“Are you?” the Fallen One asked, nodding at the groceries. “You, the son of Lucifer and the Creator herself, this is where you choose to be?”
“I gave that up,” Seth said through his teeth.
“And you can choose to have it back again.”
The paper of the grocery bag crackled as Seth’s grip went tight. His companion raised an eyebrow.
“You look surprised. You didn’t know? Oh, my. How very awkward. I was so sure she’d have told you.”
The cold solidified. Turned heavy. Don’t. Don’t ask. You don’t want to know. It doesn’t matter . . .
But it did matter. Seth’s heart twisted. It mattered a great deal.
“Who?” he asked. “Who would have told me?”
The Fallen One eyed him pityingly. “You have to ask?”
No. No, he didn’t because she had started to tell him last night.
“You wanted to tell me something.”
She had started, and then she had changed her mind.
“It can wait.”
She had chosen instead to hide it from him.
“It wasn’t important.”
To lie to him.
Seth shifted his grip on the grocery bag.
“What didn’t she tell me?”
The Fallen One shrugged. “What I just said. You can have it back. The power, the immortality, all of it. It’s all still yours.”
The carton of milk in the bag gave way with a little pop beneath Seth’s grip. Cold liquid bathed his hand and dripped onto his shoe. “I don’t believe you.”
“Yes, you do.” The Fallen One straightened up from the elevator wall as the doors slid open onto the eighth floor’s empty hallway. “You can feel it. You know you can. Right where you left it, waiting for you to reclaim it as your own.”
“You’re wrong. You can’t know—”
Seth found himself pinned against the wall before he registered that the other had moved. Fingers like steel clamped around his throat, lifting him until his toes barely grazed the floor.
“I do know,” his father’s henchman hissed. “Just as your Naphil knows. The Archangel Mika’el himself told her when he came to her asking for her help. Her soulmate has been returned to her, to ensure that she persuades you. The only one who’s still in the dark about this is you. You might want to ask your Naphil why that is.” His grip tightened another fraction. “She’s not like you, Appointed. She is mortal. She cannot love you the way you do her, the way your father loves the One. Already she puts her own kind ahead of her feelings for you. Already she keeps secrets.”
The Fallen One shook him and then, as suddenly as he’d attacked, released his grip. Seth dropped to one knee, gasping. His visitor stepped into the corridor.
“Look around you, Seth, son of Lucifer. See where you are, what you’ve become. What you’ve chosen to become.”
Only when the doors began to slide shut did Seth rise to his feet. He jammed his foot into the opening, gathered the scattered groceries, and, clutching the sodden bag, followed in the Fallen One’s wake. The corridor empty before him. His visitor’s words echoed in his skull. Tangled in his chest.
“Her soulmate has been returned to her.”
Her soulmate. Aramael. Returned.
Seth’s gaze dropped to the groceries in his arms and, nestled among them, a plain, leather-bound book with the number one engraved on its spine.
Chapter 25
“Anything?”
Alex looked up from her notebook as she joined Aramael on the sidewalk. “Do you care?”
His mouth thinned. “It would go faster if you’d let me help.”
“No.”
“Alex—”
“We’ve been over this. Twice. You’re not a cop.”
“No, I’m a bloody Archangel,” he snapped. “I think I can handle asking a few questions.”
Archangel? Her gaze flicked to the massive black wings half unfolded behind him. Michael’s wings had been black, too, and so had the other Archangels’. That must be what differentiated the choirs, the color of their wings. So. Aramael had not only been welcomed back into Heaven for his part in Seth’s attempted assassination, he’d been promoted, too. Wasn’t that just ducky.
She returned her attention to her notes. “I don’t care. You’re not trained, you might miss something, and the answer is still no. Feel free to leave if that’s a problem.”
“Is this how it’s going to be between us?” he asked quietly.
Scowling, she ignored the jab of pain beneath her ribs. “There is no us. There’s me, and there’s you following me.” She stepped around him, coming up short as he moved to block her. “You’re in my way.”
“I didn’t ask for this.”
“Neither did I.”
The sigh stirred her hair. “I know. And for what it’s worth, I wish it could be otherwise.”
“It can. Leave.”
He shook his head. “You’re too important.”
Her brain shied from all that stood behind the statement. “Fine. Then let someone else protect me.”
“I can’t do that, either.”
“You’re hardly the only angel in Heaven.”
“None of the others would protect you as I can.”
“Michael—”
“Mika’el is the one who assigned me to you. He knows the strength of my connection to you. Knows I would risk everything to keep you safe.”
The pain beneath her ribs sharpened, taking away her breath. She clutched the notebook and pen tighter, felt their edges imprinted on her fingers.
“Don’t,” she snarled. “Don’t you dare go there. You made your choice when you went after Seth, Aramael, and I made mine when I saved him. We’re done.”
“You know that isn’t true.”
“I. Made. My. Choice.” She crossed her arms, settling into outright belligerence. “We’re done.”
“We’re soulmated, Alex. We can never be done.”
Even if she could have found her voice, she had no words. No argument. No rebuttal for the truth her soul recognized even as her mind rejected it. Sudden, infinite weariness pressed down on her. He was right. No matter how much she wanted it otherwise, no matter how certain she might have been—was—in her choice of Seth, Aramael was still right. The bond between them would never go away. She could love another with all her heart—and she did—and still she would feel that tie. That unbreakable connection.
Footsteps sounded along the sidewalk, slowing as they neared. Gritting her teeth, Alex gathered up the few scraps of coherence she still possessed and made herself look away from Aramael’s stormy gray gaze . . . right into the hard emerald one belonging to Michael.
“We need to talk,” he said.
Chapter 26
Michael.
Shock ricocheted through Alex’s body. Flat-out antagonism followed. Before she could do more than open her mouth, however, Michael cut her off, directing a pointed look at Aramael.
“Leave us,” he ordered.
The storm brewing in Aramael’s expression seethed with a new level of turbulence, and for a moment, Alex thought he might refuse. Then he stalked across the street to the car and leaned against the front fender, hands shoved into his pockets. His wings, half unfurled, twitched with an irritation echoing her own.
She scowled at the Archangel towering over her. “Are you always this overbearing?”
He ignored her. “Have you reconsidered my request?”
“No. I told you—”
“Fine. I will speak to Seth. But not about this.” He jerked his chin toward Aramael. “And I don’t want you to mention it, either.”