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
“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
