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

Her mate had loved his job. He’d lived to serve his people. His work had defined him. When he’d lost his legs, he’d lost his position. She often wondered if she should tell Bryant that his visits might be harder on Leo. But the person responsible for the incident had been on Bryant’s team. His own guilt drove him to visit, and if she said something, would it hurt how he did his job? They needed a strong director now more than ever.

She wished it could be Leo again. She wished Leo would be something again. Like a male who didn’t have to be coaxed to eat. Or a male who did more than stare at the bedroom wall. A mate who let her back into his bed.

“He’ll come around.” Bryant had been saying that for months. Would he be saying it for years?

“I wish I could get through to him.”

Bryant’s brows pinched, and if Millie didn’t know him so well, she’d be terrified. He was a harsh-looking male. “Listen, Millie. I know he doesn’t get news if I don’t tell him.” Leo’s only visitor was Bryant. Her mate had scared all others off or they’d given up. “But there’s change coming.”

Bryant often filled them in on what was happening outside of the manor. She clung to news, to the gossip Odessa whispered to her, jealous of how the realm moved on while the inside of her manor was in stasis. But how could she live her life when her soul mate wanted to give up on his own?

Heaviness weighed down Bryant’s steely wings and his whiskey eyes were grim. She feathered her fingers against her chest. He had bad news. Bryant was like a brother to Leo. He’d become family to her and she knew that look.

“Oh? What sort of change?”

“We’re going to push some topics with the senate.”

She shivered, like a cold wind licked across her neck. “That sounds ominous.” And futile.

“It’s about the fallen.”

Her inhale was sharp. Emotions roiled inside of her, pushing the needle higher until she didn’t know when she’d explode. The fallen. One in particular was the reason why her mate was all but lifeless in the bed they used to make sweet love in. Her mate who’d doted on her every chance he got to make up for the long hours he spent at the warriors’ barracks.

The fallen who hadn’t told anyone why she’d done what she’d done but had willingly paid the price. Falling was supposed to be a fate worse than death.

Millie hoped so.

“What about them?” She managed to keep her voice steady. It was getting hard not to shout. To yell. To holler at the world and demand to know why she’d lost her mate. Wasn’t it enough to have tried for years to have a child and be without, now she had to lose her mate too? He avoided looking at her. Any thoughts of a family had evaporated with his legs.

“Jameson Haddock showed us how ignorant we are of them. He showed us that they may not be as powerless as we think when we take their wings. If we know that, others do too.”

She had to think a moment. “Demons?”

“Yes, so we can’t just forget about the fallen. After what Jameson did, the underworld is going to wonder what other knowledge and delights fallen are hiding.” Bryant took a step, then paused. His gaze traveled up the stairs. “Do you think it’ll bother him? That we’re requesting the ability to conduct surveillance on . . . Sierra.”

“Likely not.” Her mate had done the equivalent of crawling into his shell to die. Except he was an immortal angel, not a crustacean. “If he cared about anything, it’d be a miracle.”

She hadn’t meant to say that out loud. Ignoring it made it easier to continue to ignore. But she’d spoken it out loud. And she was tired. Her wings ached from resting on the floor while she sat on her ass and stitched all day. She looked at her hands. Her fingertips were roughened. She stitched too much for them to heal. She stitched for hours. She hated stitching, but she couldn’t concentrate enough to read. The manor was pristine, and she hated cleaning. What else could she do?

“I’m losing hope, Bryant.” The words rushed out. “I’ve tried to get him to talk. I’ve tried to get him to just let me lie beside him. He’ll barely look at me. Can a male lose his mind after staring at a wall too long?”

She pressed her cool fingertips to her forehead. A dam was breaking down inside of her. She couldn’t hold it together for much longer.

“Take the gloves off, Millie.” He lowered his voice. The cavernous echo in the marble manor hadn’t been so noticeable when there’d been more noise, when Leo had actually talked to her and she hadn’t had to hide discussions about him from him. “Don’t go easy on him anymore. Hit him where it hurts. You love him, that much is obvious. But he needs tough love, or he’ll never come back to us.”

“And how would I do that?” Leo washed himself when she brought him the basin, but he only exerted the effort so she wouldn’t have to. He ate to avoid being spoon-fed by her. He did only enough to keep her at a distance.

“I don’t know. You’re the only one who knows him well enough.” Bryant went to the base of the stairs. Before he stepped on the first one, he said, “But you’ll have to hit him where it hurts, in a way that makes him want to get better for himself, not for us.”

Take the gloves off. Hit him where it hurts.

Her logical brain rebelled, but that part of her had been steering since Leo was hurt. It was time to let her emotions take the wheel.

Boone kept an eye on his odd guest. Sierra was sleeping, this time