Kiss of a Dragon (Fallen Immortals 1) - Paranormal Fairytale Romance Read Free Page A

again—the smell of demon was on the man for certain. Was the woman a slayer? But he couldn’t taste angel on her, just a delicious human scent that wrenched his heart almost as much as the right hook she landed on the demon’s face. He reeled back into a dumpster, sending it askew.
    Then she pulled a gun.
    Holy mother of magic. Lucian dove again, tucking his wings tight for maximum speed. The man was demon, but she couldn’t know that, not if she were truly human. Her bullet wouldn’t kill him… but it might well and truly piss him off.
    Lucian landed and uncloaked at the same time, conjuring clothes to cover his naked human form and stomping hard with black boots on the pavement between them. His golden wings shot out to break his fall, then tucked hard and fast to furl into his body and complete the transformation.
    The woman gaped at him, and the crack of her gunfire shocked his ears. His shoulder caught the bullet she meant for her attacker, but it pinged away. He was just as bulletproof in human form as he was in dragon, the strength of his golden scales infusing his skin with powers normally reserved for a true immortal.
    No, the bullet was not a concern. But the demon was.
    He grabbed the man by the throat and threw him to the ground. Then Lucian knelt to press his large hand over the man’s gaping mouth, the one that would soon be screaming. The runes that controlled demons—another gift from his dark fae ancestry—wiggled in black lines down his arm, settling on the back of his hand. They gained power as they neared their target, and he could feel the magic pulsing from his hand into the man’s body, seeking out the demon. The man was only half monster, a fact that sent a shock of anger through Lucian’s body as the magic did its work.
    A halfling? It was a violation of the treaty. This man shouldn’t exist, and he certainly shouldn’t be inside Seattle, attacking humans. Lucian’s magic sought out the man’s demon half and destroyed it.
    The screaming was mercifully short.
    The man slumped under his hand, the demon gone. What was left of his human half… only time would tell. At a minimum, his memories would be erased, and he would be left in a deep magical sleep. Whether he awoke or not remained to be seen.
    Lucian stood and turned to the woman. She was a fighter—that much was clear—and she still gaped at him, watching with a horror that befit what had just happened before her eyes. All his senses were tingling for her, all his runes reshuffling on his body, urging him toward her. Before he could move, she grabbed at her stomach and slowly crumpled to the dirty floor of the alleyway, banging hard against the dumpster on her way down.
    Oh no.
    He dashed to her side and knelt.
    With horror, he realized the bullet must’ve ricocheted and found its way through her body. He placed his hand on the growing stain of blood on her white linen shirt, which had an almost angelic glow in the moonlight. But she wasn’t angel—he was even more sure of that now that he was touching her. He couldn’t taste any metal in her body, either—the bullet must’ve gone through—but the hot stickiness against his palm echoed the sweet and salty taste of her blood in the back of his mind. He could taste many more things about her as well. That she’d been with very few men, but the ones she’d encountered had been dark. Monsters. There was an overwhelming pain reverberating through her that had nothing to do with the bullet wound. It was darkness… but she’d taken that darkness and worked it like a forge to craft something brighter. Made of light.
    She was nobility among humans—he could see it in her actions, even if he hadn’t just tasted it in her soul.
    But she was fading fast. Keeping one hand pressed to her wound, he shifted his other into a nightmare of talons. It was a testament to how far gone she was when the six-inch blades before her face didn’t make her flinch. He used the sharp tip to slice