Forget About Midnight (Alexa O'Brien, Huntress #9)

The long-sleeved, grey, V-neck shirt he wore combined with dark pants that fit him to perfection actually did give him a fashion magazine appearance. His short, fair hair was styled, looking more silver toned than usual. Falon was such an odd creature. Visually, he was quite intriguing with those eyes and the confident set to his mouth. I didn’t know a lot of angels, but they were so beautiful. Indescribable really.

Falon returned my observance with his own clever little remark. “No need. I’m naturally appealing to the eye. Have you been reading The Walking Dead? You’ve got this corpse thing going on. I won’t lie. It’s frightful.”

A smirk tugged at my lips. Well, at least I would be entertained while I waited. I wondered how long it would take us to go from flinging verbal barbs to psi balls.

“Well, this is going to get weird fast,” I said with a sigh.

The silence that fell was indeed awkward and growing more so by the minute. I was starting to wish he’d never thought to drop in and spring me. But he wanted my help with Shya, and as much as I disliked Falon, we now had something in common. We both wanted to keep that demon from manipulating us further.

“So,” I broke the silence before it could become painful. “What are our options as far as Shya is concerned?”

Falon stopped moving about in restless impatience. He scooped a chair leg off the floor and spun it in one hand. It moved between his fingers with ease. I didn’t doubt that he could turn that thing into a deadly weapon. However, if it came my way, I’d stuff it in a place he would never recover from.

“Well, we could bind his power, like he did to Lilah. He’s resourceful enough to find a fast way out of that though. I think our best bet might be to trap him by binding him to an object. It won’t be easy, but it is possible.” The chair leg stopped in his hand, and he pointed it at me. “Something like that amulet would work.”

My hand went to the black onyx stone hanging around my neck. It had been a gift from Lena, spelled to enable me to keep my wolf after I died. I didn’t need the amulet anymore, but it now held sentimental value.

“No way, not this.”

“It was just an example. Relax. You’re so uptight these days.”

“I’m not uptight,” I protested.

Falon gave a half shrug. “Just completely insane.”

I flopped down on the bed and stared at the ceiling. It was hard to concentrate on forming a plan to deal with Shya with the entity whispering in my ear. Besides, Briggs was my current priority. Giving him to Shya to get rid of my demon mark wouldn’t keep Shya off my back for long, not as long as he was determined to have control of the vampires and wolves.

Making any kind of move against Shya would be potential suicide. If it didn’t work, he’d make me sorry I’d tried anything. If it did work, there would always be the chance that he’d escape whatever we did to him. I racked my brain, finding my thoughts too muddled to think clearly.

“Why did you even work with Shya if you’re just going to bail out on him now?” I asked with genuine curiosity. “What’s your story, Falon?”

Getting information out of him was like pounding my head against the wall: painful and pointless. Still, we were stuck here. I might as well try to learn something about him while I had the chance. He was a constant surprise, as unpredictable as they came. The info Veryl’s files had on him had been basic and minimal. Naturally, I wanted to know more.

Falon was quiet for so long I took it as his refusal to share. Then he surprised me by saying, “To you it may have appeared that I was working with him. Did you ever consider that I may have had other reasons to get close to Shya?”

It wasn’t much, but it was enough for me to bite. “And these other reasons might be?” I kept my gaze fixed on the ceiling. There was nothing to look at but avoiding eye contact seemed to make it easier for Falon to talk to me like I was a person.

He dropped the chair leg with a clatter and resumed his previous position perched on the desk. “I bet you want to know how I fell, don’t you? How I lost my grace. There are many stories. All of them are wrong. The truth is that I chose to fall. I saw an opportunity to fight the enemy from the inside, and I took it.”

That startling revelation drew my gaze to him. I didn’t respond right away. I didn’t know how. Never had I considered that Falon might still be working for the light.

“But, you did so many shitty things,” I said. “I saw you kill a priest.” And screw a demon queen.

With a careless shrug, Falon slid open one of the desk drawers. He rifled through some blank papers inside before sliding it shut and opening another. “I’m not faking anything, Alexa. To fight the dark from the inside, I had to join them. I’m not light. I never will be again.”

“Then why do it? Seems like an exercise in futility.” I watched him closely, trying to be covert about it. This angel had always been an enigma. Every word he said fed my inquisitiveness.

“Some things must be done. Someone’s got to do them. Might as well be me.” He spoke without remorse or emotion of any kind, just a simple statement of fact.