stay still. A thin line of blood trickled down Alex’s throat. Something inside him shriveled.
“Do it,” he told Aramael.
“I cannot.”
“Yes,” he snapped, flashing the angel a venomous glare. “You
Icy rage gathered in the other’s eyes. Glittered in them. “We all know what came of it, too,” he growled back.
“A little late to have discovered your principles, don’t you think?”
“At least I have them.”
“Oh, for crying out loud,” Alex’s mutter broke between them.
Seth switched his attention back to her in time to see her become a blur of motion. In the space of a heartbeat, before Mittron could react, she planted an elbow in his gut, clamped fingers over his wrist, spun on one heel, and pinned the knife-wielding hand behind his back. Practiced moves calculated to disarm and control a human.
But not an angel. Not even an exiled one stripped of his divine powers. A warning formed in Seth’s throat as Alex glowered over her shoulder.
“When you two are done with your pissing contest—” she began.
Mittron jerked free and whirled, his knife slicing toward her in a wide, graceful arc.
Chapter 37
Even as Seth’s shout rang through the alley, Aramael’s wings shot open, driving between Alex and her attacker. The knife slammed into unyielding feathers and Mittron staggered backward. Before he recovered his footing, Aramael reached one hand for the weapon, the other for the former Seraph’s throat. A vast ugliness rose in his soul as his fingers closed around both.
Manic joy lit the Seraph’s eyes.
“Yes,” he croaked. “Do it. I deserve nothing less after what I’ve done to you, to her. I deserve to die.”
The ugliness in Aramael’s core darkened. Seethed. About that, Mittron was right. No one was more deserving of death. All of this was the Seraph’s fault. He was at the center of everything: the breaking of the pact between Heaven and Hell; the failure of the eleventh-hour agreement; Alex’s near death—twice; Seth’s abandonment of his place at his mother’s side . . .
And Aramael’s own bond to a soulmate he could never hope to have.
Deep within him, the power of an Archangel began to build, mingling with the rage he thought he had left behind. He inhaled a ragged breath and crumpled the knife in his hand. He let it fall to the ground. Energy—fluid, glacial—coursed through his body.
Dangling from his hold, Mittron closed his eyes. His features went slack and almost peaceful. “Please,” he whispered.
No other word could have reached Aramael.
No other word could have stopped him cold.
He stared at the Seraph. Saw for the first time the agony etched into the lines there. The anguish. Slow understanding unfurled in him. The One’s intent hadn’t been to let Mittron live; it had been to let him live like this. With the same torment that he had caused so many. Inescapable, awful torment.
Her Judgment had been so much more than Aramael had assumed.
More, and infinitely worse than death could ever be.
He shook his head. “No.”
Mittron’s eyes shot open. Panic warred with madness in their amber depths. He scrabbled at the hand locked around his throat. “You must. I should die for what I’ve done. I
“Which is why I won’t kill you. You don’t deserve to
He released his hold. The Seraph dropped to the ground, sagged to his knees. He reached to pluck at Aramael’s leg.
“By all that is merciful, Archangel—”
Aramael backhanded the Seraph across the cheek, snapping Mittron’s head to the side. The wrecked, wretched angel toppled and lay weeping on the filthy pavement. Aramael stared down at him.
“I have no mercy for you, Mittron,” he said.
Turning his back on that which Heaven itself had already discarded, he found Alex still standing where she’d been when he blocked Mittron’s attack. Her sky-blue eyes stood out against the pale of her skin. Shocked. Wary. Appalled. He studied her, marveling at the strength that held her upright, that had let her become embroiled in a war between angels.
“Are you all right?” he asked. A dozen tiny cuts marred her face, seeping crimson. “I’ve hurt you. I’m sorry. In battle, my wings—”
She deflected the hand he put out to her, and he followed her gaze to the figure propped against the wall a dozen strides from where they stood.
“Go,” he said wearily. “He’s injured.”
Alex went.
Alex walked carefully away from Aramael and the keening man by his feet, willing her legs not to give out beneath her. Reinforcements were arriving en masse, heralded by feet pounding down the alleyway, the approach of a siren, the slam of car doors. She shut them out, crouching beside Seth and reaching to touch his cheek.
“Are you okay?”
For a long minute, he didn’t answer. Then, one hand against his ribs and blood trickling down his forehead, he lifted pain-glazed eyes to hers. “I couldn’t stop him. I wasn’t strong en—”
“Shh.” She placed her fingers over his mouth. “It doesn’t matter. I’m fine.”
He twisted his head away from her. Something darker than the pain clouded his face. “Because of
Alex shivered a little at the bitterness underlying the emphasis on
“Because I chose to be weak.”
She brushed his blood-matted hair away from the gash over his eyebrow. “You’re not weak,. You’re just mortal.”
He scowled. “There seems little difference at the moment.”
“Christ, Jarvis,” Roberts’s voice growled behind her. “What is it with you and alleys?”
She looked up at him, and his face went white.
“You’re hurt.”
She shook her head. “It’s superficial. But Seth—”
“I’m fine.” Seth made as if to rise, let out a hiss, and subsided, his glower deepening.
“The ambulance is on its way,” said Roberts. “What the hell happened?”
In as few words as she could, Alex summed up finding what she thought had been an injured man, concocted what she hoped was a plausible story about an attack driven by the influence of drugs, and prayed that it would be enough to satisfy the questions she saw in her supervisor’s eyes.
Silence followed her explanation.
“And your face?” Roberts asked at last.
Damn. She’d forgotten that part
“Glass?” she hazarded. “It happened fast. I’m not sure.”
Roberts looked pointedly around at what had to be the only alley in all of Toronto that didn’t have at least
