Boone punched Jagger. A solid right hook to the cheek. Jagger’s head flung back but he didn’t move otherwise, as if he’d expected it.
Boone’s chest heaved and his arms were yanked behind him. Telling Sierra his story had lifted ten tons of guilt off his shoulders. He’d always carry the blame, but when he’d verbalized it, it had sounded like the tragic event it was. Surrounded by people who claimed to be angels and demons, he’d owned that he and his wife were only human. And they’d epically fucked up like only humans could.
But having Jagger rattle off what had happened, like he was reciting some file about a stranger? Fuck, no. He wasn’t putting up with it.
Urban growled into Boone’s ear. “Settle the fuck down.”
“He baited him,” Sierra said, defending Boone’s actions. “We all know it.”
“Things are finally getting interesting,” Sandeen drawled.
“Calm down,” Harlowe snapped. “All of you. Boone, sit. Jagger, back to the door. Urban, you have to let Boone go first.”
Boone’s arms were released, but he didn’t sit. He shook his throbbing hand. Hardheaded bastard.
“So now that we have that out of the way.” Jagger worked his jaw. A red mark on Jagger’s cheek was the only sign he’d been hit. “You see how this looks to us, never mind the fact that we’re all risking our existence being in the same room as Sierra.”
“For speaking her name,” Urban said.
“You aren’t here for me,” Sierra said tightly.
Jagger rolled his hard gaze to her. “You wanna rethink that? You were one of us. We trusted you with our lives. Dionna hasn’t found a replacement that can work with human technology like you, and until she finds a warrior as good as you are, we’re working short—and we were already short since Bryant became the director. And we all know how that happened.”
Sierra’s jaw clenched and Boone connected the dots. Want me to tell Director Richter you said hi? Director Richter could no longer be director because he’d been hurt thanks to Sierra’s betrayal.
Jagger continued. “It’s me, these two, Dionna, and Bronx. Five warriors, Sierra. Five warriors, two of us with mates who are at risk because we’re helping you. Because after everything you did, we still want to believe you when you tell us something is wrong.”
“Then don’t help me,” Sierra said hoarsely. “Let me and Boone go. I’ll stay hidden.”
“As soon as you go, he will too.” Harlowe jerked her head toward Sandeen. The demon snapped a puzzle piece in place, pretending he was ignoring them.
“Felicia’s working the case with the senate,” Jagger said. “We can’t ignore fallen like we used to. Not after my father.”
Sierra’s face paled. Boone clenched his muscles to keep from going to her. She’d made horrible choices, and instead of holding it against her, he saw a woman dealing with them by herself. Anyone else involved had gotten the easy way out. Being the one left behind sucked.
“Between the five of us,” Jagger continued, “we’ve kept tabs on the club, which isn’t much since we can’t get close. Demons are all over the place. But as far as we can tell, it’s business as usual. I think Andy’s hiding the fact that my father is dead. While we work on getting close to this Andy without putting more humans at risk, my mate will work on getting our mission officially sanctioned by the senate, thus keeping our wings on our back.”
Sierra hugged her arms around her waist, pulling her shirt tight against her breasts. That bra she had on hid nothing, but the sheer blandness of the color helped with the thin shirt. “You don’t think the senate will change their ways, do you? After eons of shunning us?”
“You should all be monitored at the very least.” His tone was cold, accusatory. “Sandeen, care to come join this meeting?”
“Nope.” Sandeen tried to fit a small puzzle piece, turning it in three different directions before giving up.
“Demon,” Jagger said.
“Angel,” Sandeen said, his tone bored.
Jagger stomped to the table and lifted the woman from her seat.
“Hey, watch the host,” Sandeen cried. “She’s fragile.”
“As if you care.” Jagger eased Sandeen onto the couch.
Alma’s shirt was twisted around her torso and her black slacks were hitched up to her knees. Sandeen harumphed and straightened the clothing out. “Alma bruises easily, asshat.”
“We need answers, demon.”
“You haven’t even asked the questions.” Sandeen settled into the cushions, his expression appraising. Whatever he said next was going to piss off someone in this room. “Sorry to hear about your father, by the way. Was it quick?”
