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."

Alex looked down at the floor between them. This was it. Her moment of decision. Speak the words and destroy the man she loved, or swallow them and condemn the planet. She crossed her arms over herself, knowing the gesture was defensive, needing the protection.

"You could help."

Time itself stood still as a hundred different emotions flashed across Seth's dark eyes. Sadness. Betrayal. Bitterness. Bottomless hurt. But not surprise.

"I see." He didn't pretend not to understand. "So you would give it all up. Everything we have, for the sake of a single girl whose life you can't even save?"

"Not just for her." She lifted a hand to the ache in her heart. "Your mother came to see me last night. She said-"

He cut her off. "Last night."

s.h.i.t. "It wasn't like that-"

"So you'd already decided to do this before you came to me. Before we made love." Cold anger displaced all else in the black depths. "I waited for you, Alex. I was patient and understanding, I respected your need for time and s.p.a.ce, and when you finally let me touch you it was because you felt sorry for me?"

"I didn't feel sorry for you-at least, not any more so than for myself."

"But you'd decided."

"I tried to tell you. I-" She stopped. He deserved truth, not excuses. "Love isn't supposed to be like this, Seth. It's not supposed to come with the responsibility for billions of lives tied into it. Last night-" Her voice broke, and she paused for a steadying breath. "Last night was about you and me, and having something to remember between us that wasn't weighed down by choices and decisions and the future of an entire world."

Leaving the support of the door, she crossed over to him, putting her hand out to his arm. "I know this is difficult, but-"

"Difficult?" Wheeling away, he stalked into the living room, smacking his open-palmed hand against the door frame on the way. "Difficult? f.u.c.king h.e.l.l, Alex, you're asking me to sacrifice everything I want, everything I am, for souls I will never know or care for. Souls that don't have a chance of survival in the first place! That's not just difficult, it's pointless."

Everything I want? Everything I am? A shiver rippled down her spine. Was that really how he defined himself, by their relationship? She remained in the doorway, wariness holding her in place. He swung back to her, his face hidden in the shadows of the unlit room.

"Tell me what she said."

She didn't have to ask who he meant. "She said the angels can hold back the Fallen, but if Lucifer comes after humanity, she can't stop him as long as she has to contain your powers. Keeping them in check is making her weak. She doesn't know how much longer she can hold out."

"What else?"

She hesitated. Should she tell him about the One's plans to bind with Lucifer? To become other? She shook her head. The same caution that held her in place made her hold her tongue. "Isn't that enough? Earthquakes, volcanoes, flooding, tornadoes-your powers are ripping the planet apart at the seams. People are dying."

"They're also deliberately killing each other-wars, shootings, bombings. Look at what happened to you today. My powers have nothing to do with any of that, and taking them back won't make a b.l.o.o.d.y bit of difference."

"It will make a difference to the ones who aren't like that. The ones who deserve a chance to fix things. To make things right."

"War between the angels and the Fallen is coming. There are eighty thousand Nephilim about to be born. You can't fix those, Alex. And you sure as h.e.l.l can't survive them."

"You don't know that."

Two strides brought him towering over her. "I do know that," he snarled. "And it's about time the rest of you-my mother included-admit it. She's been fighting a losing battle on your behalf for six millennia. She's lost her helpmeet, a third of her angel host, her son-and now I'm supposed to sacrifice my own chance at happiness for the cause?"

A frisson of uneasiness threaded through her. "I know you're angry-"

"Don't tell me how I feel!"

"-and hurt," she continued, the cop in her striving to keep her voice level and not escalate the situation. "But try to understand-"

"Understand what? That you choose mortals over me? Oh, believe me, you've made that crystal clear."

"It's not that simple!" she exploded. "This isn't about you and me, it's about what's right. I won't give up on all of humanity-I can't."

"And I won't give up on us," he growled.

It took everything she had not to step away from him. Away from the cold that had reached out to wrap around her heart, brush against her soul. She shook her head. "There is no us. Not anymore. We're done, Seth. We have to be."

Anger wrestled with something else on his face. Something uglier. She saw him shift, saw his hands curl into fists. Her already damaged heart faltered. He wouldn't- He didn't. Instead, he pushed past her and stalked to the door. He pulled it open. Then his vicious black gaze met hers over his shoulder. "You're wrong. We're nowhere near done, Alexandra Jarvis."

