The Fallen- Part One

by Grace McGinty

  I took it from him, careful not to touch him, and placed it in it’s spot in the box.

  I handed the box back to him, and he took it, shaking his head. I crawled back into the hospital bed, suddenly exhausted.

  I felt a wave of love. I looked at Blue. Well, it definitely wasn't coming from him. Then I picked up the comforting probe of Rella’s thoughts.

  I smiled brightly at Blue, and his eyebrows rose at my sudden shift in mood. Oh, this was going to be good.

  I’d just settled myself back in bed when the door opened and my twin, my strong, beautiful twin, ran into the room, throwing herself across my body and hugging me tight. Too tight. I sucked in a breath as my poor abused ribs got battered for the second time in ten minutes.

  “It’s so good to see you. You look like shit though. What have you been doing? God, I’ve missed you,” I said into her hair, though I didn’t think she was listening. That was okay. It was just nice to feel the warm safety of her familiar emotions. The blanket of love that surrounded us both whenever we were together.

  She pulled back, and I could see the exact moment she remembered my ribs. “Don't worry, they don't hurt too bad anymore. Besides, I needed that too.”

  Blue scoffed, and Rella reared back. She was up, a gun pulled from god-knows where, pointed at Blue’s face with an almost inhuman speed. Blue, for his part, looked completely unfazed about having a gun trained on him.

  “Hope? Why is Blue Halloran sitting at your bedside?”

  5

  The day after Rella’s visit and meeting her, uh, new friends, the hospital released me. Adnan, Aunt Clary’s adopted son, Mulligan golden boy, and proof that the Mulligans were moving into the 21st century, hustled me into the car. He barely spared a glance for Blue, which lent credence to Blue’s theory that he was merely a tool to the Family. However, Blue just slid into the back of Adnan’s sporty convertible coupe like he’d been invited.

  “Ah, Hope. The apartment hasn’t been the same without you. Liesel was just saying yesterday that the apartment was just boring without you.”

  I shifted to buckle in my seatbelt, but Blue’s hands were there, clipping it in with cool efficiency, then sitting back in the cramped coupe, his long, muscular legs up under his chin.

  I looked over my shoulder. “Thanks, Blue.” I glanced at Adnan in the driver’s seat. “Do I know Liesel?” It was sometimes hard to keep up with Adnan’s dancing friends, almost as hard as keeping up with his boyfriends. They all seemed to have a rapid turnover, both friends and lovers.

  “No, but she can tell your aura is missing from the apartment.” I rolled my eyes. “Don’t roll your eyes at me, Miss I-Can-Read-People's-Emotions.”

  I whipped my head to him, giving him my best quelling look. “Seriously?” My eyes shot to the mirror and I looked at Blue. Maybe he’d missed that. His eyebrows were raised. Maybe not.

  “Pssh. He’s your bodyguard right? Duty bound to protect your body day and night? You were going to slip eventually.” What Adnan meant was that he was going to slip eventually. Adnan was not good at keeping secrets. Unfortunately, we hadn’t known that when we were five and Rella and I let him in on our biggest secret.

  I decided that the best course of action was to ignore Adnan’s verbal nip-slip and move on. I told Adnan about the doctor ordering rest, and that I had to take another week off work, maybe two, and I had to get my pain meds on the way home.

  I listened half-heartedly as Adnan went off on a tangent about the dangers of pain meds to dancers, which was apparently grave in his opinion, and instead appraised Blue in the rear view mirror as he looked at the streets of Manhattan.

  He really was attractive, but it was in an unusual kind of way. His icy blue eyes were a shade that was unsettling rather than pretty, and they were set under low, straight eyebrows that made him look serious, if not almost cruel. His body was nice though, all hard lines and edges. It was lean muscle, and while he didn’t look like he could bench press me or anything, he moved with an elegant sort of grace that told me he was consciously aware of everything around him and his place in the room.

  He was dangerous. Self-assured. And sexy as hell.

  I sighed, and tried to tune back into Adnan. I did not need to lust over my reluctant bodyguard, especially one with a kill count.

  The empath and the murderer, a love affair doomed to fail.

