The Scribe

  Ulrich, son of Grimold. 1734. Took part in Rending near Stockholm.

  Finn, son of Volund. 1856. Known kills in Barcelona, Madrid, and Rabat.

  Michael, son of Svarog. 1699. Took part in attack of Prague prior to Rending.

  Kemal, son of Jaron. 1955. Known kills, multiple victims in Istanbul, Athens, and throughout Romania.

  Joseph, son of Volund. 1902. Known kills in London, Edinburgh, Manchester, Brittany, Lyon, and Milan.

  Some of the names had been crossed out, usually with a notation about who had killed them. There were also notes about how each Grigori fought or who their associates were. Certain names kept popping up over and over.

  Volund.

  Jaron.

  Svarog.

  Galal.

  “Hey, Rhys?”

  “Hmm?” He looked up from his computer.

  “These names—the fathers of the Grigori listed—so are these…?”

  “Fallen angels,” he said. “The real kind. Not offspring like us, and definitely not the nice fluffy variety you see on the television. The Fallen never left Earth, and they’re incredibly powerful. Incredibly cruel. We’ve killed a few over the years, but it’s very difficult. They can shapeshift and cloak their power, so more than one Irin scribe has lost his life thinking one of the Fallen is a harmless old woman or child in need of help. It’s more common they kill each other than we’re able to kill them.”

  “How do you kill an angel?” she whispered to herself.

  “There are only a few weapons that can do it. Most are in the possession of the Council in Vienna. They have an ancient armory they loan out to very specific people. One of their daggers showed up on a Grigori soldier last month, which has everyone scrambling. Damien was up in arms when he called Vienna, wanted to know how the bastard had obtained it.”

  “Does anyone know?”

  Rhys shrugged. “It’s possible an assassin they sent to kill one of the Fallen failed. Brage—that’s the one who had it—is one of Volund’s most trusted children. Volund controls most of Northern Europe and Russia. He might have given it to him, but if he did, he’d have a very specific purpose for it. It’s not something you’d give away lightly or carry every day.”

  “Is it weird that one of Volund’s Grigori is here in Istanbul?”

  “It could be, but then, it may be nothing. Most go back and forth despite some rivalry.”

  “Huh.”

  “Though… there’s a lot of strange happenings lately,” he muttered, still searching for something online. “Like your Dr. Sadik.”

  Ava burned just thinking about him. Bastard. She’d trusted him, and now she had no idea who the doctor was, or even if he was a doctor at all. Rhys was still trying to track him down. They worked in silence for several more minutes, but Ava could feel Rhys’s eyes keep coming back to her.

  “What?”

  “I’m curious about something.” Rhys handed her a book written in what looked like Farsi just as Malachi entered the room. Ava tried to push down her own annoyance at seeing him.

  “I can’t read this,” she protested, looking through the book. “I can speak a little Farsi, but—”

  “Just look at the pictures,” Rhys said. “See if you recognize anyone.”

  Malachi walked toward her, but she shot him a look. She was irritated about the whole “mated-not-married” thing, and she wasn’t going to try to make him feel better. He could have at least warned her. And the fact that everyone around her was so damn happy only irked her more. Would it have killed him to keep her informed?

  “If you want to punish him, you’re doing a bang-up job,” Rhys said when Malachi crossed the room to speak to Maxim about something. The two conferred for a moment before heading toward the library door, leaving her and Rhys alone. Ava turned to him.

  “I’ll get over it eventually, but right now I’m pissed.”

  “He didn’t mean to anger you. I’m sure of it.”

  “But he didn’t exactly keep me informed, did he? Did Malachi tell you we were mated?”

  Rhys’s mouth did a little gasping-fish thing. “Not in those words… exactly.”

  “Really? When?”

  He muttered something that sounded like “Captain Donkey.”

  “What?”

  He cleared his throat. “Cappadocia.”

  “Oh really?” She glared at the door. “We were there one night after we… you know.”

