“That was me,” he said. “I’d been trying to get to Sarah when one of the Nephilim came up behind me. I managed to kill it, but he’d slashed me pretty badly, and I couldn’t make it.”

“Gadrael,” Azazel recognized him. “And you are well?”

“Quite well, my lord.”

Azazel turned his cold, empty blue eyes back to me. “Go on. You were cradling Gadrael and you suddenly decided your blood could help him?”

“No. I was trying to comfort him. But I had a long scratch on my arm. As I held him, my arm brushed against his mouth and he instinctively began to suck at it. He was barely conscious and he had no idea who I was—he just recognized the smell of blood.”

“I see. But he didn’t pierce you, just drank from your wound. What happened next?”

This was the trickier part. I’d been entirely innocent the first time around. The second had been sheer hubris on my part, and I couldn’t blame them for being pissed. “Well, Gadrael was looking better. And I knew Tamlel was dying, and I didn’t think help would get to him in time, and I thought that maybe since the wrong blood seemed to help Gadrael, then maybe it would help Tamlel, at least long enough for help to come. So I went back to him and . . .

offered him my arm.”

“It never occurred to you that your blood might have helped Gadrael because you might be his bonded mate?” Azazel said.

The low growl was startling, and I looked back across the table at Raziel. He looked positively . . . feral. I’d heard that growl before. Last night, just before he’d grabbed me and flung me away from Tamlel.

“No,” I said, looking away.

“With Tamlel,” Azazel continued his inquisition. “Did he too lick at your blood, respond to the offer of blood from your wound?”

“No. He was unconscious. Much closer to death than Gadrael.” Another growl from Raziel.

“Explain.”

Shit, I thought. But really, what was so terrible about what I had done? It was a crisis situation and I had reacted instinctively, and they should be spending their time figuring out who let the Nephilim in instead of harassing me. I sighed, knowing Azazel wasn’t going to stop until he got his answers.

“When Tamlel didn’t react to my arm pressed against his lips, I . . . I opened his mouth, then twisted my wound to make it bleed more freely, so that drops of blood fell in his mouth. It was enough to bring him back, at least partially, and he held on to my arm and, er . . . drank.” I did my best to look ingenuous, but I doubted Azazel was fooled. Any more than Raziel was.

“And he used his teeth, did he not? Pierced your vein?”

“Yes.”

“And you let him continue, almost to the point of death, before Raziel found you and stopped him?”

I glanced at Raziel. I’d never seen him looking so angry. “I suppose so,” I said reluctantly. “I wasn’t thinking clearly. I never thought Tamlel would actually bite me—after all, Gadrael hadn’t. And then I assumed he’d stop when he had enough.” I glanced at Tamlel, who was looking stoic. Was he in the same kind of trouble I was?

“So we have two possibilities here,” Azazel said in his cold, emotionless voice after a long moment. “The most likely is that Gadrael was less grievously wounded than you thought. Don’t interrupt,” he added as he saw me start to protest. “With him, the taste of blood, even the wrong blood, was enough to bring him back. You are here only as a partner for Raziel, you have no bonding to him, and while it is unusual, it seems likely that you are Tamlel’s mate and neither of you realized it.”

“No,” said Raziel in a low, savage voice.

Ignoring Raziel, I glanced at Tamlel. He seemed sweet, charming, but I didn’t want to be his mate. I didn’t want to kiss him, fuck him, fight with him. . . . I glanced back at Raziel, who looked ready to explode. Raziel was a different matter. I couldn’t begin to know what I wanted, needed, from him, not now, when I was too weary to think clearly. I only knew that I needed him.

Damn it. And he’d probably read that revealing thought, smashing what few defenses I had left.

“Then there’s the other option, which seems unlikely.”

The silence in the room was so thick it was practically choking, and Azazel seemed in no mood to elaborate. I was beginning to get annoyed. I knew what was coming.

“Are you going to go on, or are we all going to sit here in uncomfortable silence?” I snapped.

“We’ve already discussed the possibility,” Azazel said forbiddingly. “We’re just considering it.”

Why in the world had lovely, sweet Sarah married such a hard-ass? I leaned forward. “But you forgot to include me in this discussion, which seems to concern me the most. I know your patriarchal bullshit style makes you forget that women have brains and opinions, but since this is about me, then you can just spit it out.”

“The only other alternative is that for some reason, by some cosmic joke or bizarre twist of fate, you are the new Source. Which doesn’t make sense.

The Source must be the bonded mate of one of the Fallen, and you haven’t had the bonding ceremony. Don’t think you’ve fooled me with your charade—I know perfectly well it was all an act. Besides, there has always been a long period of mourning before a new Source became apparent. Therefore it’s impossible for you to be the Source.”

“Impossible,” I agreed, my stomach churning. I’d known this was coming. I’d just hoped I was wrong. “But if I were? That doesn’t mean I have to be your bonded mate, does it?”

If anything, Azazel looked more revolted by the thought than I was. “Hardly. The Source can belong to anyone.”

“ ‘Belong’?” My voice was dangerous. Once again I was being discussed as if I were a commodity, and I was getting past the point of being the Good Girl.

“If you are the Source, then it’s always possible your connection to Raziel is deeper than either of you want or realize.”

All the humor had left Raziel’s face. It was nothing compared to how I felt. He might be the most gorgeous male who had ever put his hands on me, but he was arrogant, brooding, manipulative, and lying, and worst of all, while he might have wanted me, he certainly didn’t love me. And damn it, I wanted love. True love, gushing, romantic, oh-my-darling love. Something Raziel was never going to give again, and certainly not to me.

The only defense I had was to push him away first. “So how do we find out?” I said in a practical voice. They looked startled. Clearly they’d been so caught up in horror over the possibility that I might somehow have a role in their little boys’ club that they hadn’t even thought about that. “What would happen if someone drank from me and I wasn’t the Source? Would he die?”