Tajael Read online

  Tajael

  Fallen Angels 1

  Alisa Woods

  Check out all of Alisa’s bestselling Paranormal Romance...

  * * *

  READING ORDER

  Dot Com Wolves

  (formerly Shifters in Seattle)

  * * *

  Claiming Mia (Book 1)

  * * *

  Saving Arianna (Book 2)

  * * *

  A Christmas Wish (Book 3)

  River Pack Wolves

  * * *

  Jaxson (River Pack Wolves 1)

  * * *

  Jace (River Pack Wolves 2)

  * * *

  Jared (River Pack Wolves 3)

  Wilding Pack Wolves

  * * *

  Wild Game (Wilding Pack Wolves 1)

  * * *

  Wild Love (Wilding Pack Wolves 2)

  * * *

  Wild Heat (Wilding Pack Wolves 3)

  * * *

  Wild One (Wilding Pack Wolves 4)

  * * *

  Wild Fire (Wilding Pack Wolves 5)

  * * *

  Wild Magic (Wilding Pack Wolves 6)

  Fallen Immortals

  * * *

  Kiss of a Dragon (Fallen Immortals 1)

  * * *

  Heart of a Dragon (Fallen Immortals 2)

  * * *

  Fire of a Dragon (Fallen Immortals 3)

  * * *

  Chosen by a Dragon (Fallen Immortals 4)

  * * *

  Seduced by a Dragon (Fallen Immortals 5)

  * * *

  Touched by a Dragon (Fallen Immortals 6)

  * * *

  Loved by a Dragon (Fallen Immortals 7)

  * * *

  Marked by a Dragon (Fallen Immortals 8)

  * * *

  Claimed by a Dragon (Fallen Immortals 9)

  * * *

  Of Bards and Witches: Leonidas’s Story (Fallen Immortals 10)

  Fallen Angels

  * * *

  Tajael (Fallen Angels 1)

  * * *

  Oriel (Fallen Angels 2)

  * * *

  Asa (Fallen Angels 3)

  * * *

  Razael (Fallen Angels 4)

  * * *

  Micah (Fallen Angels 5)

  * * *

  Tempted: Tajael’s Story (Fallen Angels 6)

  * * *

  Kiss of an Angel: Cassiel’s Story (Fallen Angels 7)

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  Tajael (Fallen Angels 1)

  Copyright © 2017 by Alisa Woods

  October 2017 Edition

  All rights reserved.

  Sworn Secrets Publishing

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the author. For information visit: Alisa Woods

  Cover by Steven Novak

  Tajael (Fallen Angels 1)

  Paranormal Romance

  TAJAEL

  I am an angeling of the light, Protector class, assigned to Guardian Duty… and I am Tempted.

  A war brews in the immortal realms, between the Angels of Light—created to love and protect humanity—and their ancient enemy, the Fae. The Fae have created a demon plague to stop the humans and their technology from invading the immortal realms. I’m tasked with protecting a beautiful scientist who may do exactly that… but this duty is fraught with danger. Not due to the demons who hunt her but because a Fall from Lust will plunge me into shadow. I’ve already been marked by the darkness of that realm—and I’ve vowed never to return.

  * * *

  CHARLOTTE

  I’m a scientist, a physicist, a woman of reason… and I don’t believe in angels.

  My Ex broke me in ways I didn’t even know I could break. But I’ve moved on and put the nightmares behind me. Now I have work to do, a theory to test, and a billionaire lined up to fund my experiments. If I’m successful, it will change the world. Everything’s finally coming together—then my co-worker attacks me, my hot neighbor saves me, and suddenly, I’m wondering if there’s more to my theories about an extra-dimensional world than I ever suspected…

  * * *

  In a war that threatens mortals and immortals alike, the Angels of Light vow to protect humanity… but they will be tempted by the sweet promise of Love.

  Chapter One

  Now came the most difficult part of the day.

  Tajael was a Protector Class angeling—Guarding came naturally to him—but his charge was about to leave the safety of her fortress of steel and glass, seventy stories tall. All day she spent with her wide blue eyes fixed upon her screen or pacing the tiny cell of her cubicle, either way keenly focused on her work. On occasion, she dashed to the break room for a steaming mug of tea, but even her lunchtime was spent in an almost prayerful silence as she worked her mathematics and physics and other incantations. The days were relatively safe in her citadel of science—at least from the demonkind who had to get past security—and the nights, once she was behind the locked doors of her tiny loft apartment in the heart of Seattle.

  It was the twilights of the day—dawn and dusk—when she walked the streets between home and work that were fraught with danger. It wasn’t the brisk wind that made Tajael’s shoulders tense and his angel blade hum. The city was a demon-infested nightmare. And he could do without the immortal war raging around them as well.

  Then again, he wouldn’t have this Guardian duty if it weren’t for those things.

