Raziel

My voice had vanished. I couldn’t think, couldn’t doubt; all I could do was feel. I was his completely, but he was holding back. “Take me,” I whispered.

“Take me.” And reaching up, I took his head and pushed it toward my neck, so that his mouth was there, hot and wet, and I felt the scrape of his teeth, and I wanted more. “Take me,” I whispered again. “Take everything.”

He tensed, froze in my arms, and for a moment I was terrified that he’d pull away from me. He lifted his head and looked at me, and there was such sorrow in his eyes, a sorrow I didn’t understand. “Allie,” he said softly.

But I was inexorable. My body was aching with need, a need I neither recognized nor understood; but I somehow knew I had to have his mouth on me, drinking from me, for me to finally feel complete. “Please,” I begged him, when I’d sworn I would never beg. “Feed.”

He kissed my lips, so gently I wanted to cry. He leaned down and kissed the side of my neck, with the same feathering sweetness. And then I felt the sharp, sweet, piercing pain as his teeth sank into my skin, felt the draw of him sucking at my neck, drinking from me, drinking life from me, and I felt tears running down my face, as I was finally made complete. Filling him as he was filling me.

His cock inside me seemed to swell, and I cradled his head against me, running my fingers through his thick, curling hair, whispering to him, soft words, love words.

And then he pulled away, rising up, and I could see my blood on his mouth, see the glitter in his eyes. He stared down at me, not moving, and I felt his climax deep inside me, giving me back what he had taken from me, and I joined him, flinging myself into the darkness with only him to guide me.

I MIGHT HAVE SLEPT MINUTES, hours, days. It didn’t matter. I was wrapped in Raziel’s arms, and neither of us was moving. I felt his hand brush my cheek, so gently. “You’re crying,” he whispered. “I hurt you. I knew I shouldn’t have.”

“You didn’t hurt me,” I said, rubbing my face against his hand like a hungry kitten. “I’m happy.”

He moved a fraction so he could look at me, and his expression was bemused. “Do you always cry when you’re happy?”

“I don’t know that I’ve ever been happy before,” I said simply.

He was about to argue, then stopped as he remembered my life, the life he knew almost as well as I did. “Maybe you haven’t,” he said finally, and kissed me.

I wondered if his mouth would taste of blood, but it didn’t. It just tasted like Raziel, and I kissed him back, then let him tuck me against his warm, naked body. I didn’t really want to move.

I ran my hand up his arm, my fingers delighting in the feel of him. “What does my blood taste like?”

His hand was at the back of my neck, his long fingers kneading the lingering tightness there, but at my words they stilled for a moment. “To me? Like honey wine, sweet and rich and intoxicating. Not like blood would taste to you.”

“So can you bite people and turn them into va—into blood-eaters?” I asked.

“No. Why would I want to? It’s a curse put upon us for disobeying God. Why in the world would I want to spread that curse, even if I could?”

“Because it would give eternal life, wouldn’t it?”

He knew what I was getting at, and he sighed, pulling me even closer. “No, Allie. It can’t be done. Humans are not made for the sacrament, and the one time one of the Fallen gave in to temptation, his mate died. It’s forbidden.”

“I was just curious,” I said.

“Of course you were.” His voice was wry.

“Are you always going to be able to read my thoughts?” I asked with a trace of asperity.

“I can try not to. When you’re feeling strong emotion, it will come to me, and it will go both ways. In day-to-day life, I can shield you.”

“And in bed? I’m assuming we’re going to do this again?” I held my breath, waiting for the answer. Was he still fighting it? Should I still fight it?

It was a long moment before he spoke, an endless one. “As often as possible,” he said.

I knew his thoughts, knew what he wanted. Now. Again. “Yes,” I said. “Yes.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

I SHOULD HAVE FELT GUILTY. I HAD tried to resist, but in the end she’d just been too much for me. I’d fed from her, drunk deeply, and in doing so I tied her to me forever.

It was something I swore I would never do again. I had my choice, aeons ago, and I paid the price. There was no escape for me or the others, but for Allie it was different. As long as I had kept away from her vein there was still a chance she could eventually leave.