  “I think the whole valley knew. Caves echo.” Rhys kept talking, even though her face reddened. “Honestly, love, the two of you had been dancing around each other for weeks. Stop being such a fussbudget.”

  “A…a what?” She tried to hold in the laugh as Rhys blushed.

  “Nothing.”

  “Did you just call me a…a fussbudget?” The snicker turned into a laugh.

  “I… well, you are. Being very fussy about all this. You’re—”

  “Showing your age, old man.” Ava couldn’t stop laughing.

  “And you’re being annoyed for the sake of being annoyed.” At least Rhys was laughing, too. His eyes were lighter than they had been since the disastrous night she’d kissed him. “So just stop.” The laughter left his voice and Ava wiped the tears from her eyes. “You two have what most of us have only dreamed of for over two hundred years. A mate. A partner. We can all see it, even when you’re annoyed and he’s exasperated.”

  She sighed. “I do exasperate him.”

  “And he loves it. He loves you. And you’re clearly besotted with him.” Rhys grabbed her hand and squeezed it for a second. “So stop trying to be sensible about it. Grab love when you can. It doesn’t come around for everyone.”

  “I’ll try.”

  “You’ll try…” He shook his head and turned back to the computer screen. “You know what? Keep fighting the inevitable. It makes for very entertaining—”

  “Oh my God,” she breathed out, staring at the face on the page. The vivid green eyes were rendered in black and white, but the shape was exactly as she remembered. The sketch looked old, maybe from the turn of the century or earlier. It was hard to tell. After all, that particular style of glasses was classic. “It’s him.”

  Rhys whipped around. “Who?”

  “Him.” She pointed to the angular face on the page. “It’s him. Dr. Sadik.”

  “You’re positive, Ava?”

  “I’m sure! It looks just like him. Exactly.” She looked at the other pictures on the page. Even though she couldn’t read the writing, it was clearly an extensive entry. “You’re saying my therapist is really a Grigori soldier?”

  “No, he isn’t.” Rhys reached over and closed the book, swiping a thumb over the title. For a moment, the letters shimmered and shifted, then the characters reshaped into the more recognizable Roman alphabet.

  “That spell is incredibly…” Ava blinked when she read the title. “Oh. My—”

  “Your therapist isn’t a Grigori,” Rhys said, pulling away the book. For a moment the letters held, then the title shifted back to the original Farsi. But the name was branded onto her mind.

  JARON.

  “Your Dr. Sadik is a fallen angel.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Malachi shivered just thinking about it. She had been alone with him for weeks. The monster had touched her. Touched his mate. The fact that she was still so silent probably meant she was in shock.

  “Absolutely not,” Malachi said, pulling Ava closer as they sat on the couch in the library.

  Maxim said, “But surely you can see the value of—”

  “You will not put her at risk,” he barked, unable to comprehend why they were even considering his brother’s suggestion.

  Ava’s doctor was Jaron. Jaron was Sadik. The fact that his mate was still in the city drove him to distraction. He wanted to board a plane. No, not a plane, the bastard could fly. A boat? Water was safer. A car would do. Anything to get Ava away. Get her as far away from the monster as he could. For the first time, he completely
understood why the Irina had fled.

  “Malachi, calm yourself,” Damien said, standing in the doorway.

  “I want to know more.” Ava spoke for the first time since the brothers had gathered.

  Rhys sat near the computer. Leo sat next to him, looking through more books, everything they had on record about the fallen angel known as Jaron. Maxim was sitting across from Malachi and Ava, and Damien was waiting for a callback from Vienna.

  “I want to know more about the Fallen,” Ava said again. “This makes no sense. How did Jaron know about me? Why was he even interested? Malachi acts like the Fallen are more powerful than you guys—”

  “They are,” Maxim said.

  “So, what did he want with me? And why didn’t he hurt me when he could have?”

  The set of her jaw told Malachi he’d be answering questions whether he liked it or not. When his mate set her mind on something, she was impossible to budge. Part of him loved it. The other part wanted to tear his hair out.

