Lost In Time: A Fallen Novel by Christie Palmer Read Free Book Online Page A

Trackers she didn’t know.
    She stood up refusing to show them any weakness. “Someone should keep that bitch on a leash.”
    “If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times,” the Element said, shaking her head. Celeste couldn’t believe the Element was taking her side on this and to hide her surprise, she moved and picked up the Sword, swinging it into the scabbard she wore.
    “What happened?” Marcus asked.
    “She attacked me.” She wasn’t about to admit it had come as a surprise attack.
    A man she didn’t recognize stepped forward. “I am Lykar, and I apologize. Marlee often acts first.”
    Celeste raised an eyebrow. “Really?” she whipped blood from her face. “I hadn’t noticed.”
    “Are you hurt?” Marcus asked. Celeste looked up into green eyes she had seen a hundred times, generally filled with pain and unrecognizing. Something in her screamed for him to remember all the time’s she had been there to clean his wounds wipe his brow.
    She saw nothing there, not even real concern. Pushing past those feeling, feelings she should never have allowed herself to feel, she shook her head.
    “It’s going to take more than that feral bitch to hurt me.”
    “I’ll be happy to try again,” the woman said, being helped to her feet by Lykar.
    “Marlee, Celeste is a guest in our home,” Lykar said with false calm.
    “The fuck you say?” Marlee said. “When did we start allowing Demons in the house? Cause I didn’t get that memo? What next, Satan’s pygmies?”
    Celeste took a step back in utter shock. She had never known a louder or annoying creature in all her life. The Lycan’s voice had taken on the sound of a screeching banshee on helium.
    “That’s a misnomer, by the way,” Celeste said more to herself then to anyone else. But Marlee whirled on her.
    “Did you have something to say, Demon?” she snarled. At least she wasn’t screeching.
    “Satan doesn’t keep pygmies. They run wild in hell, but they aren’t his, they aren’t anyone’s. They are like—” she thought for a moment. “What you would consider a rodent on this plane?”
    Marlee threw her hands in the air. “I need a god damn drink.”
    She stormed from the room, Celeste cataloged everything the woman did. How she had moved, the sound and smell of her. She wouldn’t be caught off guard by the Lycan again.
    “What are you doing?” Marcus asked accusation lacing his words.
    Celeste looked up at him. “Excuse me?”
    “Your eyes turned a little red and you blinked very quickly, what were you doing?” Celeste was left speechless, and had to remind herself she wasn’t around people that new or understood her. She was something none of them had ever come across before, nor ever would.
    Her defenses immediately went up. Her father’s words pounded through her head. “They will not understand you. They will use you to help them find and kill Calliope. They have no other choice, but don’t for one second let your guard down. They will use that against you, possibly kill you the moment they have the chance and the moment you are no longer necessary.”
    “I don’t have to explain anything to you,” Celeste said pulling her cloak around her shoulders, imitating a stance she had seen her brothers and father use a million times.
    The only reaction from Marcus was the flare of his nostrils. Then he leaned down so only she could hear his next words. “We are to work together, are you sure you want to start this out by keeping secrets from me?”
    It wasn’t the words so much as they way he uttered them that jarred her. It was as if he were asking how the weather was.
    She let the blood of her Demon side bleed into the iris of her eyes. Marcus’s nostrils flared again and she knew her next statement would be drawing a line in the sand. That was okay with her. The things she felt for this Fallen were forbidden. And the more they could maintain a distance between themselves the better.
    She spoke slowly as if he