Read Online Demon's Fall by Karalynn Lee - Free Book Online Page B

smoke still rose from his flesh. The skin was charred black with bone showing through, the fingers permanently curled. Blood trickled from his lip, where he’d bitten down on a scream.
    Kenan wrapped a spare piece of cloth around Tiras’s hand as a bandage, wishing he could do more. “My deepest thanks. You should go. You won’t be safe here. If I ever can, I will repay you.”
    The locksmith hesitated, then nodded. “Be safe, angeliki ,” he said to Jahel, who was just stirring awake, then, “And you, my friend,” to Kenan. He darted out the door, slamming it behind him in his haste.
    Kenan threw the bolts, then flung open the door to the back.
    “Kenan? What’s happened?” Jahel asked, sitting up.
    He spilled the contents of his pouch onto the table. Coins rolled everywhere, but he knew every one of them, had touched and won over each woman whose soul glinted there, save one. He picked it up and pressed it into her hand. “Hold on to this.” Then he seized the collar on either side of the seam where the seal had been set. At first he thought that he would do no more than leave his fingerprints imprinted on the metal. But the stark contrast of that black iron against the coolness of her skin made him strain even harder, and it gave way and he held the open band in his hands.
    Her hand flew to her naked throat and she stood. With her other palm, though, she still held out the coin as though she expected him to take it back.
    “Take it to the girl,” he said impatiently.
    She looked utterly lost. “You’re giving me the soul? And my freedom?”
    “Yes.” He flung the collar and chain away. They skittered across the floor. He picked up her dress and forced her arms through it, and made a desultory effort at closing some of the buttons. “You’re set now.”
    “But I have nothing to give you—”
    “Just go, damn you!” The thunder outside his door was growing. He pushed her out the back. “I don’t want you here!”
    Her face was stricken, but she turned and leapt into the air with a beat of her wings. The wind caught her, and carried her away from him.

Chapter Five
    She was beautiful, flying. The sight of her, wings spread and embracing the wind, near-blinded him in its glory. It had been wrong to hold her in chains. Even…a sin.
    The door exploded open.
    “Bring us the angel!”
    Kenan turned to face the horde that had gathered outside his home. There were demons of every stripe, but they blurred into a sameness of expression, a sort of insanity.
    “She’s gone!” he shouted back at them, but his voice was swallowed by theirs. The tusked demon in front of him shoved a fist in his face and he reeled back. Around him, he heard the sound of feet and hooves tramping through his house, and glass breaking on the ground. Two demons caught hold of his arms. Someone butted him in the chest, and he was the next thing to fall to the floor. A kick to his stomach made him curl in agony.
    A deep voice scythed through the uproar. “Quiet and begone!”
    There was a sudden silence. One imp didn’t manage to finish his shout in time, and his words rose into a squeak.
    A rock-demon dared to speak. “An angel—”
    “Leave us,” a woman’s voice purred dangerously.
    Kenan raised his head to watch the demons scurry away to either side like parted waters, and they kept going, out of his house and to whatever corners of the city they had come from, leaving only two still figures in the doorway where just moments ago there had been dozens screaming. He hauled himself to his feet to greet them properly.
    From the demons’ obedience, he had expected one of the princes of Hell. Instead there stood an archangel. The sheer size of him was overwhelming enough, but he also thrummed with unmistakable power and he wore a thunderous frown.
    More daunting, though, was the woman next to him—also tall, but not at all plain. Her hair was a long fall of sable, her eyes coal-black. Wings rose from her back, but no one