Free BROKEN ANGELS (Angels and Demons Book 1) by Brenda L. Harper

dead for Jimmy and Wyatt, and then healed her. But my debt was paid that day.”
    “And she disappeared.”
    He nodded. “When Mammon—”
    “Mammon?”
    “Tall, thin, didn’t talk much.”
    Dylan thought about it for a second. “Ichabod.”
    Stiles laughed. “That’s a good name for him.”
    “No one ever said his name when I was around. And it never occurred to me to ask.”
    “He was Davida’s soul mate.”
    Dylan’s mouth opened, but then snapped shut again. “It never occurred to me she had a soul mate. I mean, once I realized she was an angel, I should have wondered. But I never did.”
    “Their relationship was…complicated.”
    “I think we all have complicated relationships with the people we love the most.”
    She laid her head on Stiles’ shoulder. He let go of her hand and slid his arm around her. “I suppose we do.”
    The sun was going down. The colors of the sunset bathed them in reds and purples, the colors of violence and death. But tonight it felt more like a renewal, a restart. Like this moment was the beginning of something new.
    “So, Mammon stole me away from Sam and took me to Joanna.”
    “I was watching you. I saw where he took you…I knew the place. It was the same place where I found Joanna after I first fell.”
    “You were supposed to be watching Wyatt.” Dylan lifted her head a little. “You promised me.”
    “You and your safety have always been my only mission, Dylan. I couldn’t have stayed with Wyatt even if I had wanted to.”
    She lay her head back down. “And then?”
    “I retrieved the last of the disease and went after you. But Mammon caught me sneaking up to the house. We fought—”
    “He knew why you were there?”
    “Mammon and I had history. He betrayed me, I betrayed him. I castrated him…”
    Dylan gasped. “You what?”
    “He’d made the mistake of telling me he could no longer heal his human form. And I wasn’t feeling very generous at the moment. I didn’t want to send him home, but I also didn’t want to kill him. I wanted to send a message.”
    Dylan grunted. “Remind me not to get on your bad side.”
    “I had the syringe in my hand when Mammon caught me. I tried to inject him, but he was stronger than I had imagined he would be. He managed to inject me without realizing what he had done. And then he took me to some ruin and chained me up—”
    “I saw that.” Dylan sat up. “It was a dream; I thought…I saw that.”
    He touched her face lightly. “There was nothing you could have done. Besides, Mammon was never the smartest of angels. He thought he was frightening me by leaving me hanging there, but he forgot that I hadn’t drunk that stupid elixir the rest of them drank, that I still had all my angel powers intact. I simply slipped into my ethereal form the moment he left the room. I found Sam, took him to Wyatt, made sure Wyatt was okay—since I knew you would ask—and then went back for you. But by then you were running from Luc.”
    “Yes, Joanna used the supposed threat of Luc coming for us to teach me how to move into my ethereal form.”
    “And they tracked you.”
    “That’s why you came to me, but you were already sick—”
    “The last of the disease wasn’t as diluted as it should have been. If you hadn’t healed me…”
    Dylan reached up and kissed Stiles’ cheek lightly. “I’m glad I could.”
    “Yeah, well, it all worked out for the best.”
    She rested her head on his shoulder again for a moment. “Do you think…” she began to ask, but then she sat up, her spine as straight and stiff as it could possibly get.
    “Something’s wrong,” she said as she jumped to her feet and began to run toward her home.
    Stiles followed—as always.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

Chapter 12
     
    Dylan? Come home.
    Dylan’s heart was pounding as she ran toward her house.
    Wyatt called for her in her head. He never did that unless there was an emergency.
    Wyatt had never liked using his angel powers.