“I’m going to leave,” Azazel said in a quiet voice.
“I know.” We had been together from the very beginning, from before we fell. I knew him as well as I knew myself. And for the first time in millennia, he was no longer going to be there.
He turned to look at me, and there was a ghost of a smile in his dark eyes. “How are you and the woman getting along? Are you still fighting your destiny?”
“My destiny? What exactly is my destiny?”
“You’re married to the Source, or will be. It only makes sense that you should be the Alpha as well.”
“No. You’re the Alpha. You always have been.”
“I’ve always been married to the Source, and I suspect you’re not about to hand her over.”
I said nothing. There was nothing I could say.
“Besides,” he added, “I won’t be here.”
I knew there was no arguing him out of that one. “I will serve in your place while you’re gone,” I said. “The moment you return, you get it back.”
He shook his head, his eyes bleak, staring into an empty future. “I may not make it back. The Nephilim are growing stronger, and there’s nothing Uriel would like more than to bring me down.”
“Then why go?”
“I have to.” He looked back out at the boat. “I can’t be here without her, not right now. This will heal, it always does, even if I don’t want it to. But for now I can’t stay in our rooms, sit at our table, be in our house without her.”
I nodded. The loss of a mate was the most devastating thing that could happen to us, and Azazel’s passion for Sarah had been deep and strong. I could only hope he’d survive beyond our safe walls. Walls that were not so safe anymore.
“I understand,” I said.
He glanced at me. “Are you going to be able to watch when the others take the blooding sacrament?” he asked. “You seemed to be having a hard time controlling yourself earlier today. It might be better if you waited until you feed from her. Until you do, your possessive anger will be hard to control.”
“I’ve already fed from her,” I said.
Azazel looked at me. “So soon? You surprise me. I thought you hated her. You certainly fought hard enough to get rid of her.”
“She’s mine,” I said.
He nodded. “I suspected as much. But I should warn you. Even though you’ve fed from her, the first two or three occasions when others take her blood will be hard for you. Gradually you’ll get used to it and see the difference between the sacrament and when you feed. But it will be difficult. Do not let your jealousy get out of control. The woman is besotted with you. Even if she were able to look at other men, she wouldn’t—I’ve known that from the very beginning.”
“Did you know she’d be the Source?”
Darkness shuttered Azazel’s face. “No,” he said. “If I had, I would have killed her.” He rose, and I rose with him, watching as his wings spread out around him. “I haven’t found the traitor. I’d planned to wait until we discovered who let the Nephilim in, but I find I . . . can’t.” He looked toward the funeral boat, and his face was bleak.
“You won’t be here for the ceremony?”
“No.” It was a simple word that conveyed everything. “Good-bye, my brother. Take care of that harridan you brought among us.” And then he left, soaring upward into the night sky.
I watched him until he was out of sight, then sat again, not moving. This was the change I’d felt coming, the end that threatened us all. Azazel had led us from the beginning of time—he’d never left us. I had no gift of prognostication—but even I had known the end of times was upon us. It was no wonder I’d fought it.
Would the Nephilim have broken in if Allie hadn’t been here? Had that been part of Uriel’s plan? Had he known I would hesitate, recognizing her from our earlier meetings? Anything was possible.
There was nothing he wanted more than to distract us from our main goal, and he had succeeded. Lucifer still lay trapped, farther away than ever, and for a long time we would be busy mourning our dead and rebuilding our defenses. The monsters would have broken through sooner or later, but had Allie’s arrival, the fact that she was unquestionably mine, somehow pushed things up? I would never know.
Uriel was winning. I knew it, so did Azazel. It was little wonder he hated Allie. Her arrival had signaled Sarah’s death.
I thought back to the Source, her gentle smile, her wisdom. Allie was a far cry from Sarah’s serenity. I wasn’t even certain she’d agree to the sacrament. She’d insisted she wasn’t going to provide blood for the Fallen. Once they started to weaken she’d change her mind, of course. Allie wasn’t the kind of woman who’d stand by and let anyone suffer.