  Luckily, with little to no input from me, Adnan wrapped up his spiel just as we came to our apartment buildings underground garage. Adnan swiped his pass, waved to the gate attendant and drove to our spot.

  My little Prius sat where I’d left her. As I gingerly stood from the car, I ran a hand over her bonnet. It had to go. Even looking at it was making my heart pound. All I could think when I looked at it was the men climbing out of the car, the shiny metal gun matching the paintwork almost perfectly in the Geneva sunshine. Logically I knew that my car and the rental Prius were completely different, but my heart didn’t seem to care as it thundered in my chest.

  A hand reached out and wrapped itself in mine, pulling me away from the car. The subtle wave of Blue’s muted emotions cascaded over me, and I dragged my eyes from the car to our clasped hands. Tugging me from between the cars, he let go of my hand, his eyes alert. I tensed, but couldn’t sense any malice or ill feelings from the carpark. I guess Blue was just doing his job.

  We walked to the elevator, Adnan holding my bags. “The place is a bit of a mess, but the cleaning lady is coming in tomorrow,” he said as he swiped our key. “I just haven’t had time, you know?”

  I rolled my eyes. Adnan was also a bit of a slob. It wasn’t that he was dirty, but he was creative. His mind lived in a constant state of organized chaos, and as a result, so did our apartment.

  I shook my head at him as the doors slid open and he glided from the elevator with all the aplomb of royalty. Looking at him move, you would never guess he was missing a leg, a casualty of a bomb blast that almost killed him when he was a boy, living in Aleppo. His entire family had died, except his older brother Nazir who he adored but didn’t see much of, and in a story no one really talked about, somehow Ace managed to move them both to US, and Aunt Clary adopted them and raised them like her own flesh and blood. Aunt Clary was the reason the Mulligans accepted their adopted, middle eastern, gay, one legged dancer relation with such ease. To treat Adnan with anything but love and respect would incur the wrath of Clary. I’d only ever heard rumors of Clary’s infamous temper, but it kept everyone in check when it mattered.

  Adnan hadn’t been lying when he said the place was a mess.

  “Has your apartment been ransacked?” Blue asked, and it didn’t sound like he was making a joke. The place did look like it had been tossed. But I knew it was just Adnan.

  I shook my head at Blue, who raised a single eyebrow but said no more.

  Adnan cleared off the couch and fluffed some pillows. I walked over and slumped into the seat, exhausted even though I’d done literally nothing but walk to and from the car.

  “I’ll run downstairs and get you your pain meds and a doughnut,” Adnan kissed the top of my head. “Will you be alright with…” he didn’t finish, but he didn’t need to.

  “We’ll be fine,” I said reassuringly. He hadn’t murdered me in my sleep yet, so I thought I was pretty safe.

  Picking up his keycard, Adnan swooped from the room with as much grace as he’d entered.

  Blue continued to stand in the middle of the room, taking in my home. When it wasn’t covered in Adnan’s crap, it was usually quite nice. It had a comforting, homey feel. I snuggled down into the plump couch cushions, pulling the soft gray afghan over my knees. It was good to be home.

  “What did the Little Prince mean about you reading people's emotions?” Blue said with feigned casualness, as he walked around straightening things.

  “You must have misheard,” I said, picking up a magazine that had been wedged between the couch cushions and pretended to read.

  Blue just raised a singl
e eyebrow again.

  I sighed. “Exactly what it sounds like.”

  Straightening the coffee table books, he looked at me. “Elaborate.”

  “No.”

  Icy blue eyes stared at my face, as if he was mining my brain for his answers, and I squirmed beneath his gaze. I wondered briefly if this was how people felt when I spent too long trying to read their emotions.

  “Fine. I can read people's emotions. Like right now, you aren’t straightening everything to be polite, though I didn’t need to read your emotions to guess that. You are straightening because this level of disorganization makes you anxious. It goes against your need for everything to be ordered, perfect. I imagine that can only be a good thing in your line of work.”

  Blues hands halted. “And now?”

  “Confusion. Disbelief. A little fear that what I’m saying is actually true and I’ll see all the murky, parts of your soul.”