The door slammed behind him.

Chapter 65.

"It's time."

Lucifer watched a withered leaf drop from the tree outside the window.

"Did you hear me?" Samael asked. "I said it's time. The births are beginning."

"I heard you."

"I thought you'd like to come to Pripyat for their arrival. It's what we've been waiting for-what you wanted."

What he wanted. Another leaf drifted down to join the growing pile at the tree's base. A Nephilim army to finally do what he could not. Because pacts and agreements aside, Heaven would have always found a way to stand between him and the mortals, to prevent him from destroying them as he had wanted to do since their very beginnings. The One had never hesitated to pit angel against Fallen, might against might. But the Nephilim were different. They could not stand against the divine, and so she would not interfere with them. She would let them do as they might, let her precious nature run its course.

An army of untouchables. The certain extermination of humanity. Everything he'd wanted for millennia, and he felt the same nothing he had when he'd finally fathered the child that would lead them. No triumph. No exhilaration.

Just that yawning emptiness that seemed to take a little more of his soul with every pa.s.sing day.

He closed his eyes. "Has Seth agreed to your idea?"

"I'm on my way to him now. I believe he has made his decision."

"Then let him take my place at Pripyat."

"But-"

"Samael."

His aide fell silent.

"Just leave," Lucifer said. "Please."

Seth stalked the streets with long, vicious strides. He'd left the apartment hours before and had covered miles of the city. With every step he took, a little more of him unraveled, a little more fell away. Alex had been everything to him-no. She was everything. His anchor, his reason for being, his entire ident.i.ty.

From the moment he had given back her life when Aramael failed to save her, from the moment he had touched her soul to do so, she had become part of him, as vital to his existence as breath itself. Twice he had brought her back from where no other could. Twice he had connected with her on a level so deep, so profound, that they were inextricably, eternally entwined. Without her- The air hissed from him.

Without her, he would cease. End. Become nothing.

Just as his father had become nothing without his mother.

Leaving the paved streets, he crossed the dark, sweeping lawns of a park and halted on the sh.o.r.es of the ma.s.sive lake bordering the city. He braced himself against the biting buffet of the November wind, its chill against his skin nothing compared to the one at his core. In his head, Alex's voice settled into the same, endless rhythm as the waves crashing onto the rocks. "There is no us. Not anymore. We're done, Seth . . . We're done . . ."

He closed his eyes. Anguish warred with fury in his chest. All he had done for her, all he had given of himself, and this-this was how she repaid him.

"We're done . . ."

"Now are you ready to listen?" a familiar voice asked.

Seth's eyes opened onto the dark stretch of water before him. At the corner of his vision, a shadow moved, barely discernible in the night. He considered the question. Alex would be horrified to know he'd been speaking with one of the Fallen, but he'd tried to do things her way. To follow her lead. h.e.l.l, even to see what it was about her fellow mortals that inspired such loyalty in her. And now he stood alone in the cold, without her, crumbling from the inside out.

"You said I wouldn't have to give her up if I took back my powers."

The shadow beside him inclined its head.

With careful precision, Seth detached himself from any remaining doubt. Any lingering conscience. He'd tried it Alex's way. Now it was his turn.

"I'm listening," he said.

Chapter 66.

Mika'el was in his office when the seismic wave hit Heaven. A heartbeat later, before it had trembled to a finish, he was at the top of the stairs overlooking the great library. His gaze swept the toppled shelves, the books strewn across the stone floor, and the two dozen angels standing amid the chaos, staring at one another in stunned silence.

b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l. Only two events could cause such an effect in Heaven. Either Seth had taken back his powers or- Cold gripped his gut, and he had to force himself to finish the thought. Either Seth had taken back his powers or the One had lost her grip on them. He had to find out which. Now. But before he could swing away from the banister, the ma.s.sive oak doors on the far side of the hall crashed open. A Virtue in full armor burst through, white wings spread wide. She cast a frantic look around the room and stopped in her tracks when she saw him.

"The h.e.l.lfire," she gasped. "We can see the other side!"