Page 78 of The Fallen
“Brilliant!” I get up from my stool and go around into the kitchen to make Azrael her tea. She watches me for a moment before I beckon her over. Whilst I fill the kettle, I tell her to get a mug for herself, pointing out where to go. She ambles across to the right cupboard and spends an insane amount of time choosing one, which probably, to be fair, just means I have too many mugs.
Adam and Eve watch on wordlessly, giving in to my madness as they often do. When Azrael is sitting down next to me at the counter with a cup of tea in hand—she chose the one shaped like a duck; I approve—we all wait as she takes her first sip of tea. She keeps it in her mouth for a bit, properly tasting it, then swallows it down.
“So what do you think?” Adam asks her, looking at her with sincere interest, and I love him for it.
Azrael takes a handful of seconds to give us her verdict. She makes a humming sound with her lips still partially pressed to the mug’s rim, then says, simply, “I like it.”
I resist the urge to brush my arm against hers in some show of silent camaraderie, but Azrael beats me to it anyway, leaning into my side to press up against me from arm to hip to thigh. I should pull away, but I don’t. She feels warm, more so than I thought Angels were capable of. They’re usually such cold creatures, like ice sculptures trapped inside human skin.
After that first accomplishment of the day, things between the four of us ease up a bit. Eve makes a peace offering, getting out a tin of biscuits and pushing them towards Azrael, who in turn gives Eve another one of those intensely hostile scowls and keeps it up even when she picks out one of thechocolate digestives to take a big chomp out of. Another first-time experience although Azrael seems far less unsure about her opinion on this one. Apparently, biscuits most definitely fall into the “like” column. Big surprise there. She polishes off at least five before she finishes her cup of tea.
Adam and Eve still aren’t happy about this; I can tell by how many significant looks they keep shooting at me, but I’m happy to let it be until Michael and his bastards inevitably show up to ruin things.
CHAPTER 3
LILITH
Ido not, it turns out, have to wait long.
Michael sends me a message the same day, via falcon because he’s a melodramatic fuck like that, asking me to meet with him. Thankfully, Eve and Adam are gone by the time it comes, so at least I don’t have to worry about convincing them to stay away.
Azrael more than makes up for it, though. When I try to leave her behind at the flat, she grasps hold of my sleeve in a death grip and refuses to let go no matter how much I cajole her with promises of my swift return.
In the end, I have no choice but to give in unless I want to get in a straight-up fucking fistfight with her over it, and believe me, on most days I’d be willing to do just that. I’ve kneed my fair share of Angels in the face, and I’m not afraid to do it again. But just when I’m about to wake up and choose violence, Azrael gives me this oh-so-solemn stare and says she doesn’t want to be alone, and I cave with embarrassing ease.
My only consolation is the fact that there’s not an ounce of triumph in Azrael’s relieved exhale.
Michael gets me to meet him down at the docks because again,drama. He’s hidden in the shadowed enclave between two massive ships. There’s no one around, and I don’t know if that’s luck or literal divine intervention making it so.
I get Azrael to wait at the top of the gangway, close enough that she’s still in my sightline but far enough that it won’t feel like she’s looming during whatever fuckery this is about to be with Michael.
He looks the same. His mortal form hasn’t changed since the very beginning. In human years, he looks to be in his late thirties, with dark-red hair hanging to his shoulders and a large, hulking frame. His eyes, like Azrael’s, shine pure white inside his skull. He has thick eyebrows, perfectly sculpted for judgement, and he utilises them well now.
“Why did she come to you?” Michael demands without any preamble. He’s scowling, but it’s nowhere near as good as Azrael’s. She makes it look threatening. He just looks like a grumpy prick.
There’s a light breeze on the air that blow tiny wisps of air around my face. One longer strand gets caught on my lip, stuck to the balm coating it, and I have to raise a hand to drag it away. It gives me a second to calm down so I don’t just drop-kick him into the ocean.
“No idea,” I lie blithely. “Thought you sent her.”
“We didn’t.” Michael eyes me with barely veiled contempt. “And you figured that out, but you still didn’t see fit to contact me once you knew she was … lost.”
Lost? Fuckingescaped, he means.
“Not my fault if you don’t have any control over your own foot soldiers, is it? But then”—I sigh forlornly—“you’ve neverbeen able to command the same kind of loyalty that Lucifer could.”
Low blow, bringing up Lucifer. It always is, which is the point. The salt and burn of long-ingrained sibling rivalries never die, especially for immortals.
Michael’s nostrils flare in irritation, his top lip twitching to reveal one sharp little incisor. I’ve known him far too long, and that facial tick is a sure sign that he is rapidly losing the grip on his tether, which is interesting since we’ve barely started. Either he’s getting some heavy-duty pressure for letting one of his soldiers skip out on their team, or there’s something special about Azrael. I resist the urge to glance back at her, not wanting to give anything away to Michael.
“You will surrender her to us, Lilith,” he says, a frigid arrogance to his voice that sets my teeth on edge, like I’m trying to bite through solid ice.
“If that was a demand, you feathered fuck, the answer is no. If it was a badly phrased request, the answer is also no.” I sneer at him. “I ain’t your soldier or your sister or yourpet, so you can just fuck right off.”
Michael has never understood the difference between ordering warriors and commanding dogs. To him, they are one and the same, and therein lies the cause of all his failures, whether he acknowledges them as such or not.
“You seek to challenge us on this,” Michael says, mildly incredulous as he draws himself up to his full height, shoulders rigid as church stone. “You mean to challengeme.” It isn’t a question. He knows better than to question my willingness to rebel against him and all the horses he rode in on by now.
Here he is. Leader of the Angels, the first in creation. That’s something we’ve aways been able to meet in the middle on, what it feels like to be the first, to bear that burden for everyone who came after us.
