Demon Fire (The Angel Fire Book 3) by Marie Johnston (best authors to read .txt) 📗

No one would help her, but if the baby had wings? Her realm would take it in a heartbeat. Take it and never look back.

She couldn’t let that happen. But wings? And how was she going to raise a baby?

Would it be better to let them take it?

Ferocious protectiveness welled until she leaned over the human the demon inhabited. “Leave this bathroom and never come back and I won’t let it slip when demons come for me that you were willing to strike a bargain.”

The host blanched. The demon inside tightened his mouth. “Dammit, Sierra, I don’t have time for this.”

He struck out, a blade she hadn’t noticed slicing the back of her hand. She hissed and raised a fist to punch the demon, stopping short because she’d do serious damage to the frail human. He clapped his hand over hers, rubbing the beads of blood between their skin.

She tried to tug away, but the host grew stronger with each second. “What the hell are you—”

The grip tightened more than it should for the older woman and the image of the demon grew clearer, more defined.

Sierra stopped fighting against his hold, her arm going still. She glanced down at her hand. The woman’s arthritic fingers gripped her, but she felt the much larger hands that overlaid them. She shouldn’t feel him. She shouldn’t see him so well, shouldn’t see the clear blue of his irises or how his horns curved into his thick hair.

“I can see you,” she whispered.

His eyes glinted and his jaw clenched as he gazed down at their hands. “You should be doing more than fucking seeing me.”

His voice. The deep rumble of his voice was clearer than the reedy words of the old woman. He released her, looked at the red smeared along the wrinkled skin of the palm, and then yanked her hand again.

Sierra’s curiosity let him. What the hell was going on?

“I should be free of this host,” he gritted out. “Maybe it’s your blood.”

She yanked her hand away and shoved it under the faucet. He watched, his scowl on her cut the whole time. “Thanks, asshole. I’m going to have a scar.”

“Fallen don’t scar.”

She glanced at him. “How do you know?”

He lifted a shoulder. “Jameson didn’t have any. He didn’t even age.”

“Don’t remind me,” she muttered. Jameson’s body had been perfection, his only scars the ones from losing his wings. She had her own. “We can’t base our knowledge of fallen on Jameson. He was different.”

“Was he different, or determined?” The demon watched her. “You sound downright sentimental. Don’t tell me he got to you.”

The human’s voice was stronger than the demon’s. Whatever her blood had done was fading.

She slapped a paper towel over her cut and glared at the demon. “Since your experiment failed, care to tell me what my blood was supposed to do?”

“Let me walk free.”

She chuffed out a laugh. He said it so plainly, it was like he actually believed it.

His steady stare made her think about what had happened. She’d felt him. She’d heard him. Not the host. Him. “That’s not possible.”

“It was possible with Jameson’s blood. It should be possible with yours.”

“I’m not Jameson. What’s your name?” He lifted a brow and she rolled her eyes. “What happened to the ‘we’re in this together’ bullshit?”

“Such language for an angel.”

“Such odd behavior for a demon.”

His shoulders slumped. He wasn’t a normal demon and he knew it. He might be wicked, but he wasn’t evil. What must his life be like?

She had no place in her for sympathy for a demon. Her empathy had no place either.

She got another paper towel and wrapped it around her hand. She wasn’t a beacon of goodness like the other angels she’d grown up with. But then she knew why— Her head snapped up and she gasped.

He caught her gaze. “What?”

“Nothing.” Did he even know? She’d keep it to herself. She’d have to. “Boone’s going to come looking for me. Sorry I couldn’t help you.”

His expression said Are you kidding me? “I think you still can. I’m missing something.”

“You say it’s happened before?”

He ignored her and looked around the bathroom as if it were a puzzle and the answer was hidden inside. His gaze dropped to the trash and his scowl deepened.

Shit. She’d hid everything as best she could but there were only so many discarded paper towels. She reached around him to push everything down, but he shrugged her off. The effects of whatever her blood did lingered. The old lady never would’ve been able to stop her.

“Well, well, well.” He met her gaze, his lips tipped at an odd angle. “Congratulations are in order.”

“Fuck you.”

He put his hand on his heart. “I’m hurt.” He jerked his head toward the door. “Is that the nervous dad out there?”

She couldn’t stop the panic racing across her expression. The incorrect observation was as unexpected as her regret that someone as normal and human as Boone couldn’t be the father, that she hadn’t succumbed to his charm instead.

The demon stood straighter, making his host’s hip pop. “What’s this now? He’s not the father?”

“It’s none of your business.”

The demon’s scrutiny unnerved her. He looked at her as if she were transparent and heartbreakingly obvious. She might be. If she had been quality warrior material, she wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place.

“If it’s not the human’s, and it happened before you fell, what are the angels going to do when they find out?” He spoke like he marveled over the issue.

“They are going to do nothing. I’m no longer Numen and I’ve been fallen for months.” She wasn’t much farther along than that. “I’m dead to them, and other fallen have children.”

“Indeed?”

Shit, she’d said too much. This demon’s deceptively casual attitude had lured her into a comfort she shouldn’t feel. He wasn’t a friend. He was more likely an enemy, a cunning one. “I’m dead to them. My kid, my business.”

“The father might think differently.”

“The father . . . lost his . . . right to have a