by Callie Stone
Demonic Affairs
A REVERSE HAREM PARANORMAL FANTASY (ANGEL’S GUARDIANS BOOK 2)
Callie Stone
Contents
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1. Paris in the Summertime
2. Lost in the Supermarket
3. From Hell to Eternity
4. Fragments of a Nightmare
5. These are Not Ruins
6. The Stench of Hell
7. The Night Deepens over France
8. Last Train to Zurich
9. Chapter Nine A Town Called Sins
10. Entry of the Gladiators
11. Amphitheatre of the Colossus
12. End of the Line
13. A Sliver of Darkness
14. The Demon’s Rationale
15. The Big Bang
Epilogue: La Palais
Next in the Series: Mortal Desires
Author’s Note
About the Author
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Remnant Halos - The Angel's Guardians Prequel
Want to know the story about Director Emilio and his lifetime lover? Get the prequel to this series for FREE. Click on the link now to download: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/ovzzd2h3t1
I must return to Heaven, even if it will break my heart.
As an angel, I have no business getting tangled up with Creatures on Earth, especially vampires. But when vampire Emilio’s attempt to rescue innocent witches ends up in his own death, I can’t simply watch on. Even though I know the punishment, I bring him back to life, and thus, fall from Heaven.
Soon, my white-hair, huge wings, and angelic powers attract unwanted attention. I must return to Heaven. If I stay, I’ll end up as a prized prey of human hunters who will stop at nothing to claim my angelic powers for themselves.
Together with Emilio, I start my journey to the tallest point of the land, the gateway to Heaven. As we avoid my pursuers, I can’t help but fall for reckless, kind, and funny Emilio. He might be a Creature of darkness, but he’s perfect for me.
Yet with each day I spend on Earth, I grow weaker, and my chances of reaching Heaven dwindle. Even if I make it to the top of the mountain, I’ll have to face the hardest choice ever. Because if I’m permitted to return to heaven, I’ll never see Emilio again.
Remnant Halos is the prequel to The Angel’s Guardians series. Don’t miss this delicious paranormal romance read filled with magic, forbidden love, and heart-pounding action!
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It is not legal to reproduce, duplicate, or transmit any part of this document in either electronic means or in printed format. Recording of this publication is strictly prohibited and any storage of this document is not allowed unless with written permission from the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locations is purely coincidental.
1
Paris in the Summertime
Natasha
“Garçon!”
As Alexander summoned the waiter over for another Café Americain, I could not help a soft little sigh to myself.
It was not a loud sigh, like the huff of total annoyance which Michael let out, nor was it even audible. It was a wistful, tingly little shiver which I was feeling all too often since my team set up shop in France.
It was the feeling of being irritated, and charmed, and amused, and frustrated with the feelings which had only continued to grow since our arrival—feelings I suspected would only become worse over time.
“Oh, for crying out loud, man!” I knew Michael would have to punctuate his own sigh with a verbal jab at our vampire teammate. “Everybody here speaks English. And on top of that, everybody knows what that word, garçon, means, so it’s not even impressive.”
“Of course, we all do,” huffed Kieran, confused in a way that was far more endearing than it was irritating. “We always speak English, what are you even talking about?”
“I mean, all the Parisians speak English,” Michael interrupted, letting out another one of his typical Michael-sighs. This one, like many of his other exasperated little exhales, was delightfully tinged with savage drollness.
“And they’re all French,” argued Alexander, with a typically clear-cut point.
“Well, yes…but still…”
“So, what does Garçon mean?” challenged Alexander.
“It means fuck you, you vampire fuck.” Michael grinned, and I held back a chuckle myself as the waiter brought Alexander another glass of water—which just like his coffee would sit untouched.
“Geez! That’s not at all what it means!” Kieran protested. He was taking it all much too seriously, but doing his best to keep the peace. “It means boy!”
I just enjoyed what was becoming my standard social role in my team—laughing—before the sound of the café doors opening cued us to glance over to see who had entered.
We were all trying to subtly observe the comings and goings of the popular spot, surreptitiously glancing over was becoming something of an art for all of us.
Strolling in from the boulevard with absurd poise were two exceptionally, nigh curiously attractive women. They were graceful, lithe, dressed from head to toe in Chanel and Dior——it was as if they’d just stepped in from a damn catalogue. One was short with ginger hair, and hid behind huge sunglasses; the other was the classic tall, blonde archetype.
“Well,” remarked Kieran in a hushed tone, “she’s one to pay attention to for sure.”
It was a curious statement, especially as we had so little experience trying to spot creatures out in the wild at that point in such a public-facing way. I had to wonder what Kieran meant. Did he identify her as a werewolf such as himself? Or a sprite, or a vampire?