Except, perhaps, me, if I annoyed her. I liked peaceful women. Gentle, obedient women whose only reason in life was to love me. Allie was too much of the new world. Already she’d been a pain in the butt, and I knew she’d continue to be. I would have to get used to it.
I should go back, tell the Fallen that Azazel had left us. Most of them would already know—the unspoken bond among all of us was very strong. I could tell them, and then head back upstairs and wrap my body around Allie’s and wake her slowly.
I’d tried to be careful, afraid I’d hurt her. She was small, unused to me, and the thought of causing her pain was enough to slow the raging tide of my hunger for her. But I hadn’t been able to stop, any more than I’d been able to keep from feeding from her. Yet she’d been able to take everything with no more than a slight wince. More proof that she was made for me, when I’d refused to believe it for so long. No ordinary woman could take me as she had, not without pain that would preclude pleasure.
I’d felt her tighten around me in helpless response, felt her give everything to me. She was mine, and I was hers.
I was no longer alone. I turned to see Sammael land beside me, light as ever, his light-brown wings folding down around him. His face was set, emotionless, and I greeted him without rising. He’d lost his mate as well. His grief had to be very deep indeed. So deep that he didn’t allow it to show.
“Azazel has left?” he said.
I had watched over Sammael after he’d fallen. Helped him with the huge adjustments, listened to him, advised him when he’d asked for counsel, stayed with him when the terrors hit him. If Azazel was an older brother, Sammael was a younger one. Someone I protected, guarded against evil.
I looked at Sammael and I saw the emptiness in his eyes. And I knew the truth.
I REACHED OUT FOR RAZIEL, but he was gone. The bed was already cold where he had been, though mostly he’d been on top of and beneath and behind and around me. I should have slept for days after all the things we’d been doing. Instead I was awake and wondering where he was. And when he’d be back, beside me, inside me, again.
I didn’t want to get up—the evening air was cool and the covers were deliciously warm. Hadn’t someone told me I wouldn’t have to use the bathroom as much? They’d lied.
I got up, noticing with lascivious amusement that my legs were shaky. I staggered to the bathroom, understanding for the first time the term relieving oneself. Washing my hands, I looked at my reflection in the mirror and laughed.
He’d left his marks on me. The bite mark on my neck, two pale puncture marks that looked like something out of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The whisker burns on my breasts. The tiny bites and scratches and even faint bruises all over my pale skin. Tentatively I let my hands slide down my body, caressing all those marks, and I closed my eyes, letting out a soft sigh of pleasure. “More,” I whispered. What had the man done to me—turned me into a nymphomaniac? I’d had more sex in the last two days than I’d had in years.
I headed for the shower, stepping beneath the warm spray that was always at exactly the right temperature. Just another one of the perks of the afterlife, I thought. I’d always hated fiddling with showers to make sure the water temperature was right, particularly in a prewar apartment building in New York City with antique
plumbing. The lovely perfection of the shower in Raziel’s rooms was joyful indeed.
Not to mention that there were seventeen different sprays, ranging from the rain-forest shower overhead to the myriad massaging sprays coming from the silver pipe, each aimed at a strategic part of my body. I reached for the liquid soap and almost swooned. It had the same spicy scent that clung to Raziel’s golden skin. I closed my eyes and slathered myself with it, letting the water sluice it away from me.
The bathroom was filling with steam, and I sat on the shower’s teak bench to enjoy it; a moment later I heard the door open, and my pulse leapt. He was back, sooner than I expected. I’d never shared a shower with a man. Sharing one with Raziel would be . . . delicious.
“I’m in here,” I said unnecessarily. “Why don’t you join me?” It was astonishingly bold of me—while shyness had never been my particular failing, sexual openness was equally foreign. But I had looked into his eyes and known how much he wanted me, and no foolish misgivings would get in my way. He wanted me, and for now I could let myself accept it, revel in it. He was mine.
