Ashes of Angels. Michele Hauf

      When she tried to open the passenger door he pressed the automatic door lock on the steering wheel. The lock tab fit flush into the door so she couldn’t pry it up.

      “Yes, a monster! You’re a freakin’ Fallen angel who wants to rape me.”

      The car swung out of the parking spot, swerving on the ice. “Don’t use that word. It is an awful mortal word for a cruel act. I would never profane a woman. You are sacred to me, Cassandra. I want to protect you.”

      He smiled at her. Actually smiled as he navigated the lot with starts and stops and some wild swerves. Did the guy even know how to drive? He said he’d been on earth only a day.

      A shake of his head flicked off the heavy snowflakes from his thick, dark hair and shoulders.

      Sacred? Is that what he labeled the woman he wanted to get down and dirty with, and without asking first? And protect her?

      Had she gotten a damaged one? This Fallen must have hit his head upon release from the Ninth Void and landing on earth. Everything he said to her was the complete opposite of what she’d been taught.

      Twisting on the seat, she wondered if the backseats would pull down to open into the trunk. She’d never tried it before. The angel had tossed the semiautomatic in the snow back in the parking lot, but she had another pistol in the boot.

      The car spun onto the main street, swerving, but he quickly got it under control. He drove right through a stop signal, riding the brake but not slowing. Passing cars honked at them.

      “You’re very pretty, Cassandra. And the ribbons in your hair. So interesting.”

      “Is that your idea of foreplay? A few awkwardly random compliments? Buddy, I’m not interested.”

      “You were interested on the dance floor. Your eyes took me in, sized me up and decided to like me. You touched me.” He stroked his forearm where she had placed her hand. “I’ve never been touched by a mortal woman.”

      “Yeah?” She had touched him, had even imagined wrinkling the sheets with him. Oh, Cassandra, get smart. Right now! “The only touch you’ll get from me is a punch or another kick. Want one right now?”

      “No, thank you.”

      Man, but his eyes were incredible. When she thought they were blue, she noticed the violet, and then, brilliant gold. Wow—”Pay attention to the road. The light is red!”

      He drove through the intersection without causing an accident. Cassandra clutched the seat and tensely put her heels to the floor. “You don’t know how to drive, do you?”

      “No, but I’m learning,” he said proudly.

      She itched the sigil, which still glowed blue. “Hell.”

      “Matches mine.” He tugged up his shirt and leaned forward to reveal the sigil on the back of his hip. The spiraling dark brown line resembled a tattoo.

      The sigil was not a tattoo, but an indelible mark. Cassandra had been born with hers. It was the reddish-brown color of henna, but it never faded, as henna did. “Yours isn’t glowing,” she remarked.

      “Only when I’m in half form.”

      Cassandra’s heart dropped to her gut. The only way a Fallen could get his mortal muse pregnant was in half form. They assumed the wings of an angel on top, yet remained human in every way, including all the essential sexual organs.

      Samandiriel.

      She had known his name since Granny had found it in the book of names and sigils. Neither had spoken it out loud to the other. Yet after everyone had gone to sleep, and Cassandra lay in her bed staring at the sky through the oak tree near her window, she’d whisper it. Because that’s what teenage girls did.

      The name had become a sort of mantra, and at the same time a death toll. Samandiriel, the one angel who existed to find her. Samandiriel, the angel she had sculpted in silver. Samandiriel, her death.

      A dizzy wave washed through Cassandra’s brain. She had to remain alert. Stay strong. As soon as he stopped, she’d open the door and run, never mind her lack of coat and gloves. They were only blocks away from a busy restaurant area; she could find help before she froze to death.

      “So you’re taking me somewhere, and then you’re going to shift shapes?”

      “No. Cassandra, I would not assume you’d be so enamored with me you would allow such an intimate act so quickly.”

      She could only gape at him.

      Was this one for real? The Fallen were supposed to be focused on getting their muse pregnant. She’d never thought the Fallen would have a sense of right and wrong.

      “Seriously, did you land on your head when you Fell to earth?”

      He chuckled. “Actually, I originally landed in a shallow stream. I almost drowned, were it not for a couple of village children who pulled me out. But that was a long time ago.”

      Uh-huh. Like during Biblical times. The angels originally Fell way back when, and God decided to punish them for Falling and swept them all to the Ninth Void courtesy of the Great Flood. Water and angels did not mix; they couldn’t swim.

      She had to do something. She couldn’t let this go further. Opening the glove compartment, she shuffled through the manuals and parking tickets. Yes! She knew she’d put that in there last month.

      The Fallen pulled the car to a sliding stop against a snow-stacked curb. Ice slicked the tarmac. The snowplows had not been out since the storm had begun earlier in the afternoon.

      “You live close,” he said, “but I’m not picking up your heat trail. Can you give me directions?”

      “To my place? Not bloody likely.”

      Gripping the Taser in the glove compartment, Cassandra swung her arm around and landed the angel aside the neck, under his chin. He jerked, his hand releasing the steering wheel. His torso stiffened, unable to fight the high voltage.

      A thrusting fist bent the steering wheel. He let out a sound that crackled in her eardrums. It sounded like myriad languages all at once. Gritting her teeth at the pain of the noise, she held firm on the Taser.

      And he cried out as if struck through the heart by a blade. Something creaked and then a flash of thick silver something moved out from between his shoulders. Whatever it was, it cut through the car roof and smashed out the rear window.

      Panicking, Cassandra dropped the Taser and kicked open the passenger door. She scrambled out onto the foot-high snow packed along the curb and looked over the destruction.

      Wings had grown out of the Fallen’s back, bladed, thick wings that had cut through the car like butter. They looked like … silver? She was a silversmith; she knew her metals. The entire structure of wings looked forged from silver, yet appeared soft as feathers, for the downy barbs fluttered in the brutal cold.

      Trapped, the Fallen looked at her and growled.

      Not about to stick around, Cassandra took off across the street and headed in the opposite direction of her apartment—only a quarter mile up the street—and one very angry Fallen angel.

       Chapter 2

      Samandiriel shook off the vehicle from his wings. Metal creaked and split. A tire rolled up against the snowbank. The backseat wobbled and fell from the passenger half of the vehicle.

      He eased a hand over his shoulder. That little misadventure had taxed his mortal muscles to weary bands. Though his wings were of silver—indicative of his mastery over the silversmith art—they were adamant and indestructible. Yet there was only so much damage this mortal body could take, even in its half form, which was as close to his original ineffable form he could get while on earth.

      He glanced at the mangled car. He’d had to rip his wings out sideways