Looking her over myself, then looking back at the slight flush on Kieran’s cheeks, I realised that she was none of the above.
“Very funny,” I sighed, causing Kieran to adorably blush a deeper shade of red.
It is certainly not like any of us were very comfortable out in the open in the world of humans.
At least I wasn’t.
Especially this new practice of acting so comfortable sitting out in the open in the midst of a popular café in a capital city as if it were bloody nothing.
Yet Kieran, whose tortured past amongst his werewolf brood could have, by all rights, lost him as weary of humanity as any of us, was apparently testing the waters of feeling right at home checking out the French ladies in a Parisian bloody coffee shop.
Or maybe Kieran was just trying to get me to chuckle a bit.
It was awkward, yet, as per usual with Kieran’s ventures out of his shell to show a teasing fondness, oddly flattering.
Plus, by that point, it would have been fair to say that it seemed as though neither the ginger lady nor her lanky blonde friend were of any interest for our purposes. My teammates had lost interest and gone back to looking into their empty wine glasses and mugs.
Alexander’s gaze kept flitting over to a table at the far corner of the café, where an attractive couple in their late twenties were arguing in French. Most of the café was naturally trying to ignore their raised voices, but Alexander seemed to be subtly observing them.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“Them,” he said. “The man and woman arguing.”
Pretending to stretch, I slowly sp
read my arms out and let out a dramatic yawn capped off with a little puppyish squeak, craned my neck over to one side and then the other, giving me a closer look at the couple.
They looked like a generic, nearly nondescript young married couple. Yet I knew that Alexander could recognise his own kind, at least as well as any of us.
“Well?” I asked.
“Do you think we should try to approach him?” Alexander raised an eyebrow at me. “There’s something there.”
It was notable that Alexander had used the term ‘approach’ rather than ‘recruit’. Our methods had been changing, or at least some of the newer approaches we’d been debating were novel to the degree that much of it felt new. At that point in our stint in Paris we were basically on reconnaissance and even approaching seemed like a risky proposition.
Heck, even if I were a vampire, I would not be thrilled about approaching a vampire in such an environment.
Alexander seemed to find it worthwhile to seek my opinion, so I gave it some thought.
We had substantial direction from Director Hask as to how to go about recruitment in the delicate atmosphere of the City of Lights, but then we’d spent the entire rental car ride from London to Paris arguing our own opinions on it. As far as I was concerned, we were in a safe place for Alexander to attempt approaching a fellow vampire.
“Maybe,” I replied at last to Alexander’s question. Not as committal as he may have liked, but he had to appreciate how I’d deliberated.
There had been an uptick of reports of creatures in central Paris and throughout the city as of late, and our little social hangs at the café near our flat were ostensibly to stake out one popular spot for such sightings.
There was reason to be cautious, but we all felt an obligation to help those such as ourselves who found danger in the human world.
I rolled my eyes as the couple began to bicker again—partially in annoyance at my own inability to understand what they were saying—especially as their voices grew louder.
I knew that immersion would help bring my Français skills to fluency in an acceptably short period of time, yet I was growing impatient—and frankly a bit embarrassed—at my own lack of French cogency, especially compared to some of the boys’ command of the tongue.
Especially Troy’s. In spite of perpetually keeping the pointy tips of his fae ears hidden underneath the type of ball cap you’d expect to see on an American tourist, his underlying regal classiness came out the moment a word of perfectly pronounced French left his lips.
But at that time, Troy and the whole team, along with a growing number of the other café patrons, were silent as the couple’s verbal sparring rose to increasingly embarrassing volumes.
After a few moments the yelling suddenly, eerily stopped. In the relative quiet that followed, I could hear the couple speaking in hushed, apologetic tones to each other.
I looked back at them in the corner of the café, and they were now holding hands. They looked happy together, abruptly, though the man had a distant look in his eyes.
I held out my hand for Alexander to give me my glass of wine, which he did with a smirk.
“I do drink wine.” My joke, a reference to the original Bela Lugosi Dracula film, was meant as a witty comment like we all made frequently. Yet it came out much flirtier than I’d intended.
Luckily, my comment was thoroughly ignored by all.
“Alright,” I said, intending to try for a do-over. “I’ll take that glass of wine for ya.”
“Makes no sense.” Alexander smirked before standing up to stride over to where the couple were sitting.
I took a big gulp of merlot.
“You really think that he should just waltz over there?” Kieran asked in that earnest way of his.
“Let’s watch and see,” I replied softly.
All eyes were on Alexander—at least mine were—as he approached the couple. I could see the man flashing his teeth at him, just enough for a tiny glimpse for Alexander to get the message from one vampire to another:
Yes, I’m like you, and I don’t know why you’re bothering me, but it can’t be good so buzz off!