I could see his outline through the heavy mist in the bathroom, moving toward the shower’s doorless opening, and I rose in one fluid gesture, ready to move into his arms, when something stopped me. I froze, tilting my head to listen to him, but there was nothing but silence from the man who stood there.
It wasn’t Raziel. This man was shorter, broader. Dangerous. I’d already called out to him—there was no chance of pretending that I wasn’t there. No chance of slipping out of the open shower and hiding behind the bathroom door. I was trapped.
I left the shower running, on the off chance that whoever was in here had an aversion to getting wet, even as I realized how foolish that was—it wasn’t the Wicked Witch of the West who was threatening me. He moved closer, and the overhead spray beat down on his blond curls, his well-modeled face, and I felt relief wash through me. It was Sammael. Raziel must have told him to bring me to him.
His expression was odd, almost vacant, as he reached past me and turned off the water. He paid no attention to the fact that I was naked, but that didn’t surprise me. I was hardly the type to inflame the passions of most men, and Sammael had just lost his beloved wife. He was probably barely aware of me.
He took my arm, not gently at all, and pulled me from the shower, tossing a towel at me. “Dry yourself,” he ordered in his expressionless voice. Something was wrong. With Sammael, with the situation, and fear sliced through me. Had Raziel been hurt?
I turned to him, about to demand an explanation, when something stopped me. He stood so still, waiting for me, his face blank, his eyes dead. Mourning his wife, I thought. But I still couldn’t rid myself of the belief that something was terribly wrong.
I didn’t waste any time, though toweling off and dressing while Sammael watched wasn’t one of the most comfortable things I’d ever done. I kept my back to him, turning around once I’d done up the white shirt and loose black pants I’d once more filched from Raziel. I still couldn’t face bright colors, but plain white seemed too mournful. “Are you taking me to Raziel?” I asked.
“Of course.” There was still that strange disconnect going on, as if he were in shock.
“I’m so glad you survived, Sammael,” I said. “I know the loss of Carrie must be so hard for you.”
He didn’t blink. “He’s waiting for you,” he said.
Where? I didn’t say the word out loud, though I’m not sure why. Feeling unsettled, I let my mind reach out, delicately, searching for Raziel.
There was no answer. Not even the muffled consciousness I’d been able to reach when he was deliberately closed off to me. Was he asleep? Had he gone somewhere to rest after the energetic hours we’d spent?
But he wouldn’t have done that. When I’d drifted off to sleep the last time, I’d been folded in his arms; in his repletion he hadn’t held anything back. He’d wanted nothing more than to sleep like that, his body entwined with mine.
And now he’d vanished. I jerked my head around to stare at Sammael. “Where is he?” I asked again. “Why isn’t he here?”
“He wants you to join him. He’s in the caves.”
A cold, creeping sickness filled my belly. He was lying to me. Raziel had told me never to come to the mountain again, and there was no reason for that to change, even in our recent rapprochement.
I began to back away slowly. I had no idea whether I could run faster than one of the Fallen, but it was certainly worth a try. “Let me just get a cup of coffee,” I said brightly, turning toward the kitchen.
“No.”
I raised an eyebrow, feeling haughty. “No? If I want a cup of coffee, I’ll get one,” I snapped. “And if what Azazel said is true and I really am the Source, you’re going to be relying on me for blood for the next little bit, however long it takes you to find another mate. So don’t piss me off.”
“I won’t need your blood,” he said. “The curse will be lifted, and I’ll be back where I belong.”
Oh, crap. “Just you? Or all of you?”
I didn’t need his expression to verify what I already knew. “You let the Nephilim in,” I said in a sick voice, remembering the sound and the stench of them, the hideous tearing of bodies, the screams of the dying. His own wife torn apart and devoured. I wanted to throw up.
“There is no new life without the end of an old one. The Fallen should have been wiped from this earth aeons ago. Once the Fallen have been destroyed, the new order can come to pass, and I will ascend to my throne in heaven.”