  Not every angeling had the ability to withstand the temptations of Guarding. He was better suited than many due to well-earned years and trial and Penance… which was ostensibly why Markos, the angel to whom Tajael had given his vows, had sent him to watch over Charlotte Brennan, a key scientist in the unfolding drama of humanity’s search to understand their world. She was not overly young, and she was blessedly unadventurous—two advantages when Guarding her—but she was far too pleasing to look upon, and worse, her soul shone with the intensity of a tiny sun. These things might lure in an angeling with less experience in resisting temptation—and they would outright slay a freshly-minted angeling on walkabout, out to prove his Virtue.

  So Markos chose him, Tajael, despite his Fall in the beginning on a walkabout of his own—or perhaps because he came back from it. Tajael still had the markings of the shadow realm across his chest, a reminder to him and everyone else in Markos’s Dominion of his dark time. But that was a hundred years ago, and he had proven himself in myriad ways since. Yet he questioned whether that was truly why Markos had chosen him. Angels were inscrutable; one never knew the lesson they wished to teach until it was upon you. But angelkind was at war now, and Tajael dearly hoped this assignment was merely Guarding and not some test—one he wasn’t sure Markos wanted him to pass.

  The clock ticked past eight, and the office had long-ago cleared out, but Charlotte still toiled at her desk, twirling her long dark hair around her finger. Over the last week, he’d had many an hour to watch her, cloaked as a Guardian need be, and always, in the morning, her hair was vigorously brushed straight as if the long locks had committed some offense against her. By evening, it was curled into soft ringlets, all from the nervous winding round and round as she fell deep into thought, staring at her screen as if it held the secrets of the universe.

  Which, with the nature of her research, it very well may.

  Abruptly, she pushed back from her desk, slapping at the button which made her screen go black. She rose up and with clenched hands, stormed out of her cubicle. He narrowly dodged her, leaping back and free of her path, but jus
t as he set to follow, she whirled around to face him, staring a livid anger straight into his eyes.

  His heart seized. But his cloaking should—

  Then she charged him. As he stumbled back, he realized she was simply returning to the cubicle. She hadn’t seen him. Of course, not. The girl may have a Ph.D. from MIT, but she hadn’t broken the veil between the mortal and immortal worlds… yet. Even if that very work attracted the forces of darkness swarming the city. She stabbed her screen on again, and not bothering to sit, she madly tapped at the keyboard once more.

  Tajael held in his sigh—his cloaking was visual, not auditory, and he had to take great care for silence, lest she sense his presence. He could cloak sound, but that took more focus and energy, and he needed those to remain alert during the long hours.

  Charlotte growled at her screen, stabbed a few more keys, then muttered, “You better fucking run this time, you little bastard.”

  Tajael grinned. Guarding was inherently voyeuristic, which could be a Sin if it weren’t for innocently delightful moments such as this. The times when she thought no one was watching and was just a little less restrained. Not that his charge held back in a general sense—more than once she’d had a sharp word for her co-worker who was well-deserving of rebuke—but it was different when she was alone.

  Or thought she was alone.

  That tempered his smile. He knew well the invasion of privacy his Guarding entailed, and that was only partially mitigated by his keeping her alive. In the short week of his duty, he’d already slain four demons intent on attack. He was close to the Sin of Pride with how well he’d kept that danger from her awareness. After all, he was Guarding her so she could complete her work… which would not be helped if she were distracted by the constant, imminent danger she was in.

  Charlotte huffed her contempt at her screen then jerked open the drawer where she kept her purse. This time he was prepared for her exit and cleared the way. He followed her purposeful stride past the half dozen cubicles to the key-locked entry for the office. She paused to retrieve her jacket from the row of hooks by the door—all empty, as she was the last to leave—then pulled her keycard from her pocket. Getting out of the high-security office required only a swipe, while getting in entailed a host of protocols. But the problem for him was the quick care she took to slip through the door and close it quickly behind her. Following her—without detection—wasn’t possible, and while he sensed none of the sulfuric presence of demons anywhere nearby, he’d rather be sure. So, with a flick of will, he did the one thing Charlotte spent all her hours attempting to unravel the secrets of…

  He opened an interdimensional door and traveled.

  It was just a flash trip to the small atrium on the other side of the door, and this was but one of the many powers his angel half granted him, but still… it was the elusive secret she sought, and he wasn’t the only one who knew it. There were forces in the immortal world who would happily kill humans to stop them from unlocking those secrets, and in a sense, Tajael could understand the fear. How much harder would the bright, soul-shining temptations like Charlotte be to resist should they gain the power to enter the angel realm?

  Tajael shook his head clear of those distracting thoughts. The atrium was empty, but he made another sweep of the floors above and below them. No demon-infected humans. No vampires, shifters, shadow angels, or immortals of any kind. So far, so good.

