Free Lost In Time: A Fallen Novel by Christie Palmer

stomach roll. She thought she was going to vomit.
    “You are too young. Dante has kept you sheltered from this world. A world that should belong to us. A world that would find you an abomination.” He dropped silently down in front of her, his wings encasing them both. She was pitched into complete blackness.
    Celeste had been trained to fight this kind of evil, but seeing it face to face was something utterly different from what she expected. He was a Reaper, a brother, but his features were nothing like what she knew of as Reaper. His eyes were wide and slanted at the corners. Black hair swept around his bare shoulders. He had a pointed chin and hard cheek bones making his face seem skeletal and inhuman. His collarbone protruded out into his wings. He was shirtless, but wore a nice pair of slacks. Stolen no doubt, but she guessed she couldn’t quibble about that. After all, he had killed two of her brothers. Shoplifting was the least of his sins at the moment.
    “Do you have any idea how long I lived in that box?” Each word whispered against her making her shudder. “You have no idea what being trapped in a box with that evil and filth can do to a person. I used to be responsible for wiping those atrocities from this plane.” He leaned in close. “You will end up in one of those boxes one day, Sister.”
    Celeste shook her head. “I’m not like you, Calliope.”
    “Really?” he asked. “You’re so different from me? Created by a man obsessed with power? You don’t think he won’t feed you to a Pandora’s box, and all the evil it contains in the end? You’re just as much an abomination as I ever was and am.”
    Celeste looked up into his coal black eyes. How many Others and mortals had looked into that face and seen eternity for the last time?
    “This is your opportunity. Kill the Fallen and take me into the Infernos. We will rule there together. They will regret the day they thought us abomination. The day they looked past the fact that THEY created us and cannot turn from that in the end.”
    Celeste finally sensed Marcus moving in toward them. It was about damn time. Was the Fallen waiting for Calliope to kill her or something? “I won’t help you kill my father and brothers.”
    A cold and calculating smile spread across his face. “Oh, but I would never ask that of you. I will be happy to kill them, watch their blood run through the stones of the Infernos. Where is the Blood Rite Dagger?” He demanded. She shook her head making him snarl. “It is past my reach. The souls will take me there and I will kill your brothers and Dante with my bare hands.”
    And then in a flurry of wings he was gone, the gust of wind caused by his wings nearly pushed her over the edge of the railing. Strong hands wrapped around her upper arms, pulling her back to safety.
    Marcus’s beautiful and furious green eyes glared down at her. “Exactly whose side are you playing on?” Celeste didn’t fight as his forearm pressed against her throat cutting off her blood and air supply to her brain. It was a matter of seconds before darkness swamped her. The last thing she saw were those beautiful green eyes.
    ****
    Marcus watched as blood vessels burst in Celeste’s eyes just before they rolled into the back of her head. The last thing he had intended was to hurt her. Now he was swamped with remorse as she crumpled beneath him. She was so small. He would need to remember that and the fact she was a female and treat her accordingly, regardless of what she said and how she criticized him.
    He swept her up into his arms. She hadn’t even fought back. Gods, if she had fought back, did or said anything to contradict what he had seen. He wouldn’t have totally lost his shit with her. But to just look up at him with those amazing violet eyes almost daring him to finish what he had started.
    Dante was going to have a fit over this one. More than a pound of flesh was going to need to be paid. She was worth it . Damn. Where had