The emptiness that had once been Seth—funny, wry, loving Seth—reached for her. He held her against his chest, his face buried in her hair, and heaved a deep sigh.
“There,” he whispered. “Now you’re free. There’s nothing to stop you from being with me anymore.”
“Don’t,” she choked back. “Please, Seth. Don’t.”
“Shh.” His hands crawled over her, one tangling in her hair, one stroking her back.
She pushed against him. His grip tightened. It began. A tiny, sharp tingle, sparking along the skin of her extremities, crackling with heat. She writhed against his hold.
“Damn it, Seth, no!”
He ignored her. The heat slithered beneath the surface and traveled along her nerves, her veins. Trickling at first, then increasing to a rush toward her center. Toward her chest. Her struggles increased tenfold. He paid no attention. The heat pooled, intensified—and turned to pure, liquid agony, as if her very heart were melting.
She tried to scream but had no voice.
Then, through the haze that descended, a hand. Strong. Clamping onto her shoulder. Pulling her back, flinging her away. Other hands catching her, pushing her to the floor. The rustle of many wings. And a voice. Michael’s voice. Snarling, furious, agonized.
“In the name of all that is holy, Appointed, what have you done?”
Chapter 83
Mika’el grabbed a panting Seth by the shirtfront, threw him against the remains of a support pillar, and held him there. He shot a look over his shoulder at Uriel, who was bent over the prostrate Aramael. The other Archangel shrugged and shook his head.
Not dead yet, but nothing we can do, the gesture said.
Mika’el turned back to the creature he held. Fury and an overwhelming sense of failed responsibility rolled through him. Aramael had said something was wrong, and now he was dying because Mika’el hadn’t believed him. Hadn’t bothered to send someone with him. How in all of Creation had he let this happen? He seized Seth by the throat and slammed his head against the pillar.
“Damn you, Appointed! What in bloody Hell were you thinking? Aramael is the only one who stood by you. He helped you save his own soulmate, knowing she had already chosen you. Do you have any idea what that did to him? What it cost him? This is how you repay him?”
Seth’s gaze met his—empty, awful, wrong. “He interfered,” he said coldly. “He tried to protect her from me, but she’s mine.”
“Mika’el,” said Raphael.
Mika’el ignored him, glowering at Seth. “He was right to protect her,” he snarled. “She has free will. She doesn’t belong to anyone. You know that.”
“Mika’el.”
“I saved her life, Archangel,” Seth spat back. “Twice. My soul touched hers. Twice. A part of me resides inside her forever.”
“That doesn’t make her—”
“Mika’el.”
He rounded on Raphael. “What?”
“He made her immortal.”
The words hung in the air. Stark. Vast. Impossible. Raphael shifted his grip on his sword. No one else moved. Turning his head, Mika’el took in the wreckage that had once been an office. The fallen Aramael. The crumpled woman on the floor.
A dozen thoughts collided in his head, all clamoring for his attention. That Seth would dare to inflict immortality on a human was one thing, but that he could presented another problem altogether. When—and how—had he become so strong? He looked at the hand he had wrapped around the Appointed’s throat.
And how long before Seth recovered from what he’d just done and became that strong again?
Triumph illuminated Seth’s face, as if he knew exactly what the Archangel was thinking. “I told you,” he said. “She’s mine.”
He seized Mika’el’s wrist, tightening his fingers until bones ground together. Staring into the emptiness of his eyes, Mika’el shut out the pain, stilled his mind, and let clarity descend. Swiftly, surely, he sifted through to the core of what mattered. The only truth.
Seth should have died three weeks before.
He hadn’t.
It was time to set things right.
Seth’s windpipe rattled against Mika’el’s fingers as the Appointed struggled to breathe. The bones in Mika’el’s wrist began to splinter. He reached with his free hand for his sword, closed his fingers around the hilt, pulled the blade from its scabbard, stepped back, and swung.
Steel met steel in a shower of sparks.
“I think not, warrior,” said a new voice. “He belongs to us now.”
