“But—”
“Alex.” Michael’s voice cut across her objection. “You’re done.”
Alex stared at him, trying to accept his words as he meant them. But she couldn’t. Not when she knew about the Nephilim children and a war raging on the world’s doorstep, unseen but all too real. All too terrifying. Done? Done how?
“At least tell me what we’re facing here,” she said. “Tell me what to expect from the Nephilim.”
He sighed, seeming to weigh what he might tell her. “For a while, nothing. They must mature first, and—just as it does for any child—much will depend on their environment during that time. Some will be no threat. Others will destroy themselves through their own choices.”
“And the rest?”
“The Nephilim are half Fallen Angel. They will have certain abilities the rest of you don’t. Greater physical prowess. Sharper mental acuity. The ability to influence human minds. The latter is the most dangerous.”
“How dangerous?”
“Descendants of the original Nephilim, hundreds of generations removed and with no real abilities left, have raised entire armies and destroyed millions,” Michael said. “I’ll leave the extrapolation to you.”
“What do we do?”
Heaven’s greatest warrior nodded past her and she looked over her shoulder to see a weary, dust-streaked Seth crossing the alley toward her, his gaze carrying an intensity that spiraled through her very core.
“The best you can with what you have,” Michael said, “for as long as you have it.”
And then he was gone and Seth was there, enveloping Alex in the embrace she had so long fought against. An embrace that now felt like the only right thing in the entire universe. For long minutes, she did nothing but cling, listening to the steady tha-dump of his heart and absorbing his warmth into her own chilled soul. Letting him shield her from the grim new reality of a world she no longer recognized. For equally long minutes, Seth seemed content to hold her.
At last, however, gentle fingers brushed back the hair from her forehead. “He told you.”
She nodded against his chest. “Why?” she asked. Why did you do it? Why did you save me? Why me?
“From the moment I met you, Alexandra Jarvis, I think you were the only possible choice I could make. I tried to give up my place for you once, but Mittron wasn’t strong enough to take my powers from me. Things went wrong.” He shrugged and his chest muscles contracted beneath Alex’s cheek. “Now things are right again.”
Drawing back, she looked up into his black gaze. Met the recognition there. The remembrance. The whole of him, back once more. He nodded in response to her unspoken question.
“I remember everything,” he said. “Meeting you, loving you, desiring you as I had never known one being could desire another.”
“And your destiny?” she asked. “Do you remember that, too?”
Seth fell quiet for a moment. “Yes. I also remember I would rather have a few short years with you than an entire eternity without. The struggle between my parents is theirs, not mine. I thought, hoped, I might be able to ease that struggle, but you were right about us being pawns. Whatever I did, whatever I chose, it would make no difference in a game that is infinite and unending. So if it makes you feel any better, I didn’t just choose you, Alex, I also chose not to play their game anymore.”
She went still and he smiled down at her. “You wear your emotions rather plainly, you know. You have guilt written all over you.”
“With good reason.” Alex pulled away to stare at the chaos in which they stood. “For thousands of years, everything between the One and Lucifer was quiet. Calm. Now I’ve managed to not only trigger Armageddon, but to interfere with the one being who might have averted it.”
“Not you, Alex, others who used you.”
“Semantics.”
“Truth,” he contradicted firmly. “You were as much a pawn as I was. Besides, what’s done is done. We can’t change any of it, we can only move forward. Which leaves us with just one question.”
She looked over her shoulder to find him looking oddly vulnerable, a little like a small, lost boy—apart from his roughly six-foot-six frame. He quirked a small smile that didn’t reflect in the seriousness of his eyes.
“Do we move forward together or alone?” he asked quietly.
Alex studied him, this man who had given up his divinity for her, and for whom she had given up her soulmate. She thought about all they had come through and all they might still have to endure. Then, silently, she held out her hand to him because there could only be one answer. One possibility. One truth.
The best you can with what you have, for as long as you have it.
“Together,” she said. “Always together.”
As Seth’s hand closed over hers, she tucked away the memory of her soulmate in a deep, quiet corner of her heart.
“DOES SHE KNOW?” Aramael stared into the pond, unable to bring himself to meet Mika’el’s gaze. He scuffed a toe against the gravel path, sending a stone skipping into the dark water.
“She didn’t say anything, so I would guess no.”
Lips tightening, Aramael nodded.
“It’s for the best,” said the Archangel behind him.
Best. Best that Alex knew nothing of his involvement in saving her life, nothing of how he had protected both her and Seth from Seth’s own power gone mad. Aramael’s hands curled into fists, but he nodded again.
