I could hear everything that crazy bitch said. I was sure she was going to kill you.”

“She was very concerned,” Rami said, raising his eyebrows at me.

“She tried,” Ella said, “but Dominick showed up, and we took her out together.”

Pride surged inside me as I looked at Ella. She was no longer the tentative woman who’d been too complacent to break up with her awful boyfriend. She was confident and strong, everything I needed in a mate.

“About that.” Sara held Ella at arm’s length and looked down at her hands. “What’s up with your hands? You burned that demon to a crisp.”

I also looked at Ella’s hands. “You did that to him?”

“I didn’t mean to. Well, not exactly. He was going for Sara, and I acted without thinking.” She peered at her hands, turning them over. “I think that’s how it works. I have to really need the power in order to harness it.”

“But since when have you had powers at all?” Sara asked. “I’ve known you for years and you’ve never scorched anyone to death, and there were plenty of people in your life who sorely needed it.”

Ella glanced at me for answers, but I had none. I’d never heard of a human—even one with an angelic mark—who also had powers. Even the fallen angels no longer had the powers we once did, although it wasn’t lost on me that twice now Ella and I had worked together to harness her energy. Was this what the prophecy meant? Would our union mean more than just a joining of two creatures with angelic properties? Did our mating restore some of my powers to me? Was this the first step in the restoration of the Fallen?

I turned to Rami. “Have you sensed any change in your abilities?”

He furrowed his brow and shook his head. I turned to Gad and Asbeel, posing the same question to them. They seemed even more perplexed, assuring me that they hadn’t noticed anything different about themselves or the other Fallen.

“Do you know what this means?” Ella asked. “Or why it’s happening to me?”

“You know you carry an angel’s mark,” I said. “But we don’t know how you got it.”

“I was never in any kind of accident to be saved from.” She took a shuddering breath. “But my mother did call me her miracle baby.”

I nodded. So, her conception had been divinely aided.

“I’m still getting used to the fact that angels actually do perform miracles,” Sara said, raking a hand through her hair. “I guess I was wrong to think everyone who claimed to have been saved by divine intervention was a crackpot.”

“You were not wrong,” Rami grumbled. “Most of them are delusional. Angels no longer move freely between the human and celestial realms like they used to.”

I’d always suspected that the archangels had ceased their interactions so that there would be little to no chance of the prophecy ever being fulfilled, but Ella proved that assumption wrong. What else had I been assuming about the archangels that was false?

“Dom?”

Rami’s uttering of my name carried a host of questions with it—the same questions I suspected I was asking myself. The archangels rarely interfered with humans anymore, and it had been hundreds of years since we’d even heard about a barren woman being aided by divine intervention. Or so we’d thought.

I stopped his questions with a single, sharp look. Ella had just survived another demon attack, this one by Lilith, herself. She was in no state to discuss what her powers might mean, or why she even possessed them. An overwhelming urge to protect her—even from my own need to know—surged through me, and I looped an arm around her waist. “There will be time enough for those discussions later.”

Gadriel cleared his throat. “Now that the island is demon-free, we should talk about shoring up our defenses. We’ve never been breached before.”

Asbeel crossed his arms over his chest. “I, for one, don’t want to see a demon on these grounds ever again.”

Ella snapped her fingers. “There are two in the dungeons.”

“Demons?” I put the question to Rami, who nodded.

“We were surprised by them as we made our way to the tunnel.” Rami’s voice dropped. “Dan killed them so we could escape.”

A deadly rumble emanated from Asbeel. “The traitor had second thoughts about which side he’s on?”

I silenced him by raising my fist. “The traitor is still one of the Fallen.”

Asbeel met my gaze, anger burning hot in his eyes, as it usually did. Then the ire was doused, and he looked away with a shrug. “You are the one who was betrayed. You are the one who decides his fate.”

The thought of dealing with Dan made heat skitter across my flesh. He might have taken out a demon and helped Ella, Rami, and Sara escape, but that couldn’t undo his deception and betrayal. Forgiveness wasn’t a divine attribute I’d ever embraced, and I had no intention of forgetting the fallen angel’s attempt to kill Ella.

“Gather the demon corpses,” I said. “I want their bodies to burn, and Mastema to see the pyre from his lair. Then, after we shore up our defenses, we will have a feast to celebrate our victories.” I glanced down at Ella. “And my love’s birthday.”

She blinked rapidly, a look of genuine surprise crossing her face. “I’d almost forgotten. I’ve lost all track of days.”

Sara put both hands to her cheeks. “That’s right. Your thirtieth birthday is in two days.”

Gadriel rubbed his hands together. “It’s been a long time since we’ve had a victory banquet.”

Rami’s gaze flitted to the two human women. “An even longer since we celebrated any birthday with only two digits.”

Angels didn’t have birthdays, but we’d stopped celebrating anything that marked the passing of time long ago.

“We don’t need to make a big deal about it,” Ella said, her cheeks flushing, almost as if she could sense the strange sensation a birthday celebration provoked for us.

I took her hand in mine, rubbing my thumb over the back of it. “Of course, we do. If anyone deserves a party, it’s you.”

“Will it be like our celebrations of old?” Gadriel asked, his dark eyes dancing.

The feasts we’d had when we were newly fallen angels had been epic bacchanals, and even the celebrations we’d held as the centuries had advanced and our appetites tempered had been raucous, wings-out affairs. But it was nothing that Ella couldn’t handle, especially if she intended to be my mate. Glancing at Rami, his gaze on Sara, I suspected she might need to get comfortable with the true nature of the Fallen, as well.

“It will eclipse them,” I said with a wicked grin.