Not anymore. And having taken her blood, I was going to find her serving as the Source even more difficult. Dangerous. Not for me, but for whoever dared approach her. They might have to restrain me for the first year or so, until I learned to control my possessive fury.

I should have known I couldn’t stop myself. Not when she was pleading. And I should have known she would plead. A bonded mate needs that ultimate joining. Without it she never feels complete, and I’d accepted that she was, indeed, my wife. Once I’d taken her to bed it was a foregone conclusion, and it was remarkable I’d fought it for so long. I wasn’t usually so thickheaded.

I’d lied to her, shielding my mind so she wouldn’t know. There had been rare occasions when a mate had fed from her partner, but it was very dangerous. Four out of five times the woman would die. The fifth time she’d gain hundreds of years of life, as long as she continued to feed.

Morag had finally died when her mate had fallen beneath the Nephilim; she’d been well over eight hundred years old. I knew what Allie would do if she heard about it, and I couldn’t afford to let that happen.

I wasn’t going to worry about that now. I’d done my best to protect her—by taking her blood I’d made her escape impossible, and I was sorry for that.

But sorry for nothing else.

I left her sleeping. I would have preferred staying with her, but I had to find Azazel. I knew him well enough, could feel his energy, and I knew things were very bad. Sarah had been his soul. He would be empty without her.

I found him perched on the top of the ledge, looking down over the compound and the sea beyond it. The funeral pyre of the Nephilim had burned down to a few live coals, and I shuddered as I saw it. Our fear of fire is so deeply ingrained that it haunted me. Like us, the Nephilim were terrified of it, but we were too vulnerable to use it as a weapon.

I folded in my wings and sat down beside Azazel. He was staring at the boat that had hastily been built, the boat piled high with the bodies of our women and our dead brothers. Sarah would be on that boat. It would be set afire and then sent out to sea, a Viking burial to suit brave warriors, men and women alike. It was our ritual, one we couldn’t avoid, the only time we willingly embraced fire.

“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 shtick 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.”

I looked at the great yawning maw of the cave, and a cold sweat broke over me. “Is he still alive?” Because if he wasn’t, I decided I’d just as soon die outside, beneath the clear night sky, as down in some dark hole.

“He lives,” Sammael said grudgingly. “He waits.”

“I go,” I said, matching his terse language. And I started up the pathway.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

HE WAS LYING ON HIS BACK AT the far side of the huge stone cavern, and for a moment I thought he was dead. Raziel’s color was always a pale golden, but right now he looked ashen, and he was absolutely still. He looked like he had that first night in the forest when he was dying from the poisoned burn.

“What have you done to him?” I whispered to the man whose hand was clamped onto my arm. I yanked at it, but I was no longer trying to escape. I was desperate to get to Raziel.

He released me, and I stumbled forward, almost falling to my knees. I ran across the hard rock floor, ignoring everything in my haste to reach my mate. I sank down on my knees, throwing my arms around him in a way I would never have dared to if he’d been conscious. I could hear his heart beating, more faintly than usual but still steady, and his skin was cool. I wanted to hide my face against his chest, but it would do no good. Sammael wasn’t going to change his mind, walk away. God save me from zealots.

I rose, looking down into Raziel’s still face. His tawny hair had fallen back, and he looked starkly beautiful, from his high cheekbones, his chiseled features, to his pale mouth that could do such lovely, wicked things. I let my hand brush his hair back from his high forehead, gently. “What did you do to him?” I whispered, unable to keep the anguish out of my voice.

“I thought you didn’t care for him,” Sammael said. “Why are you mourning him?”

I looked back at him. “You know perfectly well why,” I said, irritation breaking through my despair. “I’m in love with him. I’m his bonded mate, his soul, whether either of us likes it or not.”

“You both like it,” Sammael said with an ugly twist to his mouth. “I know these things. You rut like animals. You are what caused them to fall in the first place.”

“Hey, I wasn’t even there,” I protested, looking around me for any kind of weapon.

“Silence!” he thundered, like some kind of cartoon monarch.

