Didn’t it?
There was the other question of how Alex happened to come down the right street at the right time to save her, but maybe she was just finally getting some luck to turn her life around. It was about time.
“I’m so lucky you were there to save me,” Zara said. “Thank you so much. I wish there was a way I could repay you for this. I owe you my life.”
He smiled, his eyes warm as he looked into hers. “I couldn’t do anything less. I’m just glad you’re okay.”
She shook her head in wonder. “It’s like you’re my guardian angel.”
Alexandriel hid a flinch at the woman’s words. Not only could she see him and touch him through veils that should screen him from mortals, but she called him a guardian angel.
He stared at her, into those endless blue pools that held her soul. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say they were an angel’s eyes. But, no. Darkness danced with Light inside her, the two intricately linked. Had she been toying with him all this time? Did she know who he was?
What was she?
He ignored her statement—it was the safest strategy. He’d never conversed with a human before, but he recalled the conventions. He still didn’t know her name, so it wouldn’t be rude to ask for it and change the subject.
“I’ve introduced myself, but I don’t know your name,” he said, letting his hand finally fall away from her cheek.
She blushed, a pale pink coloring her cheeks. “Oh! I’m sorry, my name is Zara. Zara Thompson.”
Alexandriel nodded. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Zara.”
And it truly was. But it was also something he would pay for dearly. As badly as he’d wanted to speak with her, it ran directly counter to Heaven’s anti-interventionist stance of the past two millennia. He had to be careful where the conversation ran—confirming any spiritual truths for a human was strictly off limits. Faith didn’t work like that.
A million questions burned at him, his curiosity inflamed at the strange human in front of him. How had she called the Light?
Alexandriel knew enough not to pepper Zara with questions about her parents. She’d just woken from a traumatic event, and a normal human wouldn’t then interrogate her with a series of unrelated inquiries.
“Has anything like this ever happened to you?”
She shook her head, eyes wide. “No. I don’t even know what happened. I’m still trying to…” She trailed off, looking at her hands, examining them as though seeing with new eyes. “I mean, I’ve had men come up to me on the streets before, but I’ve always gotten them to go away, one way or another. It’s never gotten so scary. And I’ve never seen…”
He patted her arm, understanding but unable to tell her that. If she’d never seen this hidden side of the world before, it would have been a tremendous jolt that upended everything she knew. He didn’t push her harder. As much as he needed to know more about how she came by her power, she couldn’t know he had the answers she was craving.
“This must be hard for you. Let me know if you need anything.”
Zara looked at him. Really looked at him. “You’ve already done so much for someone you don’t know. I stumbled into you earlier tonight, didn’t I?”
So she did recall him. He’d wondered if he’d made an impression on her or if he’d been another face in the street.
He hesitated. This could lead to a tricky line of questioning if she realized he’d been following her. Might as well tackle it head on. “It’s possible. I thought you looked familiar. What are the odds we’d run across each other again?”
As an angel, it was against his values to lie outright, but he could twist his words to obfuscate the truth easily enough. She’d asked about dogs earlier, and while he knew she meant the Hounds, those demons were as far from dogs as he was from human.
She smiled, her eyes questioning but not overtly suspicious. “It’s lucky for me we did. I shudder to think what would have happened to me if you hadn’t run those men off. Although my mom would roll in her grave—she taught me to never trust a man.”
Alexandriel seized on the opening she gave him to ask a probing question. “It sounds like your mother was a wise woman. The male gender didn’t represent itself well tonight. I’m sorry for your loss. Was she a special person?”
He winced at the wording but couldn’t think of a better way to turn the conversation in the direction he wanted.
Zara sighed. “She was the strongest woman—no, scratch that—the strongest person I’ve ever known. I don’t know how she kept us sheltered and fed as I grew up, but she pulled it off and she never complained about it.”
Could this woman have been a Light mage? Zara’s aura didn’t look like a Light mage, but the magic was passed down genetically. Why wouldn’t she have trained her daughter to use her magic? Alexandriel would have to ask the other angels about the aura.
“Was she a devout person? I know many people draw strength from their connection to religion.”
There was only so much Alexandriel could find out about Zara’s mother, but if she had been deeply religious, it was another point in favor of her being a Light mage.
“Mom?” Zara’s eyebrow raised. “As if. She said God couldn’t exist with the things he let happen, and if he did, then he was no better than any other man.”
Shame filled Alexandriel at her words. The angels weren’t pulling their weight in righting the balance of power on Earth. Their failings encouraged mortals to lose their faith.
What have we become?
The mother may be a dead end. The anti-male rhetoric left little hope for a conclusive answer to his next question.
“What about your father?”
Zara shrugged. “Never knew him, never saw him. I don’t even know what his name is or anything about him. Mom refused to answer questions, and now she’s gone. I doubt I’ll ever learn more.”
“It doesn’t seem to bother you,” Alexandriel said.
“It’s all I’ve ever known,” she replied. “Mom was all I ever needed. She took care of us both.”
They still sat on the sidewalk. In a testament to how out of the way the street was, no other humans had passed in the time they’d been talking.
