Chapter 1
From her vantage in the night sky, Siobhán studied the ramshackle two-story Victorian home in the clearing below her.
The wind whipped through the short strands of her hair as she stretched her wings and circled in wide arcs, neatly avoiding the half dozen other Sentinel angels surveilling the property.
Individually, they honed the attack strategy she’d laid out for them earlier, tailoring it to the terrain around the vampire nest they’d found on the outskirts of Seattle.
Not so long ago, they would’ve had lycans on the ground to snatch the vamps that would pour out like sewage from the doors and windows.
Now they were reduced to doing it all themselves.
Luckily, they’d worked together for millennia and functioned like a well-oiled machine.
When they surged into battle, it was as a unit, without a single sign or word of command needed.
Tucking her wings close to her back, Siobhán dove toward the house, spearing through a boarded top-floor window in a shower of glass and plywood.
She was immediately set upon by a roomful of hissing, spitting vamps. Spinning, she wielded her wings like blades, slicing through those too stupid to climb the walls and ceiling. Blood sprayed, coating her and the plaster, the stench spurring her to clear the room in seconds.
Moving into the hallway, she blocked out the panicked screams that filled the air and deflected bullets with her wings, whipping them with the fluidity of a cape.
She sought out those vamps that were infected with the disease she’d been tasked with eradicating.
Those who’d been ill for a while were easy to pick out with their gray eyes, skin, and hair.
They looked like specters and acted like zombies, mindlessly attacking any convenient nonvampiric blood source.
The ones she’d captured during previous raids were already dead. She needed more of them if she had any hope of finding a cure—a cure other than the blood in her veins.
Kicking in the door to a room, she found several infected mingling with those who were not. Siobhán grabbed one and chucked him out the window for the Sentinels on the ground to catch and restrain.
She worked her way through the room, picking out the others, maintaining her grimly focused determination so that she didn’t accidentally eviscerate an infected while cleaning house.
And so it went—room by room, floor by floor, until she regrouped with the other Sentinels in the gore- stained kitchen. Her wings dissipated like fog blown by the wind, leaving her unencumbered and able to maneuver in the tight, cramped space.
Malachai came in through the shattered sliding glass door, his blond hair turned silver by the moonlight. “Twelve,” he said, giving her the number of infected they’d rounded up. “We’ve got them sedated, but we have to get going. We didn’t bring enough blood for seconds.”
She nodded. The metabolisms of the infected were so accelerated that they required near constant feeding. Without it, they simply digested themselves, turning into sludge-like piles of putrid blackened waste. “Head outside. I’ll take care of the house.”
“Siobhán.”
Turning, she faced the Sentinel who ascended from the basement and asked him, “Get started on the fire without me?”
“That was the plan.” Carriden’s flame blue eyes met hers, and something in them, a rare flash of pity, snared her attention. “No one should see this,” he said gruffly, “but you’ll want to.”
She walked past the tall blond angel and descended into a rank pit. It was pitch black in the depths of the house, but her preternatural sight didn’t require light to see the piles of human bones in the corners or the blood and excrement that fouled everything in the subterranean abyss.
Her boots stuck to the cement floor, making a sickening squelching noise as she turned around, taking in everything. The rattle of chains arrested her, her wings snapping open to shield her from any threat.
An animalistic growl drew her gaze to the far corner. She heard a weakened but too-rapid heartbeat and the quick, shallow breathing of a terrorized mortal.
“Dear God,” she breathed, horrified to realize a man was alive and trapped in this nightmare place.
Her eyes closed for a moment. It seemed unlikely anyone could long retain their sanity in such conditions, but she would have to put her hands on him to determine absolutely whether his mind could be salvaged.
Taking a deep breath, Siobhán said, “Don’t be afraid. I won’t hurt you.”
The unique, compelling resonance of her voice—one of her many angelic gifts—was irresistible to mortals. She heard the panicked beat of his heart slow and the raggedness of his breathing even out.
“What’s your name?” She approached him cautiously, as she would a feral beast. He couldn’t harm her, but she could hurt him if she was startled into defending herself against a perceived attack.
When he didn’t reply, she wondered if the ability to speak had been taken from him, either physically or mentally.
“I’m going to touch you,” she warned, crouching beside him. She couldn’t see his face beneath a matted beard and dark hair that hung in a dirty curtain to his pectorals. His limbs were gaunt, his bones standing out in harsh relief beneath his paper-thin skin.
“Don’t be afraid,” she repeated.
Still, despite the powerful compulsion embedded in her voice, he flinched at the barest touch of her fingers.
His memories slammed into her in a violent, churning deluge of impressions and emotions that rocked her back on her heels.
She yanked her hand away, and he caught her wrist so quickly she was shaken.
She moved faster than mortals could track with their inferior eyes, but the connection to his recollections had hit her so hard he’d taken her off guard.
His name was Trevor Descansos, and he’d once had the face and eyes of an angel.
“Please,” he rasped, in a voice that struck a chord deep inside her. “Kill me.”
That had been her intention. To be merciful and put him out of his misery. While his mind wasn’t broken, his soul was shattered. He was likely damaged beyond repair.
Even if she healed his body and wiped his memory, the devastation to his soul could be a lethal blow.
He may never be the man he’d once been, a man who’d dedicated his life to saving the lives of others, both as a warrior and a healer.
He might never again flash the dazzling smile she’d seen in his memories, never laugh his carefree laugh with his sister’s family, never charm another woman into experiencing the delights of his once beautiful body…
“Don’t leave me like this,” he said hoarsely. “Please…not like this.”
Abruptly, she knew she had to try to save him. She couldn’t give up on him without a fight. He’d already been thrown away and forgotten once. She couldn’t do it again.
“I won’t,” she promised. Moving carefully so as not to spook him, Siobhán gripped the shackle that chained his wrist and snapped it open with a tug—child’s play for a being of her strength.
She did the same to the others: the one on his other wrist and the two on his ankles.
“I’m going to pick you up, Trevor, and carry you out of here. ”
His chest rose and fell in an elevated rhythm—the sound of hope too fragile to survive even the slightest blow.
“Can you lean into me, Trevor?” She deliberately used his name repeatedly to remind him of the man he’d once been, a man who would’ve done whatever it took to get out of this dank cell. “I don’t want to move too quickly and frighten you.”
It was a wise precaution. It took him several long minutes to gain the courage to lean toward her and rest his head weakly against her shoulder.
She summoned a blanket with a thought—another handy angelic gift— and wrapped him up with it.
Then she lifted and carried him across the basement of horrors, up the stairs, through the house, and finally to the outside, where the others waited.
“Burn it down,” she told Daniela, who stared at the pitiful figure she cradled close.
She stood on the lawn with Trevor’s arms draped around her neck, watching the house until the faint licking of flames visible through the broken windows expanded to engulf the entire facade.
He whimpered, and she realized the bright light after living a year in the darkness was excruciating to his eyes.
Arching her wings over them, she shaded him, cocooning him from further harm.
His head lifted, pulling away from her. Through a scraggly, greasy part in the curtain of his hair, she saw one bloodshot blue eye focused on her wings. Then his gaze rose to settle on her face.
“Angel,” he choked out, tears streaming down his face. “What took you so long?
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