There was an indrawn hiss beside Mika’el, and then a guttural roar, starting low and building to a bellow that shook dust from the shattered ceiling.
“Sam-a-el!”
Mika’el threw out an arm in time to stop Raphael from impaling himself on the half dozen blades suddenly ranged against them. The other Archangel fought his hold, subsiding only after Mika’el’s harsh “Stand down!”
Fallen Ones. But not just any Fallen Ones. Mika’el skimmed the lineup of faces, the hollowness of their eyes. He stared. Withered inside. Only one place could turn eyes that dead, that empty. They’d escaped from Limbo.
But there were only a dozen of them. Six with swords leveled at their throats, six others behind those with weapons also drawn. Thousands had been trapped there. Where were the rest? His eyes settled on the one in the center. Samael.
So. The brother of Raphael and the only Archangel to follow Lucifer was now laying claim to the Appointed, was he?
Still holding Raphael back, Mika’el scowled. “Explain yourself, traitor.”
Samael raised an eyebrow. “I thought it fairly self-explanatory. The Appointed isn’t yours anymore. He’s ours. Therefore, I object to you impaling him.”
“You want Seth to lead Hell.”
Samael shrugged. “I think the idea has merit, yes.”
“No.”
Samael’s eyes hardened. “I don’t think you understand, Mika’el. I’m not asking your permission.”
“In that case, you seem to have forgotten who you’re dealing with. There are four of us”—Mika’el indicated the Archangels flanking him—“and only a dozen of you. How long do you think a fight will even last?”
Samael smiled grimly. “Long enough,” he said, and lunged forward.
Chapter 84
Alex jolted back to consciousness with a gasp. She lay without moving for an instant, trying to get her bearings. Then, just in time, she rolled clear of the many booted feet trampling near her head. The clang of metal on metal reverberated, mixing with shouts and grunts of pain, coming from what seemed to be every side. Instinctively, she sought cover as her brain scrabbled for a frame of reference, trying to piece together where she was, what was happening. Cool softness pressed against her cheek. She put out a hand—then recoiled when her fingers found the long, limp curve of a wing.
Remembrance flooded back.
Aramael. Dying. Seth. Murderer. Michael. Here.
Horror churned together with agony and emerged in a harsh gag.
Aramael was dying.
A rough hand hauled her to her feet. She struck out blindly, viciously, her training and experience forgotten in a vortex of pure terror. Her black-armor-clad captor shook her.
“Knock it off, Naphil. I’m trying to help,” the female Archangel growled. With no hint of effort, she hoisted Aramael’s body upright with her other hand and towed both it and Alex unceremoniously through the fray. Surges of sparking blue power battered them, but the Archangel seemed oblivious, intent on her destination, shoving their heads down as a black wing, edged with razor-sharp feathers, whistled past.
By the time they reached the washroom corridor at the back of the office—the only area that had so far escaped devastation—Alex bled from at least ten wing-inflicted wounds and felt as if she’d gone twice that many rounds in a fight ring. The Archangel thrust her into the ladies’ room and dumped Aramael on the cold tile floor.
Alex dropped onto her knees beside
him, one hand searching for a pulse at the side of his throat, the other trying again to stem the trickle of blood from his chest. The blade of a sword came between them.
“Take it,” the Archangel said. “You might need it.”
Alex recoiled from the blood-spattered blade. “What do I look like, a goddamn ninja?” She tugged her sidearm from its holster, ignoring how it trembled in her grip. “I have my own weapon.”
“That”—the Archangel plucked the gun from her and tossed it aside—“will have about as much effect against one of us as a peashooter against an incoming comet.”
She shoved the sword into Alex’s hand and forcibly curled her fingers around it. “This is Aramael’s blade. It needs to be wielded by an Archangel to kill, but it contains enough power on its own to hold off a Fallen One until we can get to you. Stay here. If anything other than one of us comes through that door”—she pointed—“swing first. Then scream. Clear?”
