Wrath of the Fallen by Eve Archer
Chapter Thirty-Two
Ella
I stepped into the hotel lobby, holding my phone in front of me like a divining rod and glancing over my shoulder as the taxi driver sped off. I was still a little amazed I’d been able to slip from the demon’s lair and make it all the way to downtown Paris without a fleet of demons pursuing me. It helped my escape that the demon prince who ordered all the pursuing was out with Dominick and Rami, and that the gate had been left open when they’d torn from the place. Of course, I’d been so determined to find Dominick and tell him what I’d discovered that I probably would have scaled the stone walls if the gate had been locked.
Pausing inside the luxury hotel to get my bearings, I allowed myself a moment to soak in the beauty of the ivory marble floors elegantly patterned with gray and gold. I stepped through a stone archway and passed a marble sculpture on a pedestal. The crystal chandelier hanging in the middle of the lobby glittered and glowed from the tall lit candles rising from it, and a breathtaking array of fresh flowers was arranged on a glossy, wooden table beneath the chandelier.
I breathed in the heady scent of the open lilies, scanning the space for any sign of Sara. I looked at my phone again. According to the app, she should be here.
“Ella?”
I whirled around to see Sara approaching me, Caspiel following a step or two behind her. Sara wore wide-legged, white linen pants that flapped around her ankles and a brightly printed loose tank top she’d tucked half into her pants. Her black hair was arranged in a smooth chignon at the base of her neck. Even though she was a hard-core New Yorker, she managed to look more effortlessly Parisian than I ever could.
“Sara.” I loosed a breath of relief to see that she was safe as I pulled her into a hug. “I found you.”
She tilted her head at me when I pulled away. “How long have you been looking for me?”
“Since I found your note this morning.” I waved my phone in the air. “Since you didn’t answer any of my calls, I panicked. We all did.”
Sara stole a quick glance at the handsome demon who wore beige pants and a cream-colored, button-down, with the sleeves rolled up to the elbow. “Caspiel insisted on keeping my phone while we toured Paris so I wouldn’t be distracted.”
“Americans are too attached to their phones,” Caspiel said, with an easy smile. “You cannot truly experience a city such as Paris with your eyes glued to a screen.”
He had a point but was that why he’d commandeered Sara’s phone?
“You’re sightseeing?” I tried to keep my voice level, but it veered slightly into howler monkey territory. “I thought you’d run back to New York. I thought you’d left for good.”
She blinked at me, clearly startled by my reaction. “I said I needed to clear my head. I never said I was leaving Paris.”
I fluttered a hand at the overnight bag hanging from Caspiel’s shoulder. “You took all your things.”
“I needed to get away from that place.” She lowered her voice. “It made me feel weird, so I thought I’d book a hotel room downtown so I could actually see something of the famous city. It’s not like I’m the one in danger. No archangels or demons are coming after me.”
She had a point, but I still didn’t get why she’d run off without warning. And why not say she wanted to stay someplace else? “You couldn’t have told me that? You had to take off in the middle of the night?”
She frowned. “It wasn’t the middle of the night. It was morning, but I barely slept all night. I was tossing and turning and thinking about everything you said, and Rami pledging to work for Mastema. I came down to sneak some early breakfast when I ran into Caspiel. I ended up spilling my entire sad sob story.”
I flicked my gaze to the demon, but his innocent smile never wavered.
“He’s the one who suggested I needed to get away and clear my head, maybe stay someplace else.”
“I’ll bet he was,” I muttered.
“I would have wakened you to tell you, but I figured you needed all the rest you could get.” She winked at me. “The walls in the chateau are thick, but they aren’t that thick.”
Heat rushed to my cheeks as I thought of Sara hearing my moans and screams the night before. I hadn’t even tried to be quiet, and I’d been too overwhelmed with desire to care who heard. She was right about one thing—the demon lair altered our self-control.
I crossed my arms over my chest attempting to ignore my embarrassment and play it cool, something at which I had never excelled. “So, did it work? Do you feel better?”
She laughed. “It hasn’t been that long, but yeah, I do.” She reached for my hand. “I love you for wanting to include me in your new world, but it isn’t my life, and I don’t want to be a hanger-on.”
“You could never be—“
“I know, I know,” she said before I could finish my protests. “And I love you for saying that, but I can’t keep pretending that I don’t have a life in New York. As fun as it was to get swept up into your crazy adventure, it hasn’t been the best thing for me.” She held up her fingers on one hand. “I got shot and somehow survived, I’ve been chased by demons, I nearly escaped watching you get sliced and diced by the angel of death, and I fell for a completely unavailable guy.”
My heart squeezed as I thought about Rami and how panicked he’d been when I’d run in and announced that Sara was gone. “He’s looking for you, by the way. He and Dominick and Mastema left ahead of me to track you down. I’m surprised they didn’t find you first. Mastema said he had a way of tracking all his demons.”
Caspiel’s face blanched. “Mastema is looking for me?”
I nodded, secretly pleased that the unflappable demon looked worried. “He wasn’t pleased when he couldn’t find you this morning.”
Caspiel turned on his heel, retrieving his phone from his pocket and tapping the screen as he walked away to make a call.
I took the opportunity to pull Sara even further away from him. “You didn’t run off with him, did you? You weren’t trying to clear your head by having a fling with a demon, were you?”
She gave me a severe look. “Of course not. He may be hot, but the last thing I need is to confuse things with another guy.”
I cut my gaze to the glass doors leading outside. “I guess I should be glad Rami didn’t find you first. I don’t think he would have been too thrilled to find you checking into a luxury hotel in Paris with Caspiel.”
Sara sighed. “I get the idea that the dislike is mutual.”
“They should have a fun year working together.”
At that moment, Caspiel rejoined us, some of the color back in his cheeks. “You were right. Mastema has been looking for me. He’s actually close to the hotel now.”
“So, he was able to track you,” I said. “But my app still beat his fancy demon tracking system.”
“He actually tracked us to another location first, but we hopped in a cab and left before they could spot us.”
“Mastema was at Notre Dame?” Sara asked.
I swung my head back to her. “You were at Notre Dame?”
“Right before we came here. I was interested in seeing the progression of the construction, but we barely stayed for any time at all.”
“You’re seeing Paris without me,” I said, making a face. “Please don’t tell me you’ve already been to the top of the Eiffel Tower.”
Caspiel wrinkled his nose. “So touristy.”
Sara looped her arm through mine. “How about you and I spend the day playing tourist, and we tell all the demons and angels,” she slid her gaze to the demon and dropped her voice to a whisper, “to take a hike?”
“Sounds perfect.”
Caspiel scowled. “Mastema will not like this.”
I doubted Dominick would, either.
Sara led me through the ornate lobby and back through the glass doors leading to the street. Once we were outside, I peered up at the stormy sky. “Then again, maybe today isn’t the best day to walk around Paris.”
“Notre Dame,” Caspiel whispered from behind when he joined us outside.
I squinted over the rooftops and could see the distinctive towers of the cathedral and the lightning shattering the sky around them. My mouth went dry when I recognized the dark, swirling clouds massing over the cathedral in an otherwise blue sky.
This wasn’t bad weather. This was an angel attack, and my gut told me who was on the receiving end of the celestial wrath.