Raziel stirred next to me, his arm twitching for a moment, and I wondered if he was waking up. As long as he was unconscious, there was little I could do. The cavern was devoid of weapons.

I looked down at him, and he opened his eyes, his vision sharp and clear. His hand caught mine, out of the sight of Sammael’s mad eyes, and squeezed it tightly in reassurance.

I wasn’t reassured.

He was lying on a strange sort of dais—bedding made of twigs and grasses and larger branches—and I looked down at him in confusion at first, then in dawning horror as I realized what Sammael had planned.

I whirled around, trying to shield Raziel from his view. “You—you can’t! You can’t be planning on burning him!”

“He will die by fire,” Sammael said placidly.

I felt Raziel move behind me, and I tried to stay between him and Sammael, vainly trying to protect him. “Over my dead body.” Yes, it was melodramatic, but I was past trying to be cool. I wasn’t going to let him die.

But Raziel had struggled to his feet behind me, and I felt his hands clamp on my arms. “Stay out of this, wife,” he said in a rough voice, trying to push me out of the way.

I wasn’t moving. I did my best to dig in my heels, but of course my strength was pitiful next to Raziel’s, even moments after he’d regained consciousness.

He shoved me, hard, and I went sprawling onto the ground, the breath knocked out of me. I lay there for a moment, pissed off enough to forget the danger we were both in. You couldn’t breathe when you were dead, could you? Was it going to be like this? I didn’t want to die.

“Leave her alone.” Raziel’s voice sounded almost bored. “She has nothing to do with this—it’s between you and me.”

“It isn’t,” Sammael said. There was a brief softening in his face. “I do not wish you ill, Raziel. But if I am to regain redemption, the Fallen must be vanquished.”

“She’s not one of us.”

Sammael’s brief smile was almost sorrowful. “She is the Source.”

“If you kill us all, she’ll be no threat.”

“She must be punished. All the Fallen and their human whores must die.”

“She’s not human.”

My breath came back with a sudden, gulping whoosh. “Don’t,” I managed to choke out. “You don’t want to do this.” I was ignoring Raziel by this point, just as he was ignoring me.

But Sammael had drawn a huge sword, a weapon that looked like it had come from some medieval painting of an avenging angel. It had appeared out of nowhere, like some damned Star Wars light saber, and I ground my teeth. How could you fight a supernatural being, when the rules didn’t apply to them?

“You have to give him a weapon as well if you’re going to fight,” I protested, slowly getting to my feet. If I survived this, I thought, I’d be battered and bruised. Right now I could only wonder why it was taking me so long to rise to my full, fairly insignificant height.

“He’s not going to fight me,” Raziel said. “There are only two ways he can kill me—he can burn me, or he can cut off my head. But he’s too much of a coward to come close enough to strike me. Therefore it must be fire, and he has the right weapon.”

“But how—” I demanded, then saw Sammael raise the sword over his head, more like a medieval avenging angel than ever, with a—

Christ, a flaming sword of vengeance. Flames were licking along the blade, kept from Sammael by the broad hilt and nothing more.

“You know that whoever wields the sword will die by the flames as well,” Raziel said, seemingly unmoved by his imminent demise.

Sammael shook his head slowly. “Uriel has granted me redemption. I have followed his orders, and I will ascend to the heavens once more, cleansed of sin and the stench of mortals.”

“Don’t be a fool, Sammael. We are cursed by God. Even Uriel can’t change that.”

“I have faith,” Sammael said simply, and he slowly lowered the sword, pointing it toward Raziel and the funeral pyre.

It was enough. All I knew was that I couldn’t let this happen, couldn’t let the forces of ignorance win, not this time. “No!” I shrieked, diving across the floor, throwing myself at Sammael to stop him.

At the sound of my voice he automatically turned, the flaming sword between us. I felt it slice into me, and it was curiously painless, just heat and pressure as I stared into Sammael’s startled face. The flames were licking toward me along the shining metal of the sword that impaled my chest, and I reached up, grasping the blade, and pushed the fire back at him.

I could feel the heat but the blaze didn’t burn my hands as it moved back over the protective hilt, onto Sammael, onto the rough fabric of his clothing, erupting in flames.