  But then, there was no such thing as a biddable Irina.

  Maxim crossed his arms and leaned toward them. “Ava, the first thing you must understand about the Fallen is this: They are not human.”

  “I understand.”

  “No, you don’t.” Malachi ignored the clipped manner his brother took with Ava. For such a young scribe, Maxim had more knowledge of Fallen and Grigori society than he did. Malachi had a tendency to stab first and question later.

  “You don’t truly understand what they are,” Maxim continued. “It’s impossible. The Fallen are angels; beings with no place in this world. Completely and entirely foreign. Irin are at least partly human.”

  “The Fallen are bad; I know that.”

  “Don’t make the mistake of assigning moral judgment to them,” Maxim said. “Good. Bad. These have no meaning to them. They do not live by human mores. They were never intended to.”

  “But…” He saw her frown. “I thought angels were meant to be good.”

  “No, they were meant to serve. That is their sole purpose. Servants of the Creator.”

  Ava leaned forward, away from Malachi’s arm. “But the Forgiven…”

  “The angels fell from the heavens, tempted by the beauty of human women, curious about the interest their Master had in this new race. Remember that: They all fell.”

  “Because they fell in love?”

  Maxim shrugged. “Don’t assume so. Don’t assume any human emotion when it comes to angels. They wanted and they took. They’re curious creatures. Human women would have been stunned by their appearance. They probably thought they gave themselves to gods. Their children were powerful and magical. Heroes and seers. The first offspring were imbued with the powers of their fathers, but they were uncontrolled. Unpredictable.”

  “So what happened? Where did the Irin come from?”

  “We are the children of the Forgiven. Fallen angels who returned to heaven.”

  “Why? Why did they leave?”

  “The Creator offered forgiveness. They took it. We don’t know why or how.”

  “But they left,” Ava said. “They left their wives. Their children. How could they?”

  Malachi said, “Angels were never meant to live here. The Fallen were heavenly creatures who turned their back on their purpose. And as Max said, their offspring were frightening. Some were thought to be gods. Others became so powerful their own fathers were forced to destroy them. The Irin believe the Forgiven returned to heaven because—though they realized they could rule over the Earth—that power was contrary to everything they had been created for. So they left us and returned. They sacrificed their own power for the good of humanity and were redeemed.”

  “And their children?” Ava’s voice wavered, and Malachi took her hand when her eyes filled with tears. “You said some were destroyed, but the Irin are still here. Even with the Irina mostly gone—”

  Damien broke in. “The Creator took mercy on the mates of the Forgiven and on their children. He protected the offspring who were not destructive. Allowed them the strength and knowledge of their fathers, but on the condition they would watch over this new race of humans. That is where we came from, Ava. We are of the race of angels. Neither wholly human, nor wholly heavenly. The Irin were meant to guide humanity and guard it. Servants on Earth as our fathers were servants in the heavens. That became our purpose.”

  “And the Fallen?”

  “The Fallen are an abomination in every sense,” Damien said. “Beings meant to serve who repudiated their Creator and desired to rule. They didn’t leave, because they sought to conquer. They saw humanity as sheep. Lesser beings. They break every law of the universe, simply by their rebellion. The Fallen cannot be trusted. Their very presence on Earth is evidence of their dishonor. That is why their children are cursed.”

  “The Grigori,” she said.

  “Yes,” Malachi drew her closer. “They became predators like their fathers, the Fallen. They prey on the humans we seek to protect. It has always been so.”

  Ava asked, “How many fallen angels are there?”

  “We don’t know,” Rhys said from the desk. “There are nine prominent ones, scattered across the globe. Each rules over an area, but there are minor Fallen as well. They kill each other off occasionally. Fight their own wars, which we only pay attention to when it affects us or the humans.”

  Leo muttered, “It’s not as black and white as you all believe. There are variations. Subtle shifts in power that—”

  “We all know your fascination with them,” Rhys said. “Trying to understand the Fallen doesn’t make them any less evil.”