“What were you doing in this neighborhood? It’s not the safest place to wander around by yourself.” Even he knew that.
She grimaced. “I live around the corner. It’s not the best, but it’s what I can afford. Is there any chance you’d be willing to walk me home? If those assholes are still out there, they might be looking to finish the job.”
Alexandriel bought himself time by getting to his feet and offering his hand. Zara took it, the hand not as soft as he expected but roughened with a few calluses. She wasn’t a stranger to hard work.
He couldn’t tell her she wouldn’t be bothered again by those men. What would she think if she knew he’d destroyed them with holy Light? He’d judged them before their time, perhaps, but they were exceedingly guilty and worthy of the end they’d found. Still, humans sometimes had strange responses to justice.
A pull on his mind toward Heaven caught his attention. He was being summoned by Raphael, the archangel in charge of the Guardians, as he’d known would happen. At such a signal, he was supposed to change dimensions as soon as possible to report, but he felt no need to rush it. He could hardly be in more trouble than he already was, so he may as well milk his time with Zara.
“It would be a pleasure to escort you,” he said. “I’ll make sure you come to no harm.”
“We only stayed there for another five months before we had to move again,” Zara said.
Alex strode beside her, a comforting and stable presence to her left. It felt right, like she’d known him forever.
“I’m sensing a theme, here,” he replied. “It sounds like you had a rough childhood.”
Zara bit her lip. She didn’t want to complain too much, but facts were facts. “It was more unstable than most.”
Somehow, in the space of a few minu
tes, the man had gotten her to open up and talk about her past. Things she’d never spoken of to anyone fell out of her mouth, surprising her with the eagerness, as if the words had been waiting for just this time, and this man, to finally be released into the world.
It was a surreal experience for Zara. She’d moved so much as a child that she’d never had friends. The lack of socialization made it difficult to break into established social circles at schools where she was always the new girl, and the resulting awkwardness only made things harder as time wore on.
With Alex, that awkwardness vanished, replaced with a ready laugh and quick words. He made it easy, and that was dangerous.
Men are not to be trusted.
Her mom’s words hovered in the back of her mind as they always did, but they seemed too restrictive now, too black and white. Surely, some men weren’t all bad.
She’d never enjoyed a conversation with a man more. They hadn’t started far away from her apartment, but her feet took every excuse to slow the pace, and she even took the long way, looping around the far end of the block, telling herself that it was to throw off any potential trap by the men who had accosted her.
Not that she knew anything about Alex. For all I know, he’d slipped something into my drink at work earlier today and followed me until I passed out. Maybe the rest of it—the men, the monsters, the inexplicable dark and light—was just a series of hallucinations.
Even as she considered the theory, she rejected it. It was scarily easy to trust Alex. He felt solid, dependable, and honorable in a way she’d never felt from anyone.
Even if he was impossible to question.
“I feel like I’m talking so much about myself,” Zara said. “What about you? Did you grow up in the city?”
Alex smiled, like the question amused him. “Oh, no. My home is far from here. It’s a very lovely place, but after too long it feels confining. Tell me more about your job. You’ve mentioned how you don’t enjoy it, so why don’t you find something else?”
She swallowed a follow-up question about his hometown. He had been doing that the whole conversation, dropping interesting tidbits but turning the questions back before she could ask further. It was verbal fencing with a master, and she was foiled at every turn.
“I don’t enjoy my job, but who does, right? At least it covers my rent and food for the month. Barely. It was okay until a coworker who hates me got promoted. Now it’s another piece of hell for me to deal with every day. That’s why I’m headed home so late tonight. The job is in the middle of Brooklyn and Patricia made me stay late today to close shop by myself. We didn’t even have any clients come in because it’s a Saturday night. It’s a stupid time for a salon to be open, but she did it just so that my night would be ruined.”
Zara’s heart beat faster thinking about the whiny, vapid Patricia and how much she wanted to give her a piece of her mind. She’d been swallowing her words for weeks, and they’d backed up so much that they overflowed. Zara cut herself off, not wanting to give Alex the wrong impression.
“Sorry,” she said, “but she makes my blood boil.”
The man looked at her in an appraising manner. “Nothing to apologize for. No one likes being treated unfairly.”
“Fair,” Zara mused. “What a magical world it would be if it operated on fairness. Sometimes, I wish I could just run away and become a Disney princess, but I don’t think it works that way in real life.”
As slow as she’d walked, they walked up the path to her apartment building’s front door. Zara had been preventing herself from considering what would happen now. Alex was entrancing. His presence made her feel safe and giddy at the same time. She’d enjoyed talking with him in a way she never had with anyone before and didn’t want it to end.
She wanted even more.
The thought terrified her even as it thrilled her. Men were not to be trusted, and she would never invite one into her tiny studio apartment. That didn’t stop her from making a mental catalog of the state of the room upstairs and whether she’d left anything deadly embarrassing out where Alex might see if she invited him up.
Her lips continued moving, half her mind on the conversation as her mind waged a war with herself, fighting over whether she should invite him in. Before she could over-think it, her newly liberated mouth took control.