He screamed, and yanked the sword free. I collapsed like a marionette whose strings had been cut. I was lying in a river of blood, and if I’d been able to speak I would have told Raziel to find something in which to bottle it. I was dying, and there would be nothing for the Fallen who counted on the Source for sustenance.

But I couldn’t speak. I was so tired. It seemed as if I’d been battling forever, and I needed to rest, but there was too much primal satisfaction in watching Sammael thrash and struggle in a conflagration. He was dying in hideous pain, and I guess there was enough Old Testament in me after all that I reveled in it.

“Allie. Beloved.” It was Raziel’s voice. I was probably already dead—there was no way he would call me beloved. After all, I’d been speared by a sword the size of Excalibur—even if it had missed my heart, it had to have done irreparable damage.

I felt him pull me into his arms, and I struggled, able to summon up a dying panic. “No,” I said. “There are sparks. . . .”

He ignored me, pulling me against him, and he put his hand over the gaping wound in my chest. I saw the last remaining spark jump to him, and I moaned in despair, even as the pressure in my chest grew harder, sharper. “This is ridiculous,” I said weakly. “Now we’re both going to die, and we aren’t cut out for Romeo and Juliet—”

“We’re not going to die.” I heard the pain in his voice, and I wanted to scream at him.

He pressed his hand against my chest, and the sudden pain was blinding, so powerful that my body arched, jerked, and then collapsed in his arms again. The bleeding had stopped, and I knew he’d healed me—somehow managed to close the wound, seal the tear.

But I was dying. He couldn’t stop that.

“No,” he said. “I won’t lose you. I can’t.” He pulled me against him, and his face was hard, cold, bleak. He reached out a hand and stroked my face gently, and I knew he was saying good-bye. And then he yanked his own shirt open and tore into his skin, ripping across the flesh so that blood spurted out.

I knew what he was going to do the moment before he did it, and I opened my mouth to protest. Opened my mouth as he pressed it against his wound, and the blood ran into my mouth, hot and rich, and my cold, cold body turned to fire as I drank from him, deep gulps of the sweetness of life, his life’s blood becoming mine.

He was trembling, his arm burning beneath my head. He pulled me away, and I could feel the wetness of his blood on my mouth. He leaned down and kissed me, full and hard and deep, the blood mingling between us, and the last barrier dropped away. “I love you,” he said, the words torn out of him.

“I know.”

He rose then, in one fluid movement, but I could see the weakness in him. “If I don’t make it,” he said in a low growl, “promise me you’ll live. The Fallen will need you. You’re the Source, even without me.”

“No. You live or I won’t,” I said, stubborn and angry.

He didn’t argue. His wings spread out, a gloriously iridescent blue-black, and a moment later we were soaring out of the cave, up and up into the night sky. I could feel his strength failing as he carried me. The ocean was ahead—he just had to make it that far, but heat was spreading, much faster than it had that first night, and I knew that giving me his blood had quickened the poisoning, and I wanted to hit him.

I did the only thing I could. “Don’t you dare drop me,” I warned him. “We didn’t go through all this to have me splattered on the cliffs like a drunken seagull.”

He laughed. It was only the faintest tremor of sound, but it was enough. He pushed, managing to rise higher, and then the last of his strength left him, as well as consciousness, and I knew we were too far from the ocean, we were going to crash like a modern Icarus.

I wanted to die kissing his beautiful mouth. His arms had gone limp, and I clung to him, turning my mouth to his, and the movement angled his winged body into the wind.

A breeze caught us, slid underneath us, and suddenly we were gliding, moving ever faster on the wind, crossing the night sky at a nightmare speed, and then falling, falling, spinning, my arms wrapped around him, my mouth on his, the blood between us, as we plummeted . . .

Into the sea. We plunged deep, the icy water a shock, tearing me away from him. It was so dark, so cold, and I’d lost him, gliding downward through the churning water. You could only cheat death so many times, I thought dazedly, and this time I closed my eyes against the saltwater sting, let my breath out, knowing I had nothing left to fight with. Raziel would survive; the ocean water would heal him, and he would find what he needed.