Jagger’s hand twitched and rage clouded his expression.
Urban jumped off the couch, placing himself between the two. “Stop it, demon.”
“No, seriously, though. If we’re not ignoring the fallen anymore, should we call Jameson by his real name? James?”
“Shut it,” Urban said.
“I say we take him out.” Harlowe studied her nails. “If he’s going to cause trouble and backstab us as soon as possible, we should get rid of him right now.”
“Do it,” Jagger ordered. “He’s worthless to us.”
A half smile tipped his lips. “Am I?”
“You can do it now, Harlowe,” Jagger said.
A sinister grin curved Harlowe’s lips. “I beat you once, demon.” She flicked open a pocket and reached inside. Words Boone didn’t understand came out of her mouth.
Sandeen’s eyes flared, panic deep in their depths. “One, I was in a human, it wasn’t a fair fight, and two, Sierra is pregnant. She was pregnant when she fell.”
Chapter 11
A strangled gasp stuck in Sierra’s throat. “You bastard.”
Sandeen did a half bow from his seated position. “Most demons are.”
Boone shook his head. The others stared at her. Harlowe’s hand dropped. She was no longer intent on killing Sandeen. Urban sank into the couch where he’d been sitting earlier. And Jagger.
Oh, God, Jagger. It stung that he was the one who’d confronted her about her betrayal. He’d been a good enough teammate, friend, and angel to allow her to make amends and let her scrape together enough dignity to turn herself in. She had to hang on to that instead of how he was treating her now.
“You’re what?” Jagger said between clenched teeth.
Her heart hammered. He wouldn’t figure it out, would he? “Sandeen isn’t lying. For once.”
“You’d be surprised how little I lie.” Sandeen’s enjoyment was so obvious, part of it had to be Alma’s. The bright eyes, the straight back, the way the host vibrated with excitement. Both of them were enjoying the show.
Harlowe shook her head, her stare incredulous. “How’d this happen?”
“I bet the who is the interesting part.”
Sandeen needed to shut the hell up.
Disgust twisted Urban’s face. “Stede?” His expression fell. “No . . . did he—”
“No. I wasn’t forced.” She pressed the fingers of one hand to her forehead and paced. Boone stepped out of her way. Did the man have to witness all of her humiliation?
She’d brought it all on herself.
Turn. Pace. Turn. The living room was large enough to get a little velocity going. If she went fast enough, maybe she’d defy physics and disappear.
She’d taken transcending for granted. “It was a mistake. A giant mistake.”
“Sierra, if the father is another angel . . .” Harlowe’s eyes were wide. “We have to check the records.”
“We’ve checked.” Sierra had been part of that. They’d researched all of the fallen in their history. “There’s nothing there.”
“The baby might not be able to be born on Earth,” Harlowe said.
“The father’s not an angel.” Now drop it. She couldn’t go back to Numen and she wasn’t giving birth in the creepy Mist.
“That leaves two options.” Sandeen was wiggli
ng in his seat. “Human or fallen.”
Jagger’s sharp gaze stabbed into her and he got really still. “The reason we suspected you is because of a hint my father gave us. How did he know, Sierra?”
Jagger had figured it out. The truth was so atrocious he hadn’t dared speak it. But the unhappy knowledge glowed in his eyes.
She inhaled and exhaled. Inhale. Exhale. “He wanted me to keep you safe and I wanted him to keep Stede off the trail. It just . . . happened.”
“Pregnancy doesn’t just happen to our kind, Sierra.” Jagger stalked closer. She stood her ground. He had a right to be upset. This was her punishment. Her shame.
But Boone was there, blocking her.
“Get out of my way,” Jagger hissed.
Boone’s back was ramrod straight and blocking her view. “No, man. You back up.”
Fury rippled over Jagger’s face. “I’m not going to hurt her.”
“Then you won’t mind backing up.”
Jagger lifted his chin and met her gaze over Boone’s shoulder. “You get to him too?”
