Kindred of the Fallen by Isis Rushdan

at her felt right, his touch felt right, connecting to his flowing current of energy felt completely right.
    How could he not be human?
    Stone stepped over the table and plunked down beside her. “You like him, don’t you?”
    He put his arm across the back of the sofa. She shivered, like glass ready to shatter against the gust of a tempest.
    With his index finger, he drew circles on her shoulder, working his way across her chest. She swallowed a lump of ice forming in her throat and turned her head away from him.
    “Did you let him touch you?” he whispered in her ear. His finger weaved down across her sternum, inching toward her breasts. “Answer me.”
    She jumped to her feet, but he snatched her forearm and forced her back down. Without thinking, she slapped him so hard her hand stung.
    He growled and cocked his fist, ready to smash into her face.
    “Stone,”—the man holding the phone shook his head—“stay focused.”
    Her chest heaved and her stomach did somersaults as she struggled to take deep breaths. “You’re insane.”
    “What is his interest in you? This is the last time I’ll ask nicely.”
    She slid back into the corner of the sofa. “I told you. He only asked me out to dinner.”
    “I don’t think he’s just interested in dinner and a fuck. That red-haired bitch of his started following you long before he sidled up to Evan Wade.”
    Her heart contracted. Talus had been following her? Why? And how did he know about her before he met Evan? It didn’t make any sense. “I don’t understand. Why would he have me followed?”
    The third one reemerged from the bedroom and wandered into the alcove that served as storage space for her artwork. The top of a sheathed sword extended above his black shirt collar.
    Intimate drawings of her dreams crammed the walls. He stood facing an incomplete sketch of a falcon, the left eye the sun and the right a crescent moon.
    The burly one on the phone gripped the handle of his baton and faced her. “Ms. Shaw, do you have any birthmarks? Any peculiar blemishes?”
    Restraining an impulse to put her hand over the back of her neck, she shook her head, grateful for her long, thick ponytail. “No.”
    The beast beside her ran a finger from her knee up to her hip. “Maybe we should strip you and check?”
    He licked his lips and she squirmed, forcing her breakfast to stay down.
    “Easy, Stone.” The guy closed the phone. “Artemis is going to come back today. We have instructions to take her in,”—he nodded at Serenity—“and determine if she’s friend or foe.”
    “Take me in?” She clutched her satchel. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
    “What if one of them shows up?” Stone asked.
    “We’re cleared hot to use lethal force.”
    Stone gave a sidelong grin. “About time.” He whipped out his gun.
    Damn thing was a mini cannon. He turned a dial and lights briefly danced along the side. One square illuminated, then a second, like the gun was powering up.
    “Bingo!” called the one from the alcove.
    Stone stood and Serenity looked over the back of the sofa.
    Holding her drawing of the dark angel, the man approached. “She’s seen one.”
    “One what?” she asked. The picture of the sapphire angel was a side profile, his wings hung low in an unassuming manner, draping his shoulders and back. Her charcoal sketch couldn’t capture the splendor of his skin, midnight blue with the soft iridescence of the ocean in moonlight. But angels didn’t exist, especially blue ones. “I dreamt about him. He’s not real.”
    Stone put one hand on the arm of the sofa and the other on the edge near her head, caging her in with his thickset arms. “A shame you said he instead of it . When you turn out to be foe and I’m given the green light, I’m going to have fun hurting you.”
    He grabbed her wrist and squeezed, cutting off her circulation with his tightening grip. She winced, but refused to cry out.
    “Knock it off, Stone. Artemis said she’s