Page 5 of Fallen Mate

Neo laughed, his shoulders shaking as he answered, “Aria, this isn't a regular cell.”

I knew what he was going to say before he even said it. My stomach churned.

“This is a temporary holding cell until they’re ready to execute us.”

I was going to be sick. “They’re going to kill you for asking a valid question?”

“I’m beneath the Upper Council, Aria. We all are. They don’t owe me, or anyone else, an explanation for anything they do.” He stretched his legs out, crossing them at the ankles as he watched me. “You’re not worried about the fact that they’re going to killyou?”

I was, but I’d already known that would be the outcome if we were ever caught. This wasn’t surprising. “I’m a half-blood wolf with a half-blood angel as my soulmate. I can’t say I’m shocked by this. I mean, I’mworried, but not shocked.”

“So itistrue. You’re mates?”

I wanted to keep my guard up since Neowasa complete stranger, but I found that with the threat of impending death hanging over our heads, my defenses were a little less rigid.

“Yes, we are,” I answered carefully.

Neo pulled his knees up. His wings fluttered, the feathers ruffling as he attempted to stretch them in this cramped space. “How do you know for sure?” he asked quietly. I could sense no ill intent from him, just genuine curiosity.

“It’s disorienting as hell,” I admitted. “We’re a special case. We didn’t know right away because we sort of hated each other, to be honest. Or, he hated me because I was half fallen-blood, and I was too busy trying to avoid him. It wasn’t until his grandmother—”

“Credence Miller?” Neo butt in, perking up. “She was one of the people on my list to interview about Azazel.”

I couldn’t help the small smile that broke out on my face at the mention of the eccentric woman. I thought of her shotgun and her hellhound, Bunny.

“Yeah, the one and only. She was the one who really told us about soulmates. The lore of them, at least. We didn’t believe it at first, but from the way I felt about him after knowing him only a few weeks, with a good portion of that time spent despising each other? It made sense that there was some ancient force-of-nature explanation.”

Neo’s lips pulled into a sad smile. “It feels like you’re out of your depth, right? Like you’re drowning and there’s no land in sight, so you have no choice but to trust the ocean not to swallow you whole?”

My eyebrows rose slowly. “Yeah. It’s a little unsettling, like… you’re finally where you need to be for the first time ever? Like you’re a puzzle with missing pieces, and you’ve finally found the last piece you lost.”

“Yeah.”

I stared at the way his eyes seemed to go distant, my curiosity piqued. “Neo, do you have—”

“Which Captain picked you up?” he interrupted before I could ask my question.

I tilted my head as I forced myself to remember. “Manson?” I mumbled. “No… Ansen?”

He cocked his head to the side. “Marilyn Ansen?”

I snapped my fingers. “That’s it. Captain Marilyn Ansen.”

“Hm. She’s pretty strong. One of the best, so I’ve heard.”

“I don’t remember much about her. I’ve never had any encounters with Paras before now,” I shrugged. “And I don’t even really remember what happened.”

“Paras are the police of the supernatural world, Aria. They go through like half a decade of intense training to weed out the weak.”

I leaned towards him, wincing at the twinge in my neck. He shook his head as he continued.

“It changes every fifty years, but I think the class of Paras that graduated with Captain Ansen had to spend six months in the Sahara and another six in Aokigahara.”

My skin chilled. “What?” I whispered, horrified.

Neo nodded. “Most of those who weren’t sacrificed and eaten in the desert, or dead from extreme hyperthermia, killed themselves in the forest.”

“Holy fuck…” I trailed off.

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