“Do you want to come in so we can keep talking?”
It sounded smooth and practiced, like it wasn’t a huge deal and she wasn’t freaking out inside.
I can’t believe I did that. I just invited a guy inside my apartment for the first time ever. What’s happening?
She must have taken a big knock on the head earlier.
As hard as it had been to push the question out of her mouth, waiting for Alex’s response was harder. He didn’t answer right away, his eyes finding her own as his head tilted to the side slightly, like an eagle examining the small furry creature it had caught in its talons.
Say something!
The few seconds of silence were an eternity to Zara, and she found herself unable to breathe as they stretched on.
I’ve made a terrible mistake.
Finally, unable to stand the silence, Zara opened her mouth again.
“Never mind, forget I said anything. I know I—”
“It’s not a good idea,” Alex cut her off. His voice was gentle, kind. “You need sleep.”
Zara had already been backpedaling, but Alex confirming her overreach was enough to make her blush and mumble, the easy conversation between them a thing of the past.
“I’m sorry. Thank you for everything,” she said, unlocking the door and slipping through.
Embarrassed to her core, she considered continuing on without even looking back, but the lure of the man behind her was too strong. The way she’d opened up to him was too intoxicating. She couldn’t leave things there without the means to ever see him again.
She turned around and poked her head out the door. Alex stood where she’d left him, a few feet away, watching her with unreadable eyes.
“Can I have your number? It would be nice to know I have someone I can trust to call if I ever get into trouble again.”
Another milestone. She’d never asked for a man’s number or given her own.
“I don’t have a number,” Alex said. He winced, a pained look crossing his face. “And I really have to go. I’ve held off for too long. Good night, Zara. Take care of yourself.”
Just like that, he was gone. The only man she’d ever felt comfortable with, and she had no way of ever finding him again.
Chapter 3
“So, you got entangled with a mortal girl, did you?”
Alexandriel lifted his head from his arms to watch the approaching angel. Waiting for his summons to Heaven’s High Court, he’d been ignoring everything around him, arranging his memories, thoughts and reasons in an orderly fashion for the upcoming meeting.
“Draconel,” he acknowledged. “I see you’ve heard the news.”
Sarcasm dripped from his voice. There wasn’t an angel in Heaven or on Earth who hadn’t heard of the way Alexandriel had flaunted the rules in dramatic fashion, destroying the Dark mages and Fear Hounds in front of a mortal woman. Worse, he then spoke with the woman for half an hour as he walked her home.
It had only been a few hours, but news traveled fast among angels, and gossip traveled faster.
The other angel strode up and sat beside Alexandriel, not bothering to ask for permission. As the Archangel of Music, he outranked Alexandriel.
“No need to be shitty about it,” Draconel said. “I’ve spent more time on earth than any other archangel, so if you find sympathy among any of us, it will be with me.”
Alexandriel winced. Even though Draconel wasn’t on the Court, there was no call to antagonize an archangel. This one wielded more power and influence in Heaven than most, despite spending enough time on earth that his language was more colorful than most other angels. “I apologize, Draconel. I feel as though I’ve bee
n condemned already, and it’s gotten to me. That’s no reason to let it affect my manners.”
The archangel waved his hand as though the matter was already settled. “I’m curious about these events, and I wanted to hear them from you before the Court summons you, if you’ll oblige me.”
Draconel had always been willing to listen to and give Alexandriel advice. His counsel had been a primary driver in Alexandriel’s decision to leave Heaven to join the order of Guardians, even if their duties were hampered by the anti-interventionist rules of the Council of Archangels.
He ran through the events as they’d transpired on Earth, leaving nothing out, even his thoughts and feelings at the moment. It was a kind of trial run for the meeting with the Court, and he decided that being open and honest would give him the best chance of helping the archangels see his reasoning and that he’d acted in the best way he could have.
Draconel’s eyebrow raised when Alexandriel mentioned how Zara had used Light magic to briefly fend off the mages.
“You know the Court will punish you even more harshly for interceding on a Light mage’s behalf.”
“I know. But she wasn’t a true Light mage, Draconel. At least she wasn’t trained, and her aura… it was unlike any mortal I’ve ever seen. The normal rules shouldn’t apply to her.”
That caught the archangel by surprise. “Explain.”
Alexandriel told him about the way Zara’s aura had equal measures Light and Dark like most regular mortals, but there was something deeper, more vibrant about it. He also reported on her eyes, and how similar they looked to angel eyes—the intensity, vividness, and color were a taste of Heaven. The archangel fell silent, wings idly stretching behind him.
Then he spoke. “I wouldn’t share this with the Court,” Draconel said. “It will be better for you if they do not know she used magic.”
Shock flooded Alexandriel. “You want me to lie to the Court?”
“Want has nothing to do with it. I’m just saying what I would do in your place. The Court is looking to make an example of you, and they’ll be more unreasonable if they know there’s a strange mage mixed up in this matter. From what you’ve told me, this attack wasn’t an accident. Hell knows about her already, and as for their intentions… well, we’ll need to take a closer look at her to figure that out.”
Fallen: An Angel Romance Page 3