Alternate Worlds: The Fallen Read Online Free Page B

back to the city where I lived
took longer than I’d expected. I didn’t get back to my apartment
until the wee hours of the morning. I figured there were probably
cops looking for me all over the place, so I’d kept to the speed
limit like a good little girl instead of gunning the engine like I
usually did whenever I was in a hurry to get somewhere—which was
most of the time.
    Exhausted, I dropped my gear on the floor by
the door and headed for the bathroom.
    A long, hot shower soothed my tension and
the aches and pains from exerting muscles that hadn’t been used in
a number of years. When I got out, I grabbed a home pregnancy test
and pissed on it.
    The results were indecisive.
    I was disappointed, but then I noticed the
instructions said it took a few days for accuracy.
    “Fuck!” Tossing the thing, I dried off,
dropped the towel on the floor and headed for my bedroom.
    I checked when I flipped on the light.
    The what-ever-he-was was sprawled on my bed,
his hands behind his head a look on his face that made me
distinctly uneasy.
    Without any rush, he threw his legs over the
side of the bed and stood, dropping my wire cutters on the
mattress.
    I decided not to let him know I was
intimidated. Crossing my arms over my breasts, I leaned against the
door frame as casually as I could. “You didn’t need to come to
thank me.”
    His eyes narrowed. “I didn’t.”
    “Or bring the wire cutters back.”
    He lifted his wings. It reminded me of those
birds you see walking along the ground and shifting their wings
threateningly to scare bugs out of the grass. I hated to admit it,
but it made my belly clench painfully. I tensed all over.
    The wings disappeared—just vanished. One
moment they were there, the next he looked like an ordinary—well
almost ordinary—man. I didn’t ask him how he’d done it. I had a
feeling he could do a lot of things and I probably didn’t want to
know about most of them.
    His hands for instance. There wasn’t a sign
of the ugly holes that had been in his palms—or his feet. They
hadn’t just healed. The wounds might never have been there at
all.
    “You did not keep your bargain.”
    Outrage supplanted my nervousness. I dropped
my arms and stood away from the door frame. “Because we didn’t have
one. You said no, remember?”
    His eyes narrowed. “Yes. I thought perhaps
you hadn’t grasped ‘no’.”
    I sighed irritably. The rape thing. “You’ll
live. You don’t look too traumatized to me. And your friend gave it
up willingly. What do you think—you’re going to get your seed back?
Sorry. Gone, gone.”
    He’d been stalking me from the moment he got
out of my bed. It wasn’t that I hadn’t noticed. I just figured
whirling to run would kick him into chase mode and I didn’t really
feel up to running at the moment. I wasn’t dressed for it to start
with and my knees felt all mushy, like they might not
cooperate.
    I didn’t realize he’d gotten within reach
until his hands shot out and his fingers curled around my upper
arms. I was tensed and ready, though. The moment he grabbed me, I
grabbed his arms, jerked him toward me as I twisted, pushed one hip
out, and then gave him a shove.
    Surprise flickered in his eyes when he felt
himself falling backwards. He hit the floor hard enough to rattle
the window glass and table lamp. I hadn’t really thought past the
hip throw. Instead of running like anybody with any sense would
have, I leapt on top of him, straddling his torso and grabbing his
arms just below the wrists.
    He’d rattled me more than I’d realized to
make me make such a stupid blunder.
    For about two seconds, I had him. Two
seconds later, he had me. Bucking, he pitched me off to one side
and used his weight, which was a good deal more than mine, to pin
me to the floor.
    I looked up at him, trying to gather my
wits. “So—I didn’t catch your name the other day.”
    Something flickered in his pale eyes. Doubt?
Surprise? “Gideon,” he said through