Another, whose hand stretched down to her now, waiting to pull her to her feet.
Fighting to control her breathing and unlock her throat, Alex stared at the outstretched appendage. Slowly, she looked up, following the arm to which the hand was attached; tracking along a shoulder and then a neck; settling on a face. Calm and expressionless, with no reflection of what its owner had just done. No acknowledgment. No remorse. Nothing.
“It’s over,” the voice repeated, the face’s mouth moving with the words.
Rage obliterated all else. Knocking the hand away, she surged to her feet and shoved against Seth’s chest. He didn’t so much as sway.
“Fuck you!” she bellowed. She shoved again. Then a third time. And a fourth. Each with more fury, more despair, more impotence. The One had been right all along. Seth’s choices were at the heart of all of this: Armageddon, the Nephilim babies, everything—and Alex had lost everything because of those choices. Her sister, her niece, Aramael—even the love she had once felt for Seth himself. All were gone from her world, and she could do nothing to bring them back. Nothing to stop what would come next, what hovered just beyond her ability to reason. Panic licked at the edges of her anger. She stopped shoving and started shaking, vibrating from head to toe.
The emptiness that had once been Seth—funny, wry, loving Seth—reached for her. He held her against his chest, his face buried in her hair, and heaved a deep sigh.
“There,” he whispered. “Now you’re free. There’s nothing to stop you from being with me anymore.”
“Don’t,” she choked back. “Please, Seth. Don’t.”
“Shh.” His hands crawled over her, one tangling in her hair, one stroking her back.
She pushed against him. His grip tightened. It began. A tiny, sharp tingle, sparking along the skin of her extremities, crackling with heat. She writhed against his hold.
“Damn it, Seth, no!”
He ignored her. The heat slithered beneath the surface and traveled along her nerves, her veins. Trickling at first, then increasing to a rush toward her center. Toward her chest. Her struggles increased tenfold. He paid no attention. The heat pooled, intensified—and turned to pure, liquid agony, as if her very heart were melting.
She tried to scream but had no voice.
Then, through the haze that descended, a hand. Strong. Clamping onto her shoulder. Pulling her back, flinging her away. Other hands catching her, pushing her to the floor. The rustle of many wings. And a voice. Michael’s voice. Snarling, furious, agonized.
“In the name of all that is holy, Appointed, what have you done?”
Chapter 83
Mika’el grabbed a panting Seth by the shirtfront, threw him against the remains of a support pillar, and held him there. He shot a look over his shoulder at Uriel, who was bent over the prostrate Aramael. The other Archangel shrugged and shook his head.
Not dead yet, but nothing we can do, the gesture said.
Mika’el turned back to the creature he held. Fury and an overwhelming sense of failed responsibility rolled through him. Aramael had said something was wrong, and now he was dying because Mika’el hadn’t believed him. Hadn’t bothered to send someone with him. How in all of Creation had he let this happen? He seized Seth by the throat and slammed his head against the pillar.
“Damn you, Appointed! What in bloody Hell were you thinking? Aramael is the only one who stood by you. He helped you save his own soulmate, knowing she had already chosen you. Do you have any idea what that did to him? What it cost him? This is how you repay him?”
Seth’s gaze met his—empty, awful, wrong. “He interfered,” he said coldly. “He tried to protect her from me, but she’s mine.”
“Mika’el,” said Raphael.
Mika’el ignored him, glowering at Seth. “He was right to protect her,” he snarled. “She has free will. She doesn’t belong to anyone. You know that.”
“Mika’el.”
“I saved her life, Archangel,” Seth spat back. “Twice. My soul touched hers. Twice. A part of me resides inside her forever.”
“That doesn’t make her—”
“Mika’el.”
He rounded on Raphael. “What?”
“He made her immortal.”
The words hung in the air. Stark. Vast. Impossible. Raphael shifted his grip on his sword. No one else moved. Turning his head, Mika’el took in the wreckage that had once been an office. The fallen Aramael. The crumpled woman on the floor.
A dozen thoughts collided in his head, all clamoring for his attention. That Seth would dare to inflict immortality on a human was one thing, but that he could presented another problem altogether. When—and how—had he become so strong? He looked at the hand he had wrapped around the Appointed’s throat.
And how long before Seth recovered from what he’d just done and became that strong again?
Triumph illuminated Seth’s face, as if he knew exactly what the Archangel was thinking. “I told you,” he said. “She’s mine.”
He seized Mika’el’s wrist, tightening his fingers until bones ground together. Staring into the emptiness of his eyes, Mika’el shut out the pain, stilled his mind, and let clarity descend. Swiftly, surely, he sifted through to the core of what mattered. The only truth.
Seth should have died three weeks before.
He hadn’t.
It was time to set things right.
Seth’s windpipe rattled against Mika’el’s fingers as the Appointed struggled to breathe. The bones in Mika’el’s wrist began to splinter. He reached with his free hand for his sword, closed his fingers around the hilt, pulled the blade from its scabbard, stepped back, and swung.
Steel met steel in a shower of sparks.
“I think not, warrior,” said a new voice. “He belongs to us now.”
There was an indrawn hiss beside Mika’el, and then a guttural roar, starting low and building to a bellow that shook dust from the shattered ceiling.
“Sam-a-el!”
Mika’el threw out an arm in time to stop Raphael from impaling himself on the half dozen blades suddenly ranged against them. The other Archangel fought his hold, subsiding only after Mika’el’s harsh “Stand down!”
Fallen Ones. But not just any Fallen Ones. Mika’el skimmed the lineup of faces, the hollowness of their eyes. He stared. Withered inside. Only one place could turn eyes that dead, that empty. They’d escaped from Limbo.
But there were only a dozen of them. Six with swords leveled at their throats, six others behind those with weapons also drawn. Thousands had been trapped there. Where were the rest? His eyes settled on the one in the center. Samael.
So. The brother of Raphael and the only Archangel to follow Lucifer was now laying claim to the Appointed, was he?
Still holding Raphael back, Mika’el scowled. “Explain yourself, traitor.”
Samael raised an eyebrow. “I thought it fairly self-explanatory. The Appointed isn’t yours anymore. He’s ours. Therefore, I object to you impaling him.”
“You want Seth to lead Hell.”
Samael shrugged. “I think the idea has merit, yes.”
“No.”
Samael’s eyes hardened. “I don’t think you understand, Mika’el. I’m not asking your permission.”
“In that case, you seem to have forgotten who you’re dealing with. There are four of us”—Mika’el indicated the Archangels flanking him—“and only a dozen of you. How long do you think a fight will even last?”
Samael smiled grimly. “Long enough,” he said, and lunged forward.