When Angels Fall Read Online Free

grabbing a phone.
    “It was you last night!” she accused, pointing the portable phone’s antenna at him.
    “Melody, please let me explain.” His voice was calm, his demeanor composed.
    “Explain how you set me loose to hunt me down for yourself! Explain why you wouldn’t let your buddy have me!” she taunted.
    “It’s not like that. I am genuinely here to protect you. And Marco is not, nor has he ever been, a friend of mine.” He kept his voice quiet, but firm.
    “How do I know that?” He could see her wavering. He needed to prove to her he didn’t want to harm her, but how?
    “Dial 999, don’t press the call button just yet, but make sure it’s ready.” He watched as she obeyed his directions. Though she was still looking very wary and slightly confused, she held her thumb on the dial button but did not press down.
    “Now I’m going to show you something; don’t be afraid. I promise with my life I won’t hurt you...I wouldn’t hurt you. My name wasn’t given to me because it sounded nice, Melody. It’s my title, and it’s what I do, it means ‘defender of man.’” On the last word he opened his hands, palms face-up, his elbows bent in at his sides. Each hand had what looked like the center of a small plasma ball hovering just above the skin.
    Melody looked dumbfounded. He could tell she was at war with herself.
    “I...I don’t see how that proves anything,” she stammered.
    “These little balls of energy are capable of reducing a person to dust.”
    Her eyes narrowed in distrust; still she did not press the button.
    “I’m not telling you that to frighten you, just to let you know what I have the power to do. Not to humans, but to creatures like Marco. We are known among our kind as ‘the Fallen’ or ‘fallen ones.’”
    He could almost see her mind working furiously to rationalize what she was seeing and hearing.
    “Are you saying you reduced Marco to...to dust?” She didn’t look him in the eye as she spoke, but stared at the little sparking balls in his hands.
    “Yes.” He looked into her horror-stricken face. “But if I hadn’t, he would never have stopped hunting you. He’d already tasted you.” Her right hand touched the graze on her neck. “You would have been his obsession until he’d killed you.”
    “Can you get rid of those things?” She nodded toward his hands.
    “Sorry.” He closed his fingers over his palms and the orbs disappeared. As he did, she took her thumb off the dial button, but did not put the phone down. Alec looked down, exhaling a long breath.
    “I’m not saying I believe you, but considering you haven’t zapped me yet, I’m taking that as a good sign.” Her face was serious.
    He managed a half-smile and moved toward her. She stepped back quickly, and he turned away from her to sit on the sofa. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and hanging his head. “So the driver’s license did tip you off?”
    “Not at first.” She moved around to sit on a chair at the opposite end of the sofa from him, still holding the phone like a talisman. “I mean hell, we are in Scotland. I’d be stupid to freak out every time I heard the name Alastair. There was also the aftershave; my ex used to wear it, but so did the person who helped me last night. It’s a popular brand so I chalked it up to coincidence, although the more I thought about it the more it made sense, so I guess I braced myself to attack. Still, I didn’t want to believe it was you, I couldn’t understand how someone so...normal, could be part of the strangeness that happened. Then when you said you’d protect me. That was the moment; I recognized that voice...it had saved my life.” Alec heard a waver in her voice as she spoke the last words, soft and low.
    She stared at him, and he thought she was about to cry when her voice broke, but Melody’s hazel green eyes were clear. He couldn’t help but be impressed.
    “So what do we do now?” The question was as much for