  He stilled. Like he was unnaturally still, as if he was no longer even breathing, as if his heart had ceased to beat.

  I was a little relieved when his breath whooshed out. I was worried I would have to give him mouth to mouth. Yeah, worried, right.

  “That’s untrue.” He moved away from me, as if standing on the other side of the room might dull my other sense. It was wishful thinking. If I tried hard enough, I could feel the emotions of every person in this apartment building.

  “There's no need to be frightened,” I said quietly. This was why I never told anyone about my abilities. Our emotions were really the only things that were truly ours. People could tell you what to think, but no one could tell you how to feel. To know that I could get inside their emotions and poke around would freak out anyone. Except Rella and Adnan, but they’d had a lifetime to get used to it, and besides, kids already wore their emotions on their sleeves. It hadn't really felt like a big deal until we hit thirteen and I realized that Charlie, Rella’s best friend, had a huge crush on her. It was the first time that I realized I’d be privy to information that could effectively change peoples lives.

  “I’m not frightened,” Blue growled. I winced. I knew differently. The shock had obliterated his normal wall against his emotions and I was getting everything. It was a deluge of pent up anger, sadness, loneliness and rejection. I wrapped my arms around my stomach and groaned. I couldn’t slap my hands over my ears, or cover my eyes to make it stop. The only thing that would make it better was distance, but I couldn’t tell him to leave. He hurt in a place that couldn’t be healed by bandages and medicine. He hurt down to his very soul.

  I stood up, moving closer despite my instincts. He didn’t move away, despite looking like he needed to bolt.

  I placed a hand on his arm first, and when he flinched from my touch, I stepped into his space, wrapping my arms around his waist and hugging him to me as tightly as I could. I wanted to take his decades of hurt and pain and suck it into myself, but emotions didn’t work like that. I couldn’t heal them with a wave of my hand. But I could let him know I had his back, well his front right now, if he wanted it.

  Step out of her arms you dumb fuck. You don’t deserve her absolution. You made your bed, and she isn’t going to warm it for you. Now move. For fuck sake just move, you aren’t worth the shit on her shoe! He stepped out of my arms.

  “That’s not true, Blue. I’m no better than you!”

  “What?” He took another step back.

  “You’re worth just as much as I am,” I said, stepping back into his face so he was forced to look at me.

  “Are you a mind reader too?” he yelled, his hand moving to his hip, where his gun was. I stilled.

  “No. I mean, sometimes but only if I’m touching them and they are feeling really loudly.”

  He was at the door, and I could feel his rage. “You had no right.” Despite his words, I couldn’t feel any hatred emanating from him towards me.

  I’d fucked this up so bad. I wanted to go to him, soothe his barbed emotions that poked at me like a crown of thorns. But I was very aware of the gun at his hip. A gun so like the one that killed JJ and haunted my nightmares.

  I felt a presence flutter in behind me, and I turned. Memphis was there, his eyes promising pain. I raised my hand to still him, though judging by his huge wings, he wasn’t visible to Blue.

  “Blue,” I said again, softly. A plea for forgiveness.

  “You had no right,” he repeated, opening the door and slamming out.

  I looked at the door for a moment, calming my hammering heart.

  “He’s not coming back, is he?”

  Memphis was silent, so I turned. He was staring at the door too, his brows creased. He made himself visible and walked toward me, his wings dragging softly across the polished wooden floors.

  “He will be back. But not today.” He put a hand under my elbow and directed me back toward the couch. “Please sit. I can sense your exhaustion.”

  I wanted to tell him it was mental not physical exhaustion, but I kept my silence. When he sat down next to me, I gave into the strange impulse that lingered at the edge of my brain. I crawled onto his lap and rested my head on his chest, appreciating the warmth of his darkly ethereal colored skin, the steady staccato beat of his heart. And when he wrapped deep onyx wings around me, sucking out the light, leaving me with only warmth and comforting darkness, I let the fear seep from my veins. I let the thump, thump, thump of his heart lull me to sleep, and the black of night soothe away the hurt of the day.

