“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“Don’t. Don’t you dare. You’re not going to die on me, Aramael. I won’t let you.” She pulled her hands from his and cupped his face. “You can call someone. Call Michael. He’ll—”
The pain in his chest sank deeper, radiating inward, brushing against his core. He swayed and would have toppled but for Alex’s hold.
“I can’t,” he said. “I can’t call from here. It’s too—”
The word far died on his lips. He had been in Heaven when Alex called him. Somehow her voice had done what no angel’s could and reached across two realms to pull him to her side. Not even their soulmate connection could fully explain that.
“Alex.” He cradled her face, smearing her cheeks with his blood. “Where is Seth?”
“He’s over there, watching. He said—” Her voice broke, and she made a visible effort to recover. “He said he would give us time for our good-byes before he—he—”
“Sh.” He laid his forehead against hers. The pain sank into his center. He fought it off. “There’s one last thing we can try. I can’t call Mika’el from here, but you can. Just like you called me.”
“But you and I—we’re soulmates—”
“It doesn’t matter. He’ll hear you. I’m sure of it.”
He has to.
The pain took on an exquisite edge that stole his breath. He was running out of time. Pulling his wings over her, he tried to shelter her one last time, if only for a few seconds.
“Call,” he whispered, willing her to stay strong. “Call Mika’el.”
Her eyes—the color of a summer sky—brimmed with tears, and she covered his hands with hers, squeezing fiercely. Desperately.
“I love you,” she said. “I tried not to, but I do. I always have.”
He pressed his lips to her forehead, drawing on her warmth to ward off the cold in his core for another instant. Another labored heartbeat. “I know,” he said. “Now call.”
Her gaze locked with his, and he felt her go still. Felt her reach inside herself, past the fear, past the pain. Heard her whisper the name of Heaven’s greatest warrior in the very depths of her soul.
Aramael’s world went dark.
Chapter 82
Mika’el strode through the great hall, angels scattering from his path, the other Archangels fanned out behind him in tight-lipped silence. Raphael followed closest, his glowering disapproval a near palpable weight across Mika’el’s shoulders. A justified one.
The One had been gone for less than an hour, and already cracks were appearing in Heaven’s foundation. For the first time ever, the others questioned Mika’el’s judgment. He slammed a fist against a bookcase as he passed by, and a collective gasp went through the hall.
He’d been certain Aramael could overcome his connection to the Naphil, but he’d obviously underestimated the former Power’s feelings for the woman. Now his newest recruit was imagining a call for help across two realms, and Mika’el had believed him. Let him go. What in the name of the Creator herself had he been thinking? He had bloody Armageddon looming and—
Michael.
He stopped in his tracks, and the boulder-solid form of Raphael slammed into his back. Armor clanged against armor, underscored by cursing.
“Damn it, Mika’el, warn me when you’re going to—”
“Quiet.” Mika’el held up a hand. “Did you hear that?”
Raphael looked up from buffing a scratch on his breastplate. “Hear what?”
Mika’el scanned the faces of the other Archangels. “A voice. Saying my name. None of you heard it?”
Blank looks met his. Heads shook. He scowled. Wonderful. Now he was imagining—
Michael!
His head snapped back. That wasn’t just his name, it was his Earth name. One that none in Heaven ever called him. He went still, stopped breathing. Impossible. Not even an angel could send forth a summons between Earth and Heaven. There was simply no way a Naphil, thousands of generations removed from her divinity, could achieve such a thing.
Could she?
He whirled. “Azrael, you’re in charge here. Nothing gets past that border, understand? The rest of you, with me.”
Raphael caught his arm, fingers almost as dark as the armor on which they rested. “Mika’el, what the Hell is going on?”
“Aramael is in trouble.”
Instinctively, almost as one, every Archangel’s hand went to the sword hanging at its owner’s side. Including Raphael’s. Whatever doubts they might have about the Aramael’s appointment to their ranks, he was still one of them. Then Raphael’s golden eyes narrowed.
“Wait. I thought he went to Earth. To the Naphil.”
“He did,” Mika’el said. “And I think she just summoned me.”
***
“It’s over, Alex.”
The voice struck with physical force, each syllable a hammer blow against Alex’s soul. Cowering, she held fast to Aramael’s hands beneath the protection of his wings.
Hands still warm to her touch.
Still alive, but barely—and for how much longer?
Feathers shifted above her, and for an instant—a brief, cruel instant—her heart soared. It plummeted again when she saw Seth’s fingers grip the limp wing and shove it aside. Aramael toppled sideways, resisting her attempts to hold him upright, landing with a soft grunt amid the rubble on the floor. His hands pulled away from hers and dropped to nestle against dull black feathers. The final loss of physical contact was more than she could bear.
She exhaled on a moan of denial, a harsh, monstrous sound that came from the very core of her being. The place where her soulmate resided. Aramael of the stormy gray eyes and bolt-of-lightning touch; Aramael, who had risked falling from Heaven itself for her; Aramael, who had stood by her and protected her life with his own even after she had chosen another over him.
Another, whose hand stretched down to her now, waiting to pull her to her feet.
Fighting to control her breathing and unlock her throat, Alex stared at the outstretched appendage. Slowly, she looked up, following the arm to which the hand was attached; tracking along a shoulder and then a neck; settling on a face. Calm and expressionless, with no reflection of what its owner had just done. No acknowledgment. No remorse. Nothing.
“It’s over,” the voice repeated, the face’s mouth moving with the words.
Rage obliterated all else. Knocking the hand away, she surged to her feet and shoved against Seth’s chest. He didn’t so much as sway.
“Fuck you!” she bellowed. She shoved again. Then a third time. And a fourth. Each with more fury, more despair, more impotence. The One had been right all along. Seth’s choices were at the heart of all of this: Armageddon, the Nephilim babies, everything—and Alex had lost everything because of those choices. Her sister, her niece, Aramael—even the love she had once felt for Seth himself. All were gone from her world, and she could do nothing to bring them back. Nothing to stop what would come next, what hovered just beyond her ability to reason. Panic licked at the edges of her anger. She stopped shoving and started shaking, vibrating from head to toe.
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.
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