Alex stared at the broadsword in her hand, its steel glinting dully. Aramael’s blade, because Aramael can’t use it himself. She tried to release it, but the Archangel’s grip was unyielding. A shriek of agony rose above the clashes and clangs of battle, then cut off abruptly. The Archangel seized Alex’s chin and forced it up. Sapphire blue eyes glared at her.
“Take it,” she snarled. “Aramael protected you with his life. You owe him nothing less.”
Alex shrank from the words. Another hand, warm and familiar, closed over her fingers. Aramael, alive and awake.
“Do as Gabriel says,” he whispered. “Take the sword.”
Meeting his pain-clouded gaze, Alex swallowed, nodded. She let her fingers curl over the hilt. Seeming satisfied, her rescuer whirled in a metallic whisper of feathers and, her own sword in hand, leapt for the door. The clashes and clangs of battle grew louder and then muted again as the door swung closed on its hydraulic hinge. Alex stared down at the figure on the floor, nested against his own black wings, deathly pale and unmoving. His eyes—his magnificent, fierce, stormy gray eyes—closed once more.
Grief clawed at her chest, fighting for release. She clamped her teeth against it. With her free hand, she brushed back the hair from his forehead.
Don’t you dare lose it, Jarvis. Aramael didn’t save your life so you could play wilting violet. You’re going to get out of here—Michael and the others will make sure of it—and Aramael will live, and then you’re going to find Nina . . .
Find her and hold her and watch her die.
God.
Clang. Crash. Scream.
Christ.
The cut on her arm gave a twinge, and she glanced down. The other cuts she’d sustained had been superficial, but that one had looked—
Gone?
The air wheezed from her lungs. She took her hand from Aramael’s forehead and swiped at the drying blood. Licked her fingers. Scrubbed harder. Stared. Not so much as a scar remained. Aramael hadn’t saved her after all. Seth had done it anyway. He’d made her immortal. She couldn’t die. She was going to live forever.
Horror swirled in her chest, slammed into her belly, rose again in her gorge.
Still clutching the sword, she lunged toward a sink.
Chapter 85
Alex braced one hand against the smooth porcelain sink and used the other to carry cold water to her face, her throat, the nape of her neck. Nausea still churned, but the retching had finally stopped—although that could simply have been because there was nothing left to purge. She eyed her wan, dripping reflection. While the physical shaking had also ended, her insides continued to vibrate at a pitch that would have shattered her if she’d been made of crystal.
She looked at the forearm supporting her. She hadn’t been able to bring herself to wash the blood from it—or from any of the other injury sites. It was as if, on some visceral level, she needed to retain evidence of her wounds. The only evidence she had of what she’d become. What Seth had made her. Her mind veered away from the idea, and she splashed another handful of water over her neck. Beyond the washroom door, the sounds of sword fighting continued.
Swords. With all the power these beings possessed, who would have imagined they’d resort to swords for battle? She looked at the blade she had propped against the wall by the sink. Simple, unadorned, crafted for nothing more than service. She turned off the tap and tore a length of rough brown paper towel from the dispenser to dry herself. Tossing the paper into the garbage, she turned to check on Aramael.
Outside and across the hall, a door thudded shut.
She stared at the washroom door just a few feet away. Was the fight over? No—she could still hear the clang of metal on metal. Then who—
The door cracked open, and Seth stepped inside. Hysteria bubbled up in her chest as he stared at the prone Aramael. She shoved it ruthlessly back down, swallowing against it. Seth looked up and smiled at her.
“There you are,” he said. “I thought they might have taken you away.”
His matter-of-factness hit her like a bucket of ice water, erasing the vestiges of panic, replacing it with a vast, disorienting disbelief. After all he’d done, he behaved as if none of it had happened at all. As if none of it mattered. Was he really that unfeeling? Had she made that monumental a mistake in saving him from Michael and the others in Vancouver?
She shifted to block the sword from his view. “What do you want?”
He raised an eyebrow. “A little gratitude for the gift, to begin with.”