  6

  Memphis came back the next day, and the day after that. Usually he would just loom in the corner, choosing to keep himself from Adnan for whatever reason. It wasn’t as if Adnan hadn’t ever met Luc and Ace. Ace loved Adnan’s adoptive mother, Clary. Mom used to tell stories of girls nights out just after we’d been born. I’d shut that down quick. You don’t want to know what the Consort of Lucifer and the daughter of one of the biggest mob families in Boston got up to when there was copious amounts of vodka and no restraining influence. My whole body shuddered.

  But for whatever reason, Memphis never appeared in corporeal form until Adnan had left for the day. His feelings confused me. Hell, I was pretty sure his feelings confused him. He wanted something from me, but I wasn’t sure what it was. It wasn’t my body, obviously, because it was still battered and bruised, though I did get the odd hint of lust when he thought I wasn’t looking. He guarded his emotions from me, and it was as close as I got to silence. But no one can guard their feelings all the time. It was natural. It came as subconsciously as breathing.

  He held so much hope in his heart when he looked at me. Like I was the answer to a question he had waited a millennia to discover.

  He appeared as soon as Adnan had slipped from the door, not even bothering to hide his wings though he held them tightly to his back. He held a small gold box in his hand.

  “What’s that?” I said from the kitchen. I made his coffee. Black. No sugar. I screwed my nose up. It would be like drinking tar. I put it in the extra large mug that had coffee bowl written on the side because he’d drink it straight from the pot if I’d let him.

  “Chocolates, from Peru,” he said softly, handing me the box. “Apparently humans enjoy it.”

  I put my mug down with a thud, coffee splashing over the side and burning my hand.

  “You don’t like chocolate?” I briefly wondered if I could eject him from my home for such sacrilege.

  “I have never tasted it,” he said, shrugging in a distinctly human gesture.

  I sucked in an outraged breath. “Never?”

  My face must have looked comical, because the corners of Memphis’ mouth tilted up in a smile. “Never.”

  This just wouldn’t do. Love it or hate it, you had to try it at least once. I snatched the coffee out of his reach. “Nope. No. No coffee until you try this. I don’t want the coffee killing your tastebuds for this.”

  I grabbed the box of chocolates from his hand, and then led him over to the couch. “Sit.”

  He
let out a low chuckle, his eyebrows raised. But he sat.

  I sat on the coffee table in front of him, and opened the box. Inside were four small round chocolates sitting in a bed of tissue paper like jewels. I lifted the box and sucked in the rich aroma of cocoa. Oh, this stuff was good.

  “You should close your eyes,” I said, moving closer. His deep midnight blue eyes held mine, and I flushed, swallowing hard. But he closed his eyes.

  “Now open your mouth,” I said, picking up one of the chocolates. It began to melt on my fingers immediately in the warmth of the apartment.

  Eyes closed, Memphis parted his lips, and I was suddenly transfixed by the pinkness of his tongue against the marble blackness of his skin, a color not seen amongst humanity. Of all the Fallen, Memphis looked the most other. Like he was carved from the the deepest shade of Lapis Lazuli, more black than blue. The night sky an hour before dawn. Shaking myself, I leaned forward, placing the chocolate on his tongue. He closed his mouth around the chocolate that was already melting on his tongue.

  I watched his face. His brows drew together as he chewed, and if I hadn’t felt his pleasure, I would have thought he hated it. He let out a low little hum and opened his eyes.

  “It is very sweet.”

  I nodded, holding still as he leaned forward.

  “And velvety smooth,” he said, his lips inches from mine.

  “Yes.” My voice came out as a whisper.

  He closed the gap between our lips, kissing me gently. I tasted the chocolate on his lips as they pressed against mine, his tongue flicked out, tempting me to open. His fingers brushed against my cheekbone gently, like I was made of porcelain.

  I deepened the kiss, and his wings spread wide over the back of the couch. I didn’t want him to kiss me like I was fragile. I wanted him to kiss me like it was our last time, not our first.

  His tongue slid into my mouth and I stood so I could straddle his lap. Two huge hands banded my waist, pulling me close against his hard body. My hands ran over the firm planes of his chest beneath the black button-down shirt that felt softer than silk.