Aramael clenched his fists at his sides, fighting the instinct to defend himself. The rage that defined his existence roared in his ears and surged with every beat of his heart, demanding everything he had to contain it. His wings quivered under the strain of holding back, pulsing with unspent power. If he lost his grip, if he slipped for even an instant...

The activity around him faded into a background haze of muted voices and blurred movement. For long, agonizing seconds, there existed only himself and the savagery—and the woman.

The woman whose touch had imprinted itself on his very core. Whose eyes, bluer than a hot summer sky, had seen the impossible, and even now held a thousand questions in their depths. A thousand questions and an impossible, unequivocal recognition that ignited a whisper of response within him.

He wrenched his thoughts back to his efforts, tightened his grasp on the tumult within him, and, at last, felt it yield. Slightly, reluctantly. His very center shook with the strain. In all his existence, he had never had to catch back the fury like this, never had to seize hold after it had begun. Never had it surge to the surface on its own, independent of him, with neither warning nor provocation.

The anger ebbed, stilled, subsided. Aramael exhaled the air burning in his lungs. He forced his hands to uncurl and his wings to flex and then stretch. The activity around him filtered through, and he became aware of the clean-up operation near his feet as someone picked up pieces of shattered cup and someone else mopped up coffee. Still the blue eyes never wavered, never left his.

He fought back the urge to seek out Verchiel on the spot and demand an explanation for this crisis. An explanation of how a mortal could have seen a Power in his angelic form and damn near set off his full wrath.

Ten minutes ago he wouldn't have hesitated to increase his energy vibration to its normal level, to step out of the mortal realm and into the heavenly one. Ten minutes ago, he'd been confident his disappearance into thin air and his absence for the barest flicker of mortal time would go unnoticed. Now, the awareness in a mortal's eyes had changed the very parameters of his world.

Someone jostled his arm.

"Damn," he heard a man mutter beside him. "Would you look at that?"

Doug Roberts stepped forward, moving between him and the woman, severing their eye contact and allowing Aramael to take a breath he hadn't known he needed. Aramael watched the police supervisor stoop and pry something loose from the woman's clenched fingers, then straighten and hold it aloft.

Roberts whistled and shook his head. "The whole bloody handle gave way," he said to the woman. "You're lucky you weren't burned. You are okay, aren't you?"

Aramael saw her blink, focus on the cup handle in Roberts's dark-skinned hand, and blink again.

"Lucky," she echoed in a tight, hollow voice. "Yeah."

She'd never know how lucky. Unleashed against a human, the Power could have caused a lot more than a coffee cup to explode, and all the Nephilim blood in the world wouldn't have saved her. Aramael shoved his fists into his front pockets. Verchiel had one hell of a lot to answer for.

The woman's stare returned to him and he stiffened, self-preservation stirring in him again. Rigid and watchful, he waited as her slow gaze moved over him, resting briefly on his shoulders. After a moment, she raised her eyes to his, wariness written across her features. Aramael waited for her to speak. Braced himself for the questions.

But instead, the woman's expression turned bleak. He watched as her mouth tightened, her throat convulsed, her chin lifted. Watched as she looked away and focused on empty air.

"Excuse me," she whispered. "I should—I have to—excuse me..."

She walked away, her back stiff and her movements jerky. Beside him, Aramael heard the police supervisor grunt.

"Huh. What the hell got into her?" Roberts murmured. "Why don't you wait in my office, Trent? I'll make sure she's okay and then we'll get down to business."

Aramael nodded. "Take your time," he told Roberts. "I'll just get another coffee."

And see about raising a little angelic hell.

***

Aramael slammed open the solid oak door with little regard for its antiquity and even less regard for the nerves of those on the other side of it. A startled shriek greeted his entry. He towered over the diminutive female Virtue who had just dropped an armload of files onto the marble floor, scattering paperwork across the office foyer.

"Where is she?" he demanded. He scowled for emphasis, but his fierceness only seemed to rob the Virtue of speech. He studied the five closed doors that ringed the reception room. He'd never been here before—never had reason to—and had no interest in playing find-the-Dominion. He cinched in his temper a few notches.

"Verchiel," he grated. "Where is she?"

The Virtue opened her mouth but emitted no sound. She hastily extended an arm, pointing to a door on the left. He brushed past her, ignoring the alacrity with which she jumped away from physical contact with him, and pushed into Verchiel's office.

Two long strides took him across the room. He slammed his palms onto the paper-strewn desktop and leaned across to thrust his face into that of the Dominion seated on the other side. "What in the hell is going on? Do you have any idea what nearly happened? Do you know what I almost did? What the repercussions would have been?"

An obviously shaken Verchiel swallowed hard. "That's enough, Aramael."

