Page 31 of Fallen: Darkness Ascending, Vol.1

FAITH

M y head hurt like a son of bitch, and I really should have stopped drinking after the second or third bottle of vodka. I’d never been hung over before, but if right now was anything to go off of, I agreed with everything I’d heard about it. It sucked.

So much.

Reaching up, I gripped the bridge of my nose, trying to breathe around the swirling need to puke my guts out. Something was dripping somewhere, too, and I rolled my eyes even though they were shut. Dammit, had I passed out in the fucking church ?

Christ, what was I doing?

The memory of being perched on that railing hit me, and my stomach dropped. Oh shit, was I on the floor? Had I jumped and…clearly not fucking died?

“Well, well. Look who’s coming around?”

I jerked. There was a fucking dude somewhere in here with me, and I…

I recognized that voice. My eyes shot open just as that need to vomit peaked.

I didn’t, thank hell, because whatever I’d been about to do halted abruptly when my stomach sank past the floor when I got a look at the guy standing in front of me.

Fuck .

“You.” I shook my head. Maybe he’d go away if I did it hard enough, but nope, there he was when my vision righted again. “What in the absolute fuck is going on?”

The asshole had the gall to smirk at me, and I shoved myself backward.

It was then that I realized that I was sitting on something soft.

I’d been lying down, and now, well, now I was propped up against several pillows on some sort of palette.

It sat on the ground, the redhead fucker—and I meant bright red, like a damn firetruck—who’d abducted me looking way down at me from his height all the way up there.

“Where the fuck am I?”

“Should I take those in order?” The guy continued to smirk, and I didn’t know if I wanted to punch him in the smug face or run away down the hallway that loomed behind him.

I had no idea where I was and who knew what this asshole wanted to do to me.

“Me. Simiel. ‘Going on’ is a long story, but the short version is, you’re not supposed to exist, and we’d like to know how you do, in fact, exist. Oh, and I took you to our safehouse because the angels were coming. ”

I was pretty sure my head exploded, or it was about to, which would be a real bitch for my kidnapper to clean up. My mouth was hanging open, apparently, and I snapped it shut as I went over those words again in my mind. Not supposed to exist? Safehouse? Angels? !

Wait. Did he say we?

“Fucking hell, Simiel. You could have at least tried to explain that a little more subtly. Ugh.”

Jumping again, I snapped my head to the right. Up against a wooden desk that had been shoved up against the wall in this weird cave-like room, stood a man who was at least six-four. He had long white hair that reached down to his hips and deep, deep brown skin.

Shit, his eyes are like…teal. Nope. Not interested in your kinky cosplay.

I tried to scramble out of the stupid palette thing I was on, rushing toward that hallway I’d noticed because there was no fucking way I was sticking around to see what these two had planned for me.

The Geralt wannabe and alt-fucker could fuck right off.

I wasn’t letting them kill me or rape me—or both.

But as soon as I found my feet, the blanket I’d been on slid out from under my boot, and I stumbled into the first guy’s chest. He caught me easily enough, but I yanked myself away and nearly pitched backward and fell on my ass again.

A hand grabbed the front of my shirt lightning fast and hauled me forward.

He was way too strong, and even if I was in good shape, there was no way I’d survive against that .

“Come on, Faith. Chill. We can all talk this out and?—”

Snatching myself out of his grip, I took a step forward and shoved the asshole away from me hard. He scooted back a whopping two inches. Dammit. I hate when I’m right sometimes .

“You can’t keep me here, you creep! People are going to notice and?—”

“The same people you trusted not to miss you when you were going to throw yourself off a railing in an abandoned church.” I blanched, my eyes flaring wide as my words died in my throat.

Whoever this guy was, he’d just thrown it in my face that I’d been looking to kill myself like it was nothing.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. And it’s Simiel. ‘Member?”

I couldn’t respond now. It was all moving too fast and too…

I didn’t know. How did this guy, this Simiel , even know what I’d been thinking in that church in the first place?

How did he know my name? And as more of my brain came back online, my eyes drifting over his shoulders, I noticed his wings again.

The actual wings. Cuz these ain’t props.