“Ascend to your throne? Do you think you’re God? Jesus?”
He gave me a look of withering disdain. “You know nothing of these matters. I will join Uriel as the guardian of heaven and earth, and wickedness will be burned out. The Fallen will be entombed in the middle of the earth as Lucifer has been, there to suffer eternal torment—”
“I get the picture.” There was a messianic gleam to his eye now, and I’d learned at my mother’s knee that there was nothing worse than a zealot. “And what happens to me?”
“You are the whore of a fallen one. There is no mercy or forgiveness for you.” He took my wrist, his hand grinding my bones together, but I bit my lip and didn’t say anything. “He awaits you.”
He dragged me out onto the narrow terrace, and I gave up all dignity and shrieked for help, prepared to fight like hell before I let him throw me over.
Instead he put one beefy arm around my waist and soared upward, into the moonlit sky.
I stopped struggling. He could easily have dropped me, and I’d never liked heights. Yes, I know I was supposed to be over all my phobias, but there were a lot of things that were supposed to be true that so far had failed me.
I hadn’t been afraid when I flew with Raziel. But Raziel was my mate, my soul, everything to me. Since I was probably going to die, there was no need to try to talk myself out of it. It was completely unoriginal of me, but I was desperately in love with my beautiful fallen angel, and thank God I was going to die before I told him. At least I’d be saved that embarrassment.
Except that he knew. He had to have heard me, known me, during those endless, blissful hours of taking and giving. He knew I was in love with him, and had been since . . . I could no longer remember when I didn’t love him. It was so much a part of me that I couldn’t separate it into time or space. Loved him so much that I could die for him, leap into hell for him. Whatever I had to do.
I had a choice. I felt dangerously close to tears, but I wasn’t going to give in to weakness. If I was going to die, I was going down in flames, and I’d take Sammael with me if I could.
We landed hard on the side of the mountain, and he released me as if my touch were something unclean. I landed on my butt, and as I looked up into his face I managed to muster clear disdain. “So where’s Raziel? Did you kill him already? And what are you going to do about all the others?” It wasn’t over until it was over, and if I could get him to do the Evil Warlord shti
ck and reveal his wicked plans, I might just possibly have a chance to stop him. Particularly if he turned into a snake, which, according to Number 666 of the Evil Overlord Rules, never helps.
No, he couldn’t do that. I was getting a little giddy—too many things had happened to me, and I was tired of being buffeted around.
“The others will be no problem. Their women are dead or dying. If there is no Source, they will weaken and die. The next time I let the Nephilim in, they will devour the rest, and I will ascend to heaven.”
“Unless they devour you too,” I pointed out, trying to be practical. “So I get to die because I’m the Source. Lucky me. Why kill Raziel? Why not let him weaken and die like the others?” It would take a hell of a long time for Raziel to weaken enough that Sammael or a whole host of Nephilim could take him, and before that happened he’d figure out who the traitor was. I had absolutely no doubt about that.
I’d be dead, though. And I didn’t want to die. I wanted to spend as long as I could with Raziel, no matter how bossy he was.
“I can’t kill you without killing Raziel. If he loses his mate too soon, he’ll be very dangerous.”
Yeah, right. For some reason I couldn’t picture Raziel losing it over my untimely demise. For him, I was simply a matter of destiny. It wasn’t as if he really wanted a mate. If I died, he’d have a get-out-of-jail-free pass.
I got to my feet slowly, feeling bruised and cold. He’d flown me up high, where the air was thin and icy, and I still felt chilled. “You know,” I said in a conversational tone, “I don’t want to die. Couldn’t we work something out?” If Raziel wasn’t dead yet, there was still hope. I couldn’t believe that Raziel could be bested by a little shit like Sammael.
“What you want means nothing to me,” he said.
I ignored him. “I spent the first part of my life with a religious crackpot. I’d rather not be killed by one.”
Sammael was unmoved. “He’s waiting for you. And I have things to do. Start walking.”
The Fallen 01 - Raziel Page 22