Although I couldn’t hear their conversation, I could see the woman looking up at Alexander with an expression of subtle terror, clutching onto her boyfriend’s arm.
My next instinct was to take a quick glance around the café. It seemed as though no one had noticed. The man knew that Alexander was a vampire, though, and had signalled to him to stay far away.
I heard some mumbling from the corner of the room and saw that it was the café manager who was on his phone. I strained my ears, and was just able to make out what he was saying in fluent French.
“Je ne sais pas ce qui se passe, mais appelle la police.”
That last word—police—was obvious if nothing else, and my French was at least to the point where I had gotten the gist regardless.
He knew, or at least suspected, that something bad was about to happen.
“I can’t hear. What’s he saying?” Kieran asked eagerly, leaning over to me.
“He’s saying we need to get out as quickly as we can without attracting attention,” Troy muttered. And he was right.
“Well, what are we waiting for?” Kieran said. “Let’s go!”
I felt a rush of excitement as the four of us stood together, the type of adrenaline hit I’d not expected that evening.
“That’s it!” Troy yelled suddenly, play-acting a scenario to explain our sudden departure. “I’ve had it up to here with you all.” I tried not to laugh. “Let’s go, let’s go.”
“Bye, Alexander,” I said sweetly. “It was so nice to see you,” I drawled sarcastically.
I was pretty sure I was doing an over-the-top impersonation of a Southern American accent, even though everyone there had heard my usual British accent already. Didn’t matter, I was having fun.
“Ciao, Alexander,” Michael called out.
“Bye, now,” Kieran added in a charmingly, hilariously quiet attempt to join in.
The four of us legged it out of there, passing beautiful art pieces and luxurious furniture on the way out. However, as much as I’d always enjoyed seeing the café’s usual décor, an even better, or more relieving sight at that moment was the vampire and his partner making their own way safely out of the building’s lesser-known side entrance.
We may have had an expectedly contentious approach with the vampire, but at least he had been able to get out before a potential total disaster.
Alexander threw a bunch of euro notes on the table before following us out. I admired that; he’d screwed up our recruitment attempt, so he paid for our drinks.
“Hurry up!” Alexander hissed, perhaps a bit too loudly and mostly, seemingly, in frustration at himself as he was tailing behind us.
None of us were especially used to working this way.
“You moron!” chided Michael once we’d all made it out onto Boulevard Saint-Marcel, although his apparent anger had already begun to dissolve into more of a lighthearted, mocking tone before he had even finished yelling.
It seemed we had mostly likely avoided a couple of close calls. While Alexander’s track record for that evening was not up to his own typical standards, I think we all understood at that point that some of us were allowed an off night every now and then.
“Shut up!” Alexander interrupted. “We’re going back to the flat, now!”
Naturally, all of us had to laugh at him ordering us around as usual, especially with his frequent expounding on the egalitarian nature of our team.
As outsiders in the world of humans, all of us had some sense of trouble afoot. The feeling that we’d made it out of that potential mess without harm was palpable as we made it back to our flat across the Seine.
The flat itself was located in the top level of a beautiful townhouse just off the Boulevard de la Bastille, from where we had a good view of the area around us. It was not a rented flat, but indeed property of the congregation, a pied-a-
terre that was meant for such uses.
Unfortunately, the smallish flat was not exactly designed for more than a couple tenants—and certainly wasn’t ideal for a team of our size—but as I’d kept telling myself, being put on assignment in central Paris had to come with some sacrifices.
It was only fair.
After we’d climbed the ageing steps and entered the flat, my eyes as usual traveled up to the semi-private loft area set aside for my bed and possessions. It was the nicest ‘room’ that any of us had in the flat and I tried my best to acknowledge that, at least to myself, when I could.
I kept hoping that habit of gratitude would eventually help subdue some of the frustrations and awkwardness of living there with my lovely yet distracting teammates.
And, as usual, there was an awkward moment of all of us standing under the fluorescent lighting of the common area after walking in.
These moments may have been uncomfortable, but I’d begun to think of them, at least privately, as sort of an ‘opening credits’ moment, or perhaps a big panel of a comic book, in which you got to see all the main heroes just standing together, being silent yet maybe a bit badass as a team.
Michael the Shapeshifting Trickster!
Kieran the Werewolf!
Alexander the Vampire!
Troy the Fae!
And, your main hero (hey, it’s all in my head, after all):
Natasha the sassy and quite fetching Angel!
The fabulous team sent straight from the congregation in London by Director Hask to recruit, save, and even fight for creatures such as themselves trying to survive in the world of humans!