Breathe.
She drew a lungful of air. For something that was supposed to be an autonomic body function, she’d had to remind herself to do that a lot since leaving the hospital. Several times in the car while she’d waited for Aramael, before admitting to herself he wasn’t coming back after all. Several more times before she managed to insert the key into the ignition and get herself out of the parking lot. Many more on the way home. She closed her eyes.
Breathe.
She’d wanted him gone, and now he was. The Fallen hadn’t been after her, and so there was no need for him to continue watching her. No reason for him to stay. He was gone, Nina was gone, Jen was as good as gone, and Alex had no choice but to send Seth away.
The elevator door slid open onto a hallway as empty as her world had become.
Breathe.
Chapter 63
“Going somewhere?”
Seth looked up from throwing things into the overnight bag on the bed. Samael lounged in the doorway, his expression one of mild interest. Seth took a pair of socks from a drawer.
“Beat it,” he said. “I’m not interested.”
Ignoring him, Samael strolled into the room. “There’s remarkably little personality to this abode. Have you noticed? None of the clutter mortals are so prone to collect. It has such an impermanent feel to it.”
Seth clutched the edges of the overnight bag. He didn’t want to answer, but the words were torn from him—much as a groan would be torn from a man whose open wound had just been poked with a hot knife. “She’s been a little busy trying to stop your kind from destroying her world.”
“Of course. I wasn’t being critical, Appointed. Just making an observation.”
“Yes, well you can take your observations straight back to Hell with you.” Seth zipped up the bag. “Because I’m done. No more journals, no more innuendo. Not interested. Get out.”
“So things are better between you two. I’m glad.”
“Like Hell you are.” Seth slung the bag over one shoulder, switched off the bedside lamp, and headed for the door.
Samael tagged along behind him. “I am, believe me. Still, that performance Aramael put on this afternoon must have irked just a little. Flaunting his connection to her that way.”
Seth’s fingers gripped the bag’s strap a little harder. “He saved her life.”
“Raising questions about how she survived in the process.” Samael’s tone took on a chiding note. “You and I both know no other angel would have done that. Not in a million years. His instinct to protect her goes far deeper than mere orders.”
Seth doggedly continued his tour of the apartment, turning out lights.
Samael persisted. “The soulmate connection—”
Seth rounded on the Fallen One. “She chose me,” he snarled. “Not him, me. That’s all that matters.”
“Is it? Then explain to me why you’re heading out the door to go to her when she has already returned. It’s all very sweet of you, of course, wanting to be certain of her well-being, but—”
“Alex is back?”
“She didn’t call? How remiss of her. She returned hours ago—safely wrapped in Aramael’s arms.”
The breath in Seth’s lungs turned thick. “You’re lying. She would have let me know.”
“One would think so, given the relationship you’re supposed to have with her,” Samael agreed. “But in this instance, one would be wrong.”
The Fallen One circled behind him in the cramped hallway. Tutted. “Look around you, Appointed. See where you are, what you’ve become. You’re the son of the two greatest powers in the universe, and yet you subject yourself to this, a few rooms shared with a mortal woman who has no appreciation for what you truly are? For what she has in you?”
“She loves me.”
“Your mother loved your father, and look where it got him. This is like watching history repeat itself all over again. It’s pathetic.”
Seth scowled. “You’re wrong. I’ve read the journals, and this is different. I’m not my father, Alex is nothing like my mother, and I’m not giving her up. What we have—”
Samael stopped in front of him, inches away, and returned his scowl. “What you have, Appointed, is a woman who devotes her time—her life—to a dying race rather than to the man who gave up everything for her.”
“You’re wrong,” Seth repeated, but even to his own ears, the words lacked conviction. He reached inside himself for the confidence he’d woken up with that morning, the certainty he and Alex had at last found the connection that could see them through anything. Alex had told him she loved him and—
“You keep telling yourself that. Let me know when you start believing it.”
The rattle of keys outside the door drew both their gazes.
“The prodigal Naphil returns.” Samael drew back into the living room. “My cue to go—for now. There’s just one last thing.”
“You haven’t delivered enough poison already?”
The Fallen One shrugged. “Consider this an antidote. Because I’d hate to leave you thinking it has to be like this. Not when you could change everything if you take back your birthright.”
“I told you, I’m not giving up Alex.”
“But don’t you see, Seth, son of Lucifer? Take back your powers, and you don’t have to. Not ever.”
Samael disappeared, the front door opened, and a pale, haggard Alex stepped into the apartment.
“We need to talk,” she said.
Chapter 64
“So it’s true,” Seth said. “You’re back.”
Alex hesitated in the doorway. “How did you—?”
“Does it matter? I didn’t find out from you.”
“I’m sorry. Things were insane. I didn’t have time . . .” And I didn’t think about calling, and when I did think about it, I couldn’t face talking to you and—
Her gaze dropped to the overnight bag slung over his shoulder. “Are you going somewhere?”
“I was coming to Ottawa to see you. I was worried when I didn’t hear from you.”
Guilt slithered through her. “I’m sorry. I should have called. You saw the news?”
“I saw what Aramael did for you.”
Innocuous words. A flat delivery. And a powder keg to which she preferred not to put a match. She closed the door and twisted the dead bolt home. Seth set the overnight bag on the living room floor.
“I’m okay,” she said. “But Jen’s in the hospital and Nina—Nina’s missing. Lucifer has her.”
He took his coat off and dropped it on top of the bag, slid his hands into his pockets. “I’m sorry to hear that. I know you cared about her.”
She blinked back sudden tears. “Care, Seth. Present tense. She’s not dead.”
Yet.
The word hung between them. Seth cleared his throat.
“Don’t,” she said. “Don’t say it.”
“You know there’s nothing you can do.”
“I can find her.”
“Why? So you can watch her die?”
She shrank from the bluntness but made herself square her shoulders. “If that’s all I can do, then yes. And hold her when she does. She’s just a child, Seth. She needs me.”
“Someone always needs you, Alex.” He sighed, taking a hand from his pocket and rubbing it over his eyes, then along his jaw. “How are you even going to find her? If Lucifer has her, she could be anywhere on the planet.”