I stretched out, closing my eyes. She should smell of the flowered soap the women here used in the baths. She should smell like all the other women, but she didn’t. She had her own sweet, erotic scent underlying the flowers, something that made her subtly different. Something that kept me awake as my exhausted mind conjured all sorts of sexual possibilities.

I glanced over at her comatose figure. She looked younger, prettier, when she was asleep. Sweeter, when I knew she was anything but. She was a time bomb, nothing but trouble, yet somehow I’d gotten tied up with her.

I propped myself up on one elbow, looking down at her. Could I take my breath back from her, loosening the hold she seemed to have over me?

I moved my mouth over hers, not quite touching, and sucked her soft breath into my lungs. And then I bridged the small distance and rested my open mouth against her lips, caught by the sudden urge to taste her.

I sank back on the bed, cursing my own stupidity. I’d felt myself inside her, felt my breath in her body, the inescapable connection. In trying to take it back from her, I’d simply brought her into my body, completing the circle. I could feel her breath inside me now, curling in my lungs, spreading out into the blood that coursed through me.

I threw one arm over my eyes. Uriel would be laughing now. As if things weren’t bad enough, I’d just made them quantitatively worse.

I couldn’t think straight right now. Tomorrow I’d talk with some of the others. Not everyone was as cold and practical as Azazel. Michael, Sammael, Tamlel, would look at things with more flexibility. There’d be someplace to send her, where she’d be safe and I wouldn’t have to think about her. Sooner or later new breath would replace hers in my body, and the connection would be broken. Wouldn’t it?

I groaned, a soft sound, though if I’d screamed she would still have slept on.

It was going to be a long fucking night.

CHAPTER NINE

AZAZEL SAT IN THE GREAT HALL, alone in the dark. None of the Fallen knew the burden he carried. He could feel all of them—their needs, their pain, their doubts. Their secrets.

It was better that they didn’t know. He wouldn’t put it past some of them, Raziel in particular, to figure out a way to shield or control their thoughts, and that would put him at a disadvantage the Fallen couldn’t afford. It was simply something he had to endure, a physical pain that he bore with no outward sign.

Only Sarah knew. Sarah, the Source to his Alpha, the calm voice of wisdom, the only one with whom he could ever simply let go. The only one.

The centuries, the millennia, since they had fallen faded into the mists of time. The number of wives he’d had faded as well, but he remembered every face, every name, no matter how short a time she had spent in his endless life. There was Xanthe, with the laughing eyes and ankle-length hair, who’d died when she was forty-three. Arabella, who’d lived until she was ninety-seven. Rachel, who died two days after they’d bonded.

He had loved them all, but none so much as he loved his Sarah, his heart, his beloved. She was waiting for him, calm and unquestioning, knowing what he needed. She always did.

Because of all the things he needed, he needed her the most.

She wouldn’t let him get rid of Raziel’s woman, even though it was the wisest thing to do. The girl wanted to leave, and he should see that she did. The Nephilim would dispose of what was left of her if she went beyond the undulating borders of Sheol. At least, he assumed so. They preyed on the Fallen and their wives, and she was neither. He didn’t trust her, didn’t trust her unexpected presence in a place that allowed no strangers.

He leaned back in the ornate carved chair, trying to hear the distant voice that came so seldom. The voice trapped deep in the earth, imprisoned for eternity, or so the story went. Azazel chose not to believe that story, not when he heard the voice of the first Fallen answering his most impossible questions.

Lucifer, the Bringer of Light, the most beloved of the angels, was still alive, still trapped. He could lead the forces of heaven and hell, the only one who stood a chance against the vindictive, all-powerful Uriel and the vicious creatures who served him. But as long as Lucifer’s prison was hidden, as long as he was carefully guarded by Uriel’s soldiers, there would be no chance to rescue him.

And without Lucifer to lead them, the Fallen were trapped in a cycle of endless pain. Doomed to watch their beloved wives age and die, never to know the joy of children, to live with the threat of the Nephilim constantly on their borders, ready to overrun their peaceful compound. To wait, knowing that Uriel would send his plagues down upon them at any provocation.

Azazel pushed back from the ancient scrolls and manuscripts, exhausted. There were hints there, perhaps even answers, but he had yet to find them.

He studied them until his vision blurred, and the next day the grueling process would begin again.

There would be no answers tonight. He rose, signaling the lights to stay low, and started toward the huge expanse of rooms that had always been his.

Sarah was sitting up in bed, reading. Her silver hair lay in one thick braid over her shoulder; a pair of glasses was perched on the end of her perfect nose. Her creamy skin was smooth and delicate, and he stood and watched her, filled with the same love and desire he’d always felt.

Uriel had never been tempted as the others had been, one after the other, falling from grace. Uriel had loved no one but his God, whom he considered infallible except for the one stupid mistake of making humans.

Uriel despised people. He had no mercy for their frailties, no love for the music of their lives, the beauty of their voices, the sweetness of the love they could give. All he knew of them was hatred and despair, and he treated them accordingly.

Sarah looked at him over her brightly colored reading glasses, setting down her book. “You look exhausted.”

He began to strip off his clothes. “I am. Trouble is coming and I don’t know what to do about it. We can’t fight Uriel—we’re not ready.”

“We won’t know until it happens,” she said in her soothing voice. “Uriel has been looking for an excuse for centuries. If the girl is the catalyst, then so be it.”

Azazel rolled his shoulders, loosening the tightness there. “Raziel doesn’t want her, and she doesn’t belong here. I could get rid of her when he isn’t looking, take her back to where Uriel charged she should go. The problem would be solved, and we could wait until we’re better prepared. . . .”

Sarah took the glasses off her nose and set them beside the bed. “You’re wrong, love.”

“So you often tell me,” he said. “You think I shouldn’t get rid of her? I have the right to send her back.”