  Leo and Maxim simultaneously bared their teeth, and Malachi was reminded, again, how young the two cousins were. Only around two hundred, they were babes when the Rending happened, hidden by their mothers somewhere in the cold North. No one knew how, exactly, the boys had survived. They had been delivered to a scribe house in rural Finland weeks after their families had been destroyed.

  “Fallen society is, in its own way, as complicated as ours,” Maxim growled. “I’ve studied it. Jaron is—”

  Malachi finally broke in, exasperated by the bickering. “Can we please stop the history lesson and return to how we’re going to protect Ava?”

  Maxim said, “I’m just saying that Jaron is not easy to classify. The fact is he had access to your mate for weeks when no one suspected him. He could have harmed Ava at any time, but he didn’t. Clearly, he has some interest in her that is not wholly understood. It may be beneficial for her to meet with him and try to get more information.”

  “It’s not safe,” Rhys said. “He may have not moved then, but how do you explain the clear aggression in Kuşadası? They were trying to hurt her. Or capture her at the very least.”

  “Malachi,” Maxim asked. “You said the Grigori in Kuşadası looked like Brage?”

  He nodded. “Not the captain, but the rest of them were lighter skinned and light haired. Most likely not Jaron’s children. More Northern-looking. Maybe Volund’s or Grimold’s, if I had to guess.”

  “And Brage has been seen in Istanbul,” Leo said. “With an angelic blade.”

  Damien nodded. “In Jaron’s territory. He may have other alliances. We may be seeing a move from the North that would upset Jaron’s rule here in the region.”

  Rhys asked, “A coup? Volund moving against Jaron, and using his most trusted Grigori to kill him? He could have been the one to give him the blade. There were rumors he had one.”

  “They all have them,” Maxim grumbled. “Don’t let the council in Vienna fool you.”

  Damien barked out a reprimand in the Old Language, and Maxim shut up.

  “If there is a coup in the works, then having Ava collect more information from Jaron could be crucial,” Leo said. “She’s smart. And she’s in the perfect position to—”

  “She’s not a bloody soldier!” Malachi said.

  “And I’m not a china doll, either.” Ava stood, looking around the roo
m, glaring at every man in sight. “You guys keep talking about me like I’m not here. Enough.”

  Malachi stood with her. “Canım—”

  “I’m going to the garden to think for a while,” she said. “Alone. I need some quiet, so don’t follow me. Any of you.” She left the room, and Malachi could hear her climbing the stairs, all the way to the roof garden that looked toward Galata Tower.

  He turned to Rhys. “Are there security cameras up there?”

  “Yes.” His brother clicked a few times on the computer, then tilted the monitor toward Malachi. “She’s covered from every angle. And the alarms will go off if there is any movement on the sides of the house.”

  He pointed toward Rhys’s chair as Maxim and Leo drifted from the room. “I’ll watch her. At least give her some privacy.”

  Rhys looked like he wanted to object, but a quick word from Damien called him from the library, leaving Malachi alone with only the image of his mate in black and white, staring off into the distance with haunted eyes.

  Maxim crept into the library an hour later, at sunset, as Malachi was watching Ava.

  “You have a lovely mate, brother.”

  “I do.”

  “An unexpected blessing to our kind.”

  Malachi had the urge to cover the computer so his fellow scribe could not see her. But Maxim only glanced at Ava briefly before turning to Malachi.

  “He was with her for weeks, and no harm came to her.”

  His voice held a warning note. “Maxim…”

  “I believe there is something happening,” Maxim said. “There are shifts in Vienna. Then Ava appeared like this. Strangers are showing up in Istanbul. So many rumors among my associates. I hear them, Malachi. I know everyone thinks me a gambler and a rogue, but—”

  “Max—”

  “Something is happening.” He leaned forward. “And I think she is the key. There is something she is or has that Jaron has an interest in.”