“You’d better stop right there.” Boone’s low voice sent delicious waves coursing through her blood. The only other male who’d protected her like him had raised her. Only Papa knew what she was. Boone didn’t. “She’s been through a lot and that baby’s been through a lot.”
The steam eked out of Jagger when Boone mentioned the baby. “That baby is my brother or sister.”
“Excuse me.” Sierra sidestepped Boone. “I’ve had enough of people making decisions for me. This baby? Is mine.”
“Have two fallen had a baby before?” Harlowe asked. “Will it have . . . wings?”
If only wings were Sierra’s worst fear. “I don’t know.”
Harlowe snapped her fingers. “Junie Perez. The fallen Director Vale and Odessa followed up on when Jameson was after Odessa. Didn’t she have kids?”
If only it were that easy. “She didn’t have them after her fall. They were adopted.” Jameson had told her that a fallen needed a purpose. It’d get them past the fear, move them beyond survival. Motherhood wasn’t just a purpose, it’d given Junie’s life meaning. She hadn’t fallen for nothing if she could give a home to children in need.
“Won’t she outlive them?” Jagger spun away, his brow furrowed. “My father was fallen for decades and he looked the same. Junie’s lack of aging is a serious concern for the senate. Along with . . .” He waved his arm in her vicinity.
“My baby isn’t the senate’s business.” Sierra’s tone could’ve frozen the Pacific. I don’t know what they’ll do to you, Sierra. You have to be better than other angels.
Papa hadn’t wanted her to become a warrior. He had tried to see her when she was in prison but she’d refused him. What she’d done was the ultimate failure. He’d given up his position as a warrior to raise her, to teach her what it meant to be Numen.
Jagger faced her and thought for a moment. “No. Felicia has to work with them first. Director Vale is going to decide what to tell them about you.”
His about-face didn’t make sense. He’d been enraged that she’d messed around with his father. Why the sudden— Oh. “You think your mother might retaliate.”
“I think she’ll go nuclear in a hot second. Father continued to betray her and his kind to the very end.”
Except as a fallen, she was no one. She had very few of her kind and she had no idea who they were. She could stand in the middle of the train tracks with a mile-long string of coal cars bearing down on her and no one would push her out of the way. Numen would just turn away. She didn’t exist.
She’d sent them the message for one reason, and it wasn’t to debate what to do with her kid.
“We have to go to Bryant about this,” Jagger said.
“Do what you have to, but don’t let the baby crowd out the fact that Sandeen told you about it to take the attention off him and the fact that my blood might make him corporeal in this realm.”
Every head in the room pivoted toward Sandeen as the gravity of her words sank in.
He shrugged. “It was a good try.”
Talking exploded in the room, but Boone continued to stand on the outer edges. His number one priority was in the open so Sierra and the baby could get medical care.
Before Phoebe got pregnant with Adam, she’d miscarried in her first trimester. Sierra might be into her second trimester, but until he had an expert’s stamp of approval, the antsy feeling inside of him wouldn’t go away.
“Corporeal?” Harlowe’s expression wasn’t horrified. Intrigue shone in her eyes, then disgust, and back to intrigue.
He wasn’t the only one to notice.
Sandeen’s grin was aimed at her. “Can’t wait, Lowe?”
“Quit calling me Lowe.” She glared at him. “And no, I can’t wait. Then I can kill you right here instead of the Mist.”
“Are you sure killing me is what you want to do?”
“I’m going to do it,” she said to Urban. “You two get the answers you need and then I’m going to shank him.”
Jagger held his hands up and the arguing stopped. “How is this supposed to work?”
Sierra stalked closer to Sandeen and held her hand out. She looked at Urban sitting next to Sandeen and said, “Cut me.”
Urban slowly shook his head.
Sandeen laughed. “Good luck getting an angel to cut you. I bet they know that your blood keeps them from transcending. Tell me they know at least that.”
Sierra huffed and shoved her hand farther in Urban’s face. “He needs my blood on him. So unless you want to entrust me or him with more than a plastic butter knife, you have to cut me.”
Boone went rigid. No one was cutting her creamy skin.
But it had already happened. She had a healing scar on the back of her wrist. He’d noticed, but he hadn’t asked. He’d assumed she’d gotten it in the melee at Alma’s house. Was that what had happened in the bathroom?