“You still haven’t told me how you knew she was dying.”
Aramael closed his eyes, the wrench of pain in his chest as fresh now as it had been when Alex called to him from the alley with her dying thought. He gritted his teeth. “Call it a lucky guess.”
Mika’el said nothing.
When several minutes had passed and the Archangel still hadn’t spoken, Aramael shot a glance over his shoulder to see if Mika’el was even there anymore. Emerald eyes met his, cool and openly speculative. Aramael raised a brow. “What?”
“I need to know that you’re able to put your soulmate behind you once and for all, Power. That if she were to call to you again, you could ignore her. Or better yet, not even hear her.” Mika’el wiped away a smudge from the polished black chest plate of his war armor. “Because if I promote you to Archangel, I need to be absolutely certain you will be loyal to the One—and only to the One.”
“You want to promote me?” Aramael stared at him. “After declaring me responsible for all of this even happening? Why?”
“When I told you at the beginning of this that your Creator needed you, Aramael of the Powers, I didn’t lie.” The Archangel’s eyes had never looked greener. Or harder. “She has kept a secret from us that could cost us her very presence in our lives if we can’t stop it from happening. If we’re to stand a chance, we need a full complement of warriors. I want you to take the place of Samael.”
Looking away into the trees, Aramael took a moment to let the Archangel’s words sink in—and to re-master breathing. While a part of him wondered what kind of secret could take the One away from them, he set the question aside in favor of the one he needed answered before he could give his response.
“You haven’t answered my question. Why me?”
“The strength of every soul, mortal or immortal, lies in its capacity to make choices. An Archangel’s strength is no different, except our capacity extends to making extraordinary choices—such as choosing to walk away from our soulmates for the greater good. Permanently,” said Mika’el. “Now, answer my question. If your soulmate calls to you again, can you ignore her? No matter what her need might be?”
Aramael shoved his hands into his pockets and stared again into the dark depths of the pool. Even here, in Heaven, the connection remained between him and Alex. A fine thread, like spider silk. Three times now he had held out against it. Had found in himself the ability to endure the agony of having it pull taut, stretch beyond endurance, and break. But Mika’el asked for more. So much more. Could he do what the
Archangel asked? Did he have the strength?
Permanently.
An ache settled into his heart and slowly traveled deeper, into his core. His essence. A part of him wanted to deny the Archangel, to reject the very suggestion, but a greater part—a sadder part—knew it was too late. What Mika’el asked of him was nothing more than a confirmation of what Aramael had already decided when he had saved Alex not for his own sake but for hers—and for Seth’s.
For the greater good, he had already chosen to let her go.
Aramael turned and found Heaven’s greatest warrior holding out a parchment to him. This time, it was the One’s seal visible along one edge.
“Welcome aboard, Aramael of the Archangels,” said Mika’el. “Now let’s move. We have a war to win.”
EPILOGUE
“Well?” Lucifer heard the door open, but didn’t turn. He didn’t need to look around to know it was Samael who entered because, after the last Fallen One’s mistaken intrusion, only Sam would brave his current mood.
The door clicked shut and his aide’s footsteps crossed the room. “We’re ready for them,” he said. “The females, too.”
Staring out into the barren caricature of a garden, Lucifer clenched his jaw. “All but one,” he said.
Samael cleared his throat in a soft cough. “About that—”
Lucifer waved an impatient hand over his shoulder. “I know, I know. I need to let it go, focus on the ones who remain. It just galls me to no end that I didn’t see it coming. Didn’t anticipate what the bitch would do.”
“All may not be as lost as you think.”
“Oh, trust me, Archangel, it’s exactly as lost as I think,” Lucifer said bitterly. “I was there, remember? I saw her stick the knife into her belly. Felt the child—my child—die. Saw the ruination of any chance the Naphil would bear another. It doesn’t get much more lost than that.”
“Unless she isn’t the only descendant of my line.”
Lucifer snorted. “I’m sure she isn’t, but our chances of finding another amid seven billion souls are—”
“She has a sister.”
The very universe seemed to still, holding its breath, waiting for Lucifer to absorb Samael’s words, to grasp their import and taste the possibilities within them. Another Naphil of Archangel descent. Another chance to produce a child of spectacular ability. A child that would lead the Nephilim to certain, absolute, final victory.
Slowly—afraid that if he moved too fast, he might destroy the perfection of the moment—Lucifer turned to his aide. Samael smiled.
“And a niece,” said the former Archangel.
Lucifer smiled, too.
Sins of the Son: The Grigori Legacy Page 31