  Charlotte slipped through the door, then out of the atrium and toward the elevator. He usually rode the car with her—a lot could happen during a seventy story descent—and it was relatively easy to slip in behind her. Blessedly, it was an uneventful ride, but his angel blade was out and ready by the time they reached the lobby. A guard manned his desk, but he would be useless against any immortal attack—indeed, Tajael considered him a possible threat, given the demon-infected were legion now throughout the city. It was madness that Markos and the other angels of light had not stamped out the epidemic, but Tajael knew it was more complicated than simply slaying the demons within those innocent humans who had been possessed.

  Charlotte gathered her jacket tighter, lifting the collar to protect her against the wind, as she pushed through the rotating door. Tajael was momentarily trapped in the next cell behind her, but nothing outside posed a threat. Just a single human, hustling by on his way down the street. Seattle’s downtown sloped fiercely to the docks, so the sidewalks were a challenge unto themselves. Charlotte trudged up the street, head bent to the wind brought by the setting sun and the rush of cool air from the water. Tajael went aloft, letting his wings unfold from where they magically stowed in his back, and hovered over her for a better view of potential threats on all sides.

  He was still cloaked, of course, but the wind ruffled his feathers, their lift and his magic keeping him aloft. It was blessedly cool on his heated angeling skin. He was clothed only in a standard training toga, suitable for the combat he’d already engaged in a multitude of times on these streets—only recently on Charlotte’s behalf. Before that, he was pledged to help the dragon shifters, the House of Smoke, keep their treaty, which protected humanity from at least one of their foes—the immortal and devious fae, around whom all of this warring circled like a hurricane of magic that just kept wreaking destruction, day after day. The treaty had been successfully renewed, but in the process, the epidemic of demon-infection had surged, and a war between immortals had been sparked.

  Tajael was so busy scanning the area and lost in his thoughts, that he nearly passed over Charlotte when she stopped to talk to Hank. He was the homeless man near her office who camped in the stoop of a worn-out building—it was closed to trade but provided a shelter of sorts. Charlotte visited with him every time, both coming and going from her secretive research job—to smile, to say hello, and usually to give the elderly man something.

  “Got any leftovers?” Hank asked, grinning up at her with his battered teeth.

  Tajael knew she hadn’t bothered to stop work for a meal yet.

  “Sorry.” She shook her head, liberating half her dark curls into the wind. “Next time.” She dug something small out of her purse. His weathered hand slipped from the blanket wrapped tight around him, head to toe, giving him shelter from the wind.

  “A breath mint?” He looked askance at the plastic-wrapped piece of white. “You should save this for your boyfriend.” He tried to offer it back to her.

  “You know you’re my only boyfriend, Hank.” The smile was bright on her face as she ignored his offer and peeked back into her purse.

  “Well, I ain’t gonna try to kiss you, if that’s what you’re expecting.” Hank frowned and straightened under the heavy woolen blanket. “No, Ma’am. I know how to treat a lady.”

  Charlotte’s smile grew. “That’s why you’re my boyfriend.” Then she leaned down and slipped a folded bill into his hand. “And you’re going to need that mint after Jose’s El Guapo Burrito from the food truck.”

  Hank’s smile returned, and the hand with the money and the mint disappeared back inside his blanket. “I might get the tacos this time.”

  “You can’t fool me,” Charlotte said. “You like those chilis. Even if they set your mouth on fire.”

  These moments were hardest of all to watch.

  Not simply because Charlotte was exposed to danger on the street, but because both their souls surged in Virtue—Charlotte’s with nearly all of them at once. Kindness. Patience. Humility. Charity. Diligence. She was already a model of Diligence, and as far as Tajael knew, Chastity. That left Temperance as the only Virtue not actively beaming from her soul. It made his heart quicken with something he—in Truth—could only call desire. Not the Lustful kind, but the pure, righteous love of an angel.

  Unfortunately, he was only half angel.

  Not even half, given he was conceived in Sin by a fallen shadow angeling of some unknown heritage. Tajael’s exact patronage—the percentage of him that was wholly angel vs. wholly human—was unknown, like most angelings of the l
ight. But he suspected his human portion was far more than fifty percent, given the way his body and soul responded to this naked display of Virtue, crossing the wires of an angel’s righteous love of humanity with a human’s more base need for physical contact. His urge to intimately connect with this beautiful woman committing acts of Charity before him was so strong he had to literally loft higher in the air just to keep clear.

  He’d seen a hundred humans couple in the act of sex before. He’d seen the orgies of the shadow realm. He wasn’t completely ignorant of the pleasures of the flesh, although he’d kept his one shameful experience a secret from everyone in Markos’s Dominion, including the angel himself. But he had no true understanding of how little contact—or how much—it would take to make him Fall from Lust. And the last thing Charlotte Brennan needed was her Guardian turning to shadow because he couldn’t control his human side.