Full fathom five thy father lies:

Of his bones are coral made;

Those are pearls that were his eyes:

Nothing of him that doth fade, But doth suffer a sea-change Into something rich and strange.

This time I would drown. I had already suffered a sea-change of such magnitude that there was nothing left, and my bones would be coral, my eyes pearls. Shakespeare in my ear.

Someone was there, a hand brushing mine as I floated, and I opened my eyes to see Sarah, serene and beautiful, smiling at me. All I needed was a bright light, I thought, smiling back at her. There was no one else I wanted to meet on the other side, and I reached out for her.

She shook her head. Her mouth didn’t move, but I heard her words clearly. “Not yet,” she said. “Not for a long time.”

I shook my head. I was so tired of fighting.

“Wait for him,” she said. “He’s worth waiting for.”

A strong hand grasped my wrist, yanking me upward, and I went, bursting up into the cold air endless moments later, coughing and choking in Raziel’s arms as he struck out toward shore.

We collapsed on the beach, exhausted, both of us gasping for breath. Raziel rolled onto his back, and I could see the blood on his wet clothes. My blood.

I was face down in the sand, and I knew I should roll over, but I didn’t have the strength to do anything but lie there and struggle for breath.

His hands on my shoulders were gentle as he turned me over to face him. He brushed the wet sand from my face, my hair, and looked down at me with impatience, with annoyance. With love.

“The first thing you do,” he said in a rough voice, “is learn how to swim.”

And he kissed me.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

FIVE YEARS LATER SARAH LIED. I SWEAR TO GOD I somehow did the impossible and managed to gain ten pounds since living in Sheol, most of it in my ass. Fortunately, Raziel had a weakness for Renaissance women, and he still found my slightly overripe body irresistible.

The Nephilim were gone, vanquished, at least from this continent. A few were scattered into the wild, but since they survived on small animals and the flesh of the Fallen they would eventually starve. Unfortunately, Raziel told me they could live centuries without feeding, so this would take a while. I refused to consider the idea that that explained their foul, ravening hunger.

Small groups would remain on other continents—a handful in Asia, a larger group in Australia, sent there by Uriel in search of renegade Fallen and then abandoned. That wasn’t my worry. I had no intention of ever leaving Sheol again.

Raziel taught me to swim. Of course, with Sammael gone and the Nephilim effectively routed, there was no need for me to get into the icy-cold ocean, but Raziel had a bossy streak. Not that I put up with it, but if I could see common sense behind his autocratic announcements, I tended to give in, after as much delaying as I could manage, even if it was my idea in the first place. Raziel did better when people weren’t kowtowing to him, and I considered it my duty to keep him off balance.

He didn’t like being Alpha. And he hated me being the Source, though after the first few bloodings he managed to keep his jealousy in check. Tamlel and Gadrael sat on him the first two times, just to make sure he didn’t tear anyone’s head off. I could read his thoughts, and knew it was a close call.

I have no idea whether the fact that I loved being the Source made things easier or harder for him. If I was to have no children, I could at least nourish and nurture the Fallen, and I welcomed the chance as a way to alleviate some of my mourning. I never spoke of my longing for children to Raziel, and he never spoke of it to me. But we knew each other’s thoughts, and shared the pain.

There was no word from Azazel. Most thought he was dead, including me, but Raziel believed otherwise. He would return, Raziel said, when the time was right. There would be a sign, and he would be back.

I might have been getting fatter but I wasn’t getting any older. My face was unchanged—no crow’s-feet forming at the corners of my eyes, no laugh lines, though I found I could laugh a lot in the hidden mists of Sheol. I never fed from Raziel again, even though he knew I wanted it. Instead I gave him my body, my blood, and he gave me ecstasy, annoyance, and the deep abiding love that I’m not sure exists in ordinary life.

I had no idea how long I would live, and I didn’t worry about it. In the timeless world of Sheol, you had no choice but to live in the moment; and if I couldn’t live up to Sarah’s gentle example, I did well enough.

Until the day she turned up. Lilith, the demon wife.

And all hell broke loose.

The End