Read Online Fallen by Michele Hauf - Free Book Online Page B

find a boyfriend.”
    â€œNo time for that stuff.”
    â€œThere’s always time for letting others into your heart.”
    â€œDidn’t you used to be some kind of warrior?”
    He felt the dig all the way to his gut. Yes, a warrior on a path of righteous glory. Such glory is never pretty.
    â€œYou’ve softened, buddy,” Pyx continued. “Letting people into your heart? Our hearts are adamant and they don’t beat.”
    â€œJust because the blood doesn’t flow in and out doesn’t mean we can’t feel.”
    â€œSays the guy who ripped out a vampire’s heart without a second thought last night.”
    â€œThat was different. You don’t want to go and fall in love with a bloodsucker.”
    And he suspected Pyx could feel emotion too, because right now she was uncertain about his mention of boyfriends and hearts. She was experiencing the same emotions all mortals felt. It was impossible not to when treading earth. Compassion and empathy and love and admiration were weird though, he had to admit.
    Violence had always come easily to him. Still did. Onlynow he must take a second to think it through before doing something rash, and usually that second changed his mind. It never would have before, when he’d served the angelic ranks.
    That had been his past. Violence and aggression was the one part of humanity he despised. If he wanted to move ahead, he had to embrace a new mindset.
    Maybe he could use Pyx’s emotional confusion to his advantage. He knew he’d never get a demon to trust him, but perhaps he could interest her in the sensual delights, maybe a little seduction. If it changed her mind about slaying him, he’d give it a go.
    It was either that or rip out her heart. And right now, he kind of liked where it was, inside and behind those gorgeous breasts.
    â€œSo did you kill many when you were a real angel?” she asked suddenly.
    â€œA real angel?” It was difficult not to take offense at every other word that came out of her mouth, and yet, Cooper found he preferred Pyx’s rough edges to someone who would speak only to please him. Humans did that a lot. “I served in Puriel’s ranks. I guess you could say we participated in much smiting.”
    â€œAnd you chose to fall because you weren’t into the smiting?”
    â€œI can smite with the best of them,” he said defensively. But his anger cooled quickly. The need to not smite had surfaced thanks to an angel friend who’d made him see more than just the holy light. “Smiting serves no purpose now.”
    He wouldn’t tell her it had taken a Fallen one to point that out to him. He wondered what had become of Kadesch. When they’d Fallen, each of the two hundred angels had touched earth in different areas of the world,some—because of the length and velocity of the fall—even in different time periods.
    She stepped off the curb. Cooper tugged Pyx’s arm, stopping them at the street corner where the light flashed red. She would walk against the light if he let her, but if she were going to hang with him, the woman had better start learning the law, if only not to draw attention to the demon and angel standing on the street corner.
    â€œWhat are you doing?” Cooper swept a long look down her bopping figure.
    She shifted her hips from side to side and snapped a finger near her ear. “Jiving.”
    â€œTo what?” He now noticed she wore something in her ears. The small devices that played music were everywhere. Cooper popped one of them out and put it in his ear. He liked the funky tune. “Nice.”
    She nodded, working her shoulders into her impromptu shimmy. The demon had no grasp on her sexuality. Men walking by stretched their necks watching her movements.
    Casting a sneer at one man who stared far too long, Cooper then clasped Pyx’s hands.
    â€œMay I have this dance?” Instead of waiting for her