Free Demon's Fall by Karalynn Lee

would have mistaken her for an angel. They were bat’s wings, dark and leathery.
    She was not beautiful. She was perfect.
    “First,” Kenan said, and crouched on the floor. He knew the name she was called by, of course—it had been known since the first mortal—but he used her title out of respect and fear. She had been the first demon to tempt a man. Even the demon princes of Hell accorded her deference.
    “You may stand,” Lilith said, so he rose, only to have his head snapped to one side by her slap. Four lines burned across his cheek where her nails had torn the skin.
    He did not touch his face as he turned back to look at her. “I will do as you say, First,” he said. “You need not abase me in such a common manner.”
    “Tell me, then, where you’ve hidden your angel.”
    The archangel came closer. His wings spread in an obvious threat, opening to nearly twice the span of Jahel’s. “I was told she was caged and chained, like an animal,” he said.
    “She was,” Kenan said. “I freed her. She’s likely on her way to Heaven.”
    “Useless incubus,” the archangel said, advancing, but Lilith laid the same hand that had struck Kenan upon the angel’s arm to hold him back.
    “He’s done well for himself, I hear,” she said. “Don’t judge him by his breed.” She turned back to Kenan. “And why did you free her?”
    She was smiling slightly, encouragingly. But he knew she would not brook any feeble excuse, no more than the archangel who stood by her with his fists curled.
    He thought of Jahel and said, “I’ve fallen in love with the angel.”
    It sounded no more plausible out loud.
    Lilith threw her head back and laughed. “You poor thing,” she crooned. “At the mercy of one of those creatures.”
    The archangel glowered.
    She twined her arms behind Kenan’s neck and leaned her forehead against his. “So an angel seduced you?” she asked, a mocking lilt to her voice. “You couldn’t resist the charms of one of the Heaven-born?”
    “She didn’t seduce me,” Kenan said. “I tried to seduce her, and only ensnared myself.”
    She drew back and searched his face. “Incubus, if you lie—”
    “Truth, First,” he said.
    “A demon and an angel?” the archangel broke in, incredulous.
    It was Lilith who turned to him. “Yes, Baraqiel. A demon and an angel. It isn’t unheard of.”
    He looked away. “But never condoned,” he said harshly.
    “No,” she said. “But she’s gone now.”
    “It concerns me more that she was ever here.”
    “Indeed.” She eyed Kenan again. “Imagine angels storming Hellsgate, looking for one of their own who had been treated disgracefully. Imagine what would follow. If Baraqiel hadn’t come to me for help finding this lost angel, instead of simply calling together the other archangels to descend upon us, it would have meant war. What were you thinking, keeping an angel captive?” Lilith paused, and then her voice hardened. “What kind of love is that?”
    It was Baraqiel who intervened this time. “Enough. She’s free now. Incubus, what color were her wings?”
    He couldn’t help remembering the sight of them spread open as she rose above him. “White.”
    The archangel released a long breath, an odd mixture of relief and disappointment. “She isn’t the one—she should have changed by now. But it still smells of someone rousing trouble between Heaven and Hell.”
    “She’s not the one?” Kenan asked, bewildered.
    Baraqiel glanced at him. “A scroll was disturbed in Heaven’s library.”
    “I heard,” he said cautiously.
    “It was the Scroll of Revelations.”
    The attempted theft suddenly became a far more serious matter. That scroll not only revealed the details of the end of the world, but would cause it if fully opened. The only reason to take it would be to bring about Armageddon.
    “Was it opened?” he asked. The scroll was said to be so potent that it took more than one person just to open it.
    “One seal,” Baraqiel