Broken Wings by Melanie Nilles Read Free Book Online

I mean, after what happened with Pallin, I
don't want anyone hurting her again."
    Josh would never fully understand,
even after hearing the story of what happened that awful night a
month ago. Elis had seen Pallin rape Raea through the vision from
the Starfire that she shared with him. It sickened and angered him,
eating away at the last of his control. Knowing the smug bastard
was free after drugging and abducting Raea and was Shirukan, like
the soldiers who killed his family, snapped something inside him.
He had relinquished control to a dark monster seeking vengeance but
also a need to protect the most precious part of his
life.
    "I'll never hurt her." He was there to
protect her. If anything, he had failed and was more determined to
keep Raea safe, part of the reason he disliked being stuck there
while she was out flying. Nare didn't know the land like he did. If
something happened…
    "I thought that about Pallin
too."
    Josh sounded wary, with every right,
but it still annoyed Elis. "So, you'd rather have me out of her
life?"
    "No. No, I didn’t say
that."
    "But you were thinking it."
    Josh sighed. "I'm sorry.
It's just that, after everything… After you told me what Pallin did
and how you went after him, you know, I…kind of…um…I wonder…I'm a
little skeptical. I mean, you're like so quiet most of the time,
and you just went off after Pallin. And now Raea needs distance
from you? "
    He hadn't thought of it that way. Josh
made it sound like he was unstable, but at the time he had been.
After figuring out Pallin was one of those he most hated and had
hurt Raea in a way that could never be undone. The only resolution
he saw at the time had been to hurt Pallin as he'd hurt Raea. He'd
never experienced that kind of hatred before. "What would you have
done if you knew the man who raped someone you loved was alive and
free to hurt her again?"
    "I don't know. You
said she killed him
in self defense. I never could have done that."
    Elis could have and wanted to, not
only for Raea but also for his family. Pallin had come as an
undercover Shirukan, sent to take Raea back to surrender her
Starfire shard and kill her afterwards. Pallin had been more
dangerous alive than Josh would ever know.
    Maybe he should know. He
deserves to meet his Dark Angel, and maybe he'd realize the truth
about Raea and realize she deserves to be with her own kind. Damn his promise to her! He bit his tongue on
saying anything to Josh. "He was far more dangerous than you
realize."
    "Oh?" Josh set his binoculars
down.
    "Pallin was…" He couldn't break his
word to Raea. Crystal fire. "He wasn't what he said he was." There.
He didn't say it.
    "I know…I checked at school, you know.
I had to know, just because I couldn't stand him getting away with
that. There's no record of his parents ever being there. Supposedly
they registered over the phone. The papers were sent to an address
in California, signed, and mailed back."
    Elis's breath froze in his chest. An
address on Earth. Who would have pretended to be Pallin's parents?
Did they know what Pallin was? "What was the address?"
    "The school wouldn't give it to me.
That information's confidential. Does it matter?"
    "It might." Especially if someone else
was helping Pallin. If they were also Shirukan, Raea was in real
trouble. But why wouldn't they have acted sooner? It didn't make
sense. They were up to something. But what?
    He had to track down whoever pretended
to be Pallin's parents. That address would be a start. He should
have thought of it sooner, but he had other things to worry about,
like taking care of Raea. Now, he had nothing else to do, and it
would keep his mind off Raea, until she came back.
    His heart raced with anxiety, warming
him against the cold.
    No. Not anxiety. The warmth increased
throughout his body, all the way to his fingers. The resonance. The
Starfire! But Josh's questions had distracted him from using the
resonance.
    If he didn't, then… No! Only a Starfire portal
could