“Gift?” She choked out a laugh. “I’ve lost everything I ever loved, everything I ever cared for, and now I get to live forever? How in hell is that a gift?”
“You haven’t lost everything, only the distractions.” He put out a hand to brush the hair from her face. “You still have me, remember? It’s what we always wanted.”
Another blast of ice water. He thought—he’d convinced himself—oh, dear God. She breathed carefully around the knot unraveling in her chest. Forced her hands to remain at her sides and not strike out at him while she worked through her realization and its terrifying consequences.
A stalker. Seth Benjamin, son of the One and Lucifer, bearer of immeasurable power, had become nothing more than a classic, delusional stalker—on a cosmic scale. Even now he was convinced she wanted to be with him for eternity. He had arranged for exactly that. Horror bubbled up in her again, this time on a whole new level, a whole new scale.
Seth’s arms slid around her.
I’ll never escape.
He buried his face in her neck . . .
I can’t escape.
. . . murmured her name . . .
Not even through death.
. . . whispered, “I love you, Alex Jarvis. Forever.”
“Leave . . . her . . . alone,” grated a hoarse voice.
Aramael. For an instant, sheer, wanton relief surged in Alex’s breast. He was conscious. He could hold off Seth until the others arrived. But then Seth went still—terrifyingly so—and euphoria turned to panic. Dread.
Aramael could never survive another fight. Not wounded as he was. Seth would kill him this time, finish what he had begun. Pain squeezed through Alex’s chest. No. She wouldn’t let him. She put her hands up to Seth’s face, forced herself to hold it. To hold his attention. To lie.
“I love you, too,” she croaked.
Sudden joy flared in Seth’s black eyes, and he cupped her face gently, reverently. Locking her gaze on his, she tried to project the adoration he craved from her and not let him see the desperation crawling along her every fiber, turning her inside out.
Oh please oh please oh please don’t do anything more to him.
“I said leave her!” Aramael snarled.
Seth’s jaw went rigid beneath her touch. She tightened her hold, clinging to him, clinging to hope, searching for the right thing to say. If she could make him believe her, if she could keep him focused—
His fingers wrapped around her wrists. He pulled her hands from his face and pushed her away. Blue crackles snapped in t
he air around him. He turned. Over his shoulder, Alex saw Aramael standing tall and straight, his wings spread as wide as the tight space would allow. She caught her breath. He looked so capable, so confident. Had he recovered? Was he—
A fresh trickle of phosphorescence welled from the hole in Aramael’s armor. His glorious, powerful wings trembled ever so slightly. Hope morphed into despair and sent cruel tentacles to wrap around her soul. She grabbed for Seth’s arm, but he shook her off, forcing her back a step. Stumbling, she put a hand out to steady herself against the counter. Her fingers closed over the hilt of Aramael’s sword.
“Take it,” the Archangel Gabriel’s voice whispered through her.
“Again, Archangel?” Seth snarled at Aramael. “How many times do I have to kill you?”
“How many times does Alex have to say no?” Aramael countered. “I won’t let you take her.”
Alex lifted the heavy, hardened steel blade. Gabriel had said it would slow down a Fallen One, but that’s not what Seth was. He wasn’t an angel at all but something other. Something more. What if it didn’t work against him?
The blue crackles came together, weaving themselves into a wall before Seth. “Then you’ll die,” he told Aramael. “Again.”
Over Seth’s shoulder, Alex met her soulmate’s calm certainty. Aramael’s mouth curved upward in the slightest of smiles. He knew what she considered. Nodded his approval. Blinked his good-bye. He turned his attention back to Seth.
“So be it,” he said.
Alex stretched a hand toward him. No. Oh, God, no . . .
Aramael threw his wings and arms wide. Hardened feathers splintered the wall tiles and tore through a metal stall door with a screech, then swept toward Seth. Power struck crackling energy with a force that gusted outward, shattering mirrors, sinks, toilets. And then Alex swung the sword with all the strength she possessed, down in an arc toward Seth.
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