They were all sporting them, these massive, bat-like stretches of glowing bones and black skin. The skeleton beneath the dark grey flesh was luminescent, shimmering a faint orange color. They looked sharp and deadly, and there was no way I could logic my way out of their existence.

“I…”

“Simiel, cut her a break.” Another voice chimed in, and looking toward the back of this narrow room across from the white-haired guy, I noticed a third muscular fuck. Who were these guys? Some private gym bro organization that kidnapped women? Oh, shit. Some cult had abducted me, hadn’t I?

This one was different, though. Whitie gave off as much warm and fuzzies as a coked-up grizzly bear, and Red was all horn-dog brat vibes, with all those tattoos and piercings. There was hardly a space on his tan skin that wasn’t covered in ink or sporting jewelry.

But the person at the back was…reserved.

They, I assumed, given their androgynous look, gave off a muted energy, one that went well with the glasses they pulled off their face and tucked into their pocket.

They were also the fairest-skinned of the bunch, with no visible tattoos in sight, which was easily achieved with the turtleneck they were wearing.

Specs also had short black hair, which seemed weirdly normal considering the other two, but bright violet eyes that gleamed.

Looking at them, some of my confidence came back, and I stuck my finger in the air, pointing at each of my abductors in turn.

“Someone better start fucking explaining before I start swinging. I’m not about to just let you assholes do what you want with me.”

“You sure about that?” Simiel’s voice came from behind me. “And I am really hankering for a snack. ”

The one at the back stepped forward, setting down a book they’d been holding, keeping their place with their finger tucked between the pages.

Simiel was still hovering just behind me, and I could feel his presence there, like an actual sense of touch, but not, more like invisible waves reaching out and finding other ones.

No, no, no. Don’t like this.

Whitie rolled his eyes, the muscles in his jaw working so visibly that I wondered if he was going to crack a tooth from clenching so hard. My nerves flared, renewed fear zinging down them.

“Faith, and apologies for already knowing your name, I am Cadriel. We have been keeping an eye on you. You aren’t wrong to be suspicious. Unfortunately, it was necessary. You…you are a nephilim , and we needed to know more. Your kind is not meant to exist.”

Nothing this Cadriel was saying was adding up. I was a fucking orphan no one who up until recently worked at a bar. Sure, bad luck followed me like the plague, but that was a hyperbole. It wasn’t like there was actually anything going on.

“This is pointless.” Whitie was talking again, and I don’t know what it was, but I could feel the hatred dripping from his words.

He glared at me harder than some of the families of the people who’d died around me, and unlike them, I actually worried that he might be able—and willing—to…

hurt me. “We should just give her to the angels. This is none of our fucking business. Hell, it might even buy us some ‘grace’ with those assholes.”

“Umm, did Whitie here just fucking say give me to angels?” The words were out of my mouth before I could think to rephrase them, and frankly, my ability to give a shit was waning, sub-zero levels at this point.

The one behind me, Simiel, chuckled again. “Whitie? Oh man, that’s fucking good.”

He laughed, and Whitie surged forward, less than happy about the nickname I’d given him or the way that his ‘friend’ got a kick out of it.

Cadriel stepped in front of him, blocking his murderous path toward Simiel.

Hell, he could have very well been coming toward me, too, and something told me that the big guy really wanted to dig his fingers into some flesh and tear.

“Xathanael, that’s enough. We will not be turning a nephilim over to the angels.

You know what they would do to her just because she is what she is.

” The two of them were in a standoff with each other.

Cadriel was a bit shorter than this Xathanael, and they both glared, but there was something about their closeness.

Were they brothers? Adoptive, sure, but they seem…

It was about then that I realized that Simiel had come up right behind me, hovering so damn close to me, and I looked back over my shoulder. Why hadn’t I noticed him there? Why didn’t it feel…

Everyone who got this close to me sent my nerves screaming.

It put me on edge. I didn’t like to be touched at the best of times, and these fuckers had kidnapped me.

I should have noticed the moment Simiel got closer.

I should be feeling that itch of discomfort beneath my skin, but I didn’t. I felt…recognition?

That didn’t make sense. But it was the only word I could think of to describe it. Something inside me recognized something in him. In fact, now that I had zeroed in on the sensation, it was recognition for all of them.

Yours .