He curled his fingertips around the edges of the dark-stained oak and just barely restrained himself from dumping the entire desk, contents and all, into her lap. "Enough? I haven't even begun yet."

"I know you're upset—we all are. But we won't find the answers by slamming doors and yelling."

The wood beneath Aramael's fingers heated, blackened, began to smolder. Verchiel blanched and removed her own hands from the desktop, tucking them into her lap.

Aramael's voice softened with a menace he made no effort to hide. "You dare to lecture me, Dominion? You, who cannot keep a promise, who conspired against me in order to serve your own needs? You would lecture me on how to comport myself?"

Verchiel's face turned a shade whiter. "I told you—"

Aramael cut across her words. "She saw me, Verchiel. Not as a man, but as an angel."

The Dominion regarded him in silence for a long moment, truth struggling with denial in the pale depths of her eyes.

She sighed. "Yes."

"I very nearly destroyed her."

"I know."

"Then tell me what went wrong."

"I can't. I don't know."

Aramael released his grip on the desk and straightened to his full height, towering over her. With a monumental effort, he lowered his voice to a snarl. "Nephilim or not, she is still a mortal. If I hadn't stopped—"

"I'm aware of the consequences, thank you."

"Consequences? War between Heaven and Hell isn't a consequence, Dominion. It's the end of the mortal realm. And I'm damned if I'll be the one to start it." Aramael paced the room, returned to the desk. "Find someone else to watch her."

"But Caim has been named to you—you cannot leave the hunt."

"Not for the hunt. For the woman."

Verchiel shook her head. "There is no one else. You were the only one—" She broke off and her gaze slid away from his.

Aramael's mouth twisted. "The only one desperate enough to agree to this?"

The Dominion didn't answer. Aramael didn't need her to. The very mention of his brother's name had stirred anew the vortex in his center, and the instinct to return to the hunt clawed at him. Instinct, and a darker, bleaker something that thrilled at the idea of taking on Caim a second time.

Of making him suffer.

Aramael's chest went tight. He would not think those thoughts. Would not be drawn down the same path his brother had chosen. And he dared not let the Dominion know the depth of the conflict raging within him.

As if sensing victory in the matter, Verchiel stood up from her chair and folded her hands before her. Brief pity flashed across her expression before it hardened.

"You cannot leave her side again," she said. "Caim cannot find her."

She was right, but the knowledge did nothing to ease Aramael's resentment. He wheeled and stalked to the door, leveling a last, livid glower over his shoulder.

"Fine," he snarled. "But find what went wrong and bloody well fix it."

***

Verchiel waited until the outer door had slammed shut behind the departing Power and then sank back into her chair, hating herself for the tremble that overtook her. Nagging apprehension, omnipresent ever since Mittron had first suggested this entire fiasco, took on a new, urgent edge. This—all of this—was such a bad idea.

The scent of scorched wood drifted through the room, punctuating her unease. No mortal, not even a Naphil, should have been able to see an angel like that, without invitation or intervention of any kind. It should have been impossible—it was impossible. Yet it had happened, and not to just any angel, or even any Power.

Verchiel rested her elbows on the desk and cradled head in hands, feeling her misgivings rise again. Aramael was the most volatile of an already explosive choir, and he was right. If he hadn't been able to regain control, if he had—she lifted her head, refusing to finish the thought. Because he hadn't. Not this time, anyway, and she would just have to make sure there wasn't a next time.

She stood and paced the perimeter of the office. A breeze stirred the curtains at the open window and wandered into the room, heavy with the scent of flowers as she sorted through possible explanations. It seemed unlikely the woman could be to blame. The first Nephilim, direct descendants of the Grigori, had displayed some interesting traits, but their abilities had diminished with each generation, becoming more and more dilute until nothing remained. So unremarkable had the line become, in fact, that Mittron had ceased having them tracked almost three millennia ago. Had they relaxed their vigil too soon?

A darker concern nagged at her. What if the fault lay with Aramael? For all his volatility, he'd always been as careful with regard to protocol as any of the others and had never had an adverse incident. But what if she'd been right about this hunt pushing him over the edge?

What if he wasn't in control anymore?

She stopped by the window and pushed the linen panel to one side. The gardens beyond lay peacefully, reflecting no trace of the turmoil that had just shaken the realm. Or the perpetual threat of war that overlay it.

Verchiel tightened her lips. No. Whatever had gone wrong between Aramael and the woman, she would, as he had said, have to find it and fix it. When war did come, it wouldn't be because of anything as preventable as a mortal's unexpected glimpse of an angel. Not if she could—

She stopped, her free hand raised to cover her mouth. The treachery of her thoughts reverberated through her.

If war came, she corrected herself. Not when. If.