Urban withdrew the multi-tool he carried in his belt that was the same size as a Leatherman, but was for lack of a better description, an ethereal silver. He shot Sandeen a warning gaze as he extended the blade. “Move a muscle and you get a one-way trip to the Mist.”
Sandeen was unaffected. “Andy’s so far ahead of you, it’s about time you start catching up.”
The magnitude of the moment thickened the air in the room. Boone didn’t know what to expect, but what happened next would be the deciding factor. Either everyone in this room but him was full of shit, or there was an unseen world humans didn’t know about.
He didn’t breathe as Urban flicked open the blade of his multi-tool. Sierra put her hand out and Urban scored the base of her palm. Boone flinched as if he’d been the one cut. She’d suffered worse, he’d seen it, but that didn’t mean he liked when she got hurt.
Sierra slapped her palm on Alma’s hand and held it. Boone narrowed his eyes.
Anticlimactic. What had he thought would happen? A demon would spring out of Alma and bicker with Harlowe and—
Alma’s face was harder to make out. Over her small chin and dainty jowls hovered a square jaw. The jawline disappeared into messy, dark hair. The startling blue of the eyes was clearer than Alma’s would ever be again.
There was a man inside Alma.
“Holy shit.”
“Nothing holy about it.” The voice that came out of Alma wasn’t her normal reedy thread. It was deep. Resonant.
Boone staggered back. “What the hell?”
Sierra pulled her hand away and Sandeen reached for it. She scowled at him and snatched it out of his grasp.
Sandeen held his hands out. Alma’s small wrinkled hands with the swollen joints were overshadowed by big, strong hands. “I knew Boone didn’t believe us.”
Boone blinked. Sierra held her hand to her side and drifted closer to him. “Boone. Are you okay?”
“That’s Sandeen?”
She nodded. Nothing about her expression was gloating. The worry in her eyes was for hi
m. “It’d help if one of you showed him your wings.”
“How can you keep risking us?” Harlowe said incredulously. “We’re in the middle of the city.”
A rare flash of anger highlighted Sierra’s blue gaze. “It’s not like I can show him mine.”
“What I don’t understand,” Sandeen drawled, “is why I only become more visible.” He poked at one of his hands. “I hate to share this, but Andy’s a pain in the ass. I’ve walked in this realm as myself before and y’all need to help me figure out the specifics. Or Andy will and his tests won’t be as pleasant.”
Boone’s mind spun to catch up. Alma was possessed. There was something in her. A man. A demon. If that was true, what else was true? All of it?
Sierra in the middle of nowhere. The scars on her back where wings would’ve been. No footprints, like something dropped down from thin air.
His fallen angel couldn’t be a real fallen angel. That was impossible.
Yet . . . he’d seen a lot of evil in his line of work. Needless pain and punishment. Criminals who couldn’t believe what they’d done to someone they loved, who were confused by how it all had happened.
It made too much sense and no sense at all.
“Impossible,” Harlowe said.
“Give me a dagger with Sierra’s blood on it and take me to the Mist.” There was no taunt in Sandeen’s tone.
“Why Sierra’s blood?” Urban asked. “Would any fallen’s blood do?”
“Go get some and we’ll find out.” And the taunting tone was back.
“Jameson’s did the same, didn’t it?” Sierra asked. “That’s how you know. That’s how Andy knows.”
Sandeen’s bland shrug was all Alma. Boone could no longer make out another face over the woman’s. “Andy knows a lot that he shouldn’t. He has spies everywhere—from all realms. He’s been positioning himself for years. Jameson and I had a deal. I got his blood if I got him weapons.”
“Numen weapons?” Harlowe jumped up. “You were behind the killings of warriors?”
“The warriors I fought weren’t exactly upstanding citizens of Numen society. The only difference between them and Sierra is that she got caught. Besides, Daemon steel, Numen steel, it’s all the same. Jameson claimed he was burned by Numen steel, but I think that was his guilty conscience.”
Demon Fire (The Angel Fire Book 3) Page 13