My wolf came snarling to the surface, and I growled. Satisfied with my reaction, Falon turned on his heel. Cloaked by his ethereal wings, he slipped through the large double doors and into the night. What an ass**le.
“Pay no attention to Falon. He doesn’t think very highly of anyone.” Shya wasn’t apologetic, just matter of fact.
“That’s fine. I don’t think very highly of him, either.” It wasn’t often I developed a sudden dislike for someone within just minutes of being in their presence.
Shya cast a fleeting glance back toward the altar. “I won’t keep you any longer. I have some business to take care of here with my friend, Evan. We’ll speak soon. Please, both of you, have a lovely night.”
Just like that, we were effectively dismissed. Turning his back on us, Shya left us standing by the door. Kale snapped into motion, guiding me outside with a hand on my back. I saw no sign of Falon outside. He was long gone.
“What in the f**k was that?” Glad to be free of the confines of the church, my disbelief exploded out in a blast of incredulous diatribe. “He asked me here so I could watch a man be murdered and have an angel talk shit to me?”
“Fallen angel,” Kale corrected. With a jingle of keys he unlocked the passenger door of the Camaro, holding it open for me. “Only a fallen angel would be seen in the company of demons.”
I reached over to unlock Kale’s door, waiting for him to get in before continuing my rant. “Fallen angel? Are you kidding me? What makes him any different from a demon then? And, what’s with his attitude?”
“Whoa, one question at a time.” Kale laughed as he started the car and put it in gear. The engine roared, and we were on our way, leaving the church behind. I couldn’t possibly get away fast enough. “Demons are fallen angels. At least, they were once. But a fallen angel isn’t always a demon. They choose to fall. They don’t all choose to take it all the way.”
“They just linger in between? What’s the point? Why even fall if they aren’t going full demon with it?” I rolled down the window to let the summer night air caress my face. Now that I was out of the blood-filled building, the bloodlust was waning.
“You’re asking the wrong person, Alexa. I don’t know much about angels. It’s rare to even see one, especially one that hasn’t fallen.”
Like I didn’t have enough to occupy my thoughts these days. I had so many questions after what I’d just seen. Questions that would mostly go unanswered.
We rolled to a stop at a red light, and I glanced over at Kale. The glow of a streetlight fell upon him, illuminating his pale skin and sharp eyes. I wondered if he’d been killing recently, but I didn’t want to offend him by asking. I liked him better when he wasn’t.
“What’s wrong, Alexa?” He met my eyes briefly before turning his attention back to the road. “Is it Shya? You don’t have to worry about him. Keep your distance, don’t get tricked into anything, and it will be fine.”
“I wasn’t thinking about Shya, but now that you mention it, I’m more afraid of myself right now than I am of him. I killed Veryl, without a second thought, and I don’t regret it. Now, I’ve made an agreement with a demon, and I’m not even sure what he wants from me.” Suddenly panicked, I stared out the window at the dark storefronts and office buildings as we passed. “I’m afraid of turning into the same thing I’ve been killing all these years.”
Kale’s energy grew warm as his mood shifted. “That won’t happen. That’s not what you are. Shya believes you have power over both werewolves and vampires, and judging by the way your power can manipulate me, I’m inclined to agree with him.”
I flashed back to an incident at The Wicked Kiss a few months earlier. A vampire had attacked me with a stake, swearing to never bow down to me. I’m nobody’s slave, he’d said as he pressed a stake between my ribs.
“I feel like I’m living in denial, like everyone else knows more about me than I do. I’m not sure I know who I am anymore.” The confession fell from my lips. I doubt I would have said it to anyone else.
Kale reached over, and I thought he was going to take my hand. He seemed to think better of it and instead smoothed a strand of my hair back behind my ear. “You’ll find out. We all do eventually. Even if it takes five hundred years.”
Closing my eyes, I concentrated on the way the breeze streaming through the open window felt on my face. I wasn’t sure how to feel about Shya and the role he wanted me to play, his personal assassin, the one who would keep the vampires and werewolves in line. It sounded huge.
I was wary. However, I did believe that creatures of the night needed to stay in the dark. Much of our power lies in the myth that we don’t exist. It had to stay that way. Otherwise, all hell would break loose. I was willing to do my part to keep that from happening. All I could do was pray that I never had to become a monster to do it.