Read The Fallen 03 - Warrior for Free Online

glaring at Allie now. “Not you too,” she said in disgust. “What kind of Kool-Aid did you guys drink?”
    Her question made no sense to Michael, though Allie laughed. “You’ll see,” she said. “It takes time, but sooner or later you’ll realize this crazy world of ours is real.”
    “And you’re an archangel?”
    Allie grinned. “Hardly. In this sexist society, only men are angels, and most of them aren’t archangels. You’ve got the last one who’s single. The Archangel Michael, warrior of God.”
    The girl looked back at him. She didn’t look like a Victoria Bellona, not with her slender frame and far-too-pretty face. Victoria Bellona should be a sturdy, almost masculine figure dressed in Roman armor.
    What had she instructed him to call her? Tory? He would avoid it if he could, simply because it wouldannoy her. He planned to annoy her every chance he got.
    Annoyance would keep her at a distance, and he needed that. He could say he was only human, but that wasn’t true, and he could hardly blame his weaknesses on his fall from grace more than two hundred years ago, a snap of the fingers to these immortals. To him.
    She was a liability, a temptation he didn’t want to consider. He could already feel things that he didn’t want to feel. If she’d been a whiner, he could have handed her over to someone capable like Allie or Rachel and ignored her. But there was something about the way she faced things, something about her bright green eyes, that called to him. And he couldn’t afford to listen. He’d already wasted too much time on her.
    “Make up your mind,” he said. “Life with us and a formal marriage with me, or death with your mother. The contessa has never been disposed to be merciful and she was fond of Pedersen, at least as fond as she is capable of being. I do not expect your demise will be particularly pleasant.”
    She was looking at him with profound annoyance. Excellent. It would suit their marriage perfectly. “A formal marriage,” she repeated thoughtfully. “I assume that means no . . . marital relations.”
    “I told you—I am celibate.” Raziel started to say something, but Michael simply overrode him. “You won’t even need to see me.”
    “Good.”
    “That’s not precisely true,” Allie broke in. “Granted, according to Martha this doesn’t have to be a true marriage in our sense, but you’ll still—”
    “What my wife is saying is that you’ll share quarters with Michael, but there will be plenty of room to keep your distance from each other if that is what you wish,” Raziel cut in smoothly. “We can work out the other details later. In the meantime, we are ready for the ceremony.”
    Michael’s unwilling bride was looking mutinous. “So soon? I’m still jet-lagged. Wing-lagged. Whatever.”
    “The sooner the better,” Allie said with great sympathy after casting a glare Raziel’s way. “Once it’s over, you can settle in and rest.”
    The woman looked up at him, measuring. “I don’t really have a choice in this, do I?”
    “No.” Michael did nothing to make it sound more palatable. She was better off knowing exactly what she was getting into.
    “It’s not as bad as you might think,” Allie said. “I promise you.”
    Victoria Bellona might not be disposed to believe him, but he could tell she was beginning to trust Allie. “All right,” she said. “Let’s get it done.”
    Michael watched her disappear with Allie and the others. Raziel’s wife wasn’t the most docile of females, but if they brought Azazel’s Rachel into the mix, it would help. Rachel could calm the most distraughtof females, and even Allie must see the benefit of having Tory agreeable.
    Raziel was looking at him, with Azazel, their former leader and now his second-in-command, standing behind him. “She is . . . not what I imagined,” Michael said finally.
    “No.”
    There was a long silence, and then Azazel stepped forward. “I’m surprised you were forced to kill