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

followed up on when Jameson was after Odessa. Didn’t she have kids?”

If only it were that easy. “She didn’t have them after her fall. They were adopted.” Jameson had told her that a fallen needed a purpose. It’d get them past the fear, move them beyond survival. Motherhood wasn’t just a purpose, it’d given Junie’s life meaning. She hadn’t fallen for nothing if she could give a home to children in need.

“Won’t she outlive them?” Jagger spun away, his brow furrowed. “My father was fallen for decades and he looked the same. Junie’s lack of aging is a serious concern for the senate. Along with . . .” He waved his arm in her vicinity.

“My baby isn’t the senate’s business.” Sierra’s tone could’ve frozen the Pacific. I don’t know what they’ll do to you, Sierra. You have to be better than other angels.

Papa hadn’t wanted her to become a warrior. He had tried to see her when she was in prison but she’d refused him. What she’d done was the ultimate failure. He’d given up his position as a warrior to raise her, to teach her what it meant to be Numen.

Jagger faced her and thought for a moment. “No. Felicia has to work with them first. Director Vale is going to decide what to tell them about you.”

His about-face didn’t make sense. He’d been enraged that she’d messed around with his father. Why the sudden— Oh. “You think your mother might retaliate.”

“I think she’ll go nuclear in a hot second. Father continued to betray her and his kind to the very end.”

Except as a fallen, she was no one. She had very few of her kind and she had no idea who they were. She could stand in the middle of the train tracks with a mile-long string of coal cars bearing down on her and no one would push her out of the way. Numen would just turn away. She didn’t exist.

She’d sent them the message for one reason, and it wasn’t to debate what to do with her kid.

“We have to go to Bryant about this,” Jagger said.

“Do what you have to, but don’t let the baby crowd out the fact that Sandeen told you about it to take the attention off him and the fact that my blood might make him corporeal in this realm.”

Every head in the room pivoted toward Sandeen as the gravity of her words sank in.

He shrugged. “It was a good try.”

Talking exploded in the room, but Boone continued to stand on the outer edges. His number one priority was in the open so Sierra and the baby could get medical care.

Before Phoebe got pregnant with Adam, she’d miscarried in her first trimester. Sierra might be into her second trimester, but until he had an expert’s stamp of approval, the antsy feeling inside of him wouldn’t go away.

“Corporeal?” Harlowe’s expression wasn’t horrified. Intrigue shone in her eyes, then disgust, and back to intrigue.

He wasn’t the only one to notice.

Sandeen’s grin was aimed at her. “Can’t wait, Lowe?”

“Quit calling me Lowe.” She glared at him. “And no, I can’t wait. Then I can kill you right here instead of the Mist.”

“Are you sure killing me is what you want to do?”

“I’m going to do it,” she said to Urban. “You two get the answers you need and then I’m going to shank him.”

Jagger held his hands up and the arguing stopped. “How is this supposed to work?”

Sierra stalked closer to Sandeen and held her hand out. She looked at Urban sitting next to Sandeen and said, “Cut me.”

Urban slowly shook his head.

Sandeen laughed. “Good luck getting an angel to cut you. I bet they know that your blood keeps them from transcending. Tell me they know at least that.”

Sierra huffed and shoved her hand farther in Urban’s face. “He needs my blood on him. So unless you want to entrust me or him with more than a plastic butter knife, you have to cut me.”

Boone went rigid. No one was cutting her creamy skin.

But it had already happened. She had a healing scar on the back of her wrist. He’d noticed, but he hadn’t asked. He’d assumed she’d gotten it in the melee at Alma’s house. Was that what had happened in the bathroom?

Urban withdrew the multi-tool he carried in his belt that was the same size as a Leatherman, but was for lack of a better description, an ethereal silver. He shot Sandeen a warning gaze as he extended the blade. “Move a muscle and you get a one-way trip to the Mist.”

Sandeen was unaffected. “Andy’s so far ahead of you, it’s about time you start catching up.”

The magnitude of the moment thickened the air in the room. Boone didn’t know what to expect, but what happened next would be the deciding factor. Either everyone in this room but him was full of shit, or there was an unseen world humans didn’t know about.

He didn’t breathe as Urban flicked open the blade of his multi-tool. Sierra put her hand out and Urban scored the base of her palm. Boone flinched as if he’d been the one cut. She’d suffered worse, he’d seen it, but that didn’t mean he liked when she got hurt.

Sierra slapped her palm on Alma’s hand and held it. Boone narrowed his eyes.

Anticlimactic. What had he thought would happen? A demon would spring out of Alma and bicker with Harlowe and—

Alma’s face was harder to make out. Over her small chin and dainty jowls hovered a square jaw. The jawline disappeared into messy, dark hair. The startling blue of the eyes was clearer than Alma’s would ever be again.

There was a man inside Alma.

“Holy shit.”

“Nothing holy about it.” The voice that came out of Alma wasn’t her normal reedy thread. It was deep. Resonant.

Boone staggered back. “What the hell?”

Sierra pulled her hand away and Sandeen reached for it. She scowled at him and snatched it out of his grasp.

Sandeen held his hands out. Alma’s small wrinkled hands with the swollen