Dear Reader,

Before you continue with the story, a note from me.

After thinking long and hard about my place here at Wattpad, I have decided to retire from the platform. I will complete this story and all the others that are currently in progress, but please note that they will remain up only until December 15. After that, I am removing all of them except for the short stories and an excerpt from .

The Wattpad community--YOU--have been amazing and generous and so much fun to hang out with, and I have loved my time here with you. My decision to leave hasn't been an easy one, but at this point in my career, I think it is the best one for me. I need to focus on writing and growing my audience for my ebooks now, and I hope you'll understand.

I'll leave my profile up, of course, and I'll check in periodically for messages, so please do reach out to me if you have questions or just want to chat. I really would love to hear from you.

With love and blessings,

Linda

********************************************************

Alex stared at the man standing on her front porch in a pool of light, his back turned to her, hands shoved into the pockets of black jeans that had seen better days. A stranger. A very large, very imposing stranger.

Her first impulse was to close the door and walk away. Her second was to return to the kitchen, grab the Scotch, and get shit-faced enough to end any chance of more thinking tonight. She did neither. Instead, she reminded herself she was a cop, a professional, and made herself take stock of the man. From midnight black hair curling at the nape of his neck, to the powerful muscles outlined under black T-shirt and jeans, right down to the cowboy-booted feet.

Weariness gave way to wariness. "Can I help you?"

The man swung around to face her, and Alex had to force herself not to step back. Imposing from the back, he was nothing short of overwhelming from the front. This was one very big man, and not just physically. Presence-wise, he had an aura about him that made her feel the size of an insect. A particularly small one.

"Alex Jarvis?" His voice rivaled the throaty growl of a police dog on alert and had the same effect of inspiring extreme caution.

She settled into a more solid stance and wished for the reassuring presence of the sidearm she'd left in the kitchen. "Who's asking?"

"I'm looking for Jacob Trent. I was told he might be here."

"I'll ask again," she said coolly. "Who are you?"

"Seth Benjamin. I worked with Jake a while back." He must have seen her disbelief, because he chuckled, a low rumble of sound, and added, "Undercover narcotics," as he held out his hand in greeting. Amused eyes regarded her, surprisingly warm despite their darkness. "Dispatch gave me your address. I hope you don't mind my dropping in like this. I wanted to surprise Jake."

"So you have," Trent's voice said behind Alex before she could decide whether to accept Seth Benjamin's outstretched hand or demand ID first.

"Jake." The stranger's grin widened. "I heard you were working again."

"Indeed."

Working again? As in hadn't worked for a while? Alex peered over her shoulder at Trent. If not, why not? Was that what made his service record classified? And what was with the animosity sparking between these two? Seth Benjamin made it sound as if they were friends, but she'd never have guessed it from Trent's less-than-welcoming tone. Or from the annoyance he made no effort to hide. She looked back to Benjamin, who seemed oblivious to any undercurrents and in no hurry to break the silence.

She cleared her throat. "I don't suppose either of you would like to tell me what's going on?"

Benjamin's gaze flicked to her and then back to Trent. "I just need to talk to my colleague for a minute."

Trent's face turned to stone. "I'm not interested in any messages you have."

"No message. Just an offer of help."

"I don't need help."

"You cannot hunt and protect the woman at the same time."

Hell, not him, too. Alex bit back a groan. This was no better than the conversation with Trent in her kitchen. She scowled at the newcomer. "Excuse me."

Benjamin shot her a look that suggested he had forgotten she was there.

"The woman is standing right here," she informed him, "and I neither want nor need protection." She turned to Trent, all trace of alcohol-induced fuzzies driven out by sheer irritation. "And just what the hell does he mean by hunt, anyway?"

The two men exchanged glances.

"Perhaps we should continue this discussion elsewhere," Benjamin suggested.

Trent's response was unequivocal. "No. I'm not leaving her."

Alex bristled. "I said—"

"Do you mind giving us a minute?" Benjamin asked as if she hadn't spoken.

Alex nearly choked. She did sputter. "You—you—yes, damn it! You bet your ass I mind. This is my house, and as I recall, you weren't even invited!"

Seth Benjamin blinked at her, then turned to Trent. "You really do have your hands full, don't you?"

She pivoted away from the newcomer and jabbed a finger into Trent's chest, trying not to notice just how solid he felt beneath her touch. Or how her finger tingled from even that brief contact. She decided against a second jab and let her hand drop back to her side. Maybe the Scotch hadn't entirely disappeared from her system after all.

"Get out," she told her partner. "And take your friend with you."

"I can't."

"You'd better, because in thirty seconds, I'm calling for backup. I don't care how badly I screw my career, I'll press charges against you for—" Alex broke off as her cell phone, still on the kitchen table, trilled a summons. "Oh, for the love of God!" she growled. "Will this fucking day never end?"

#

Aramael waited until Alex had shouldered past him and stomped down the hallway to answer the phone. When her snarled greeting reached them, he rounded on the Appointed, his fisted fury one step short of violent.

"What the hell is going on?"

Still on the porch, Seth gave him a lazy smile and leaned a shoulder against the door frame. "I told you. I'm here to help. Judging by what I interrupted just now, my timing couldn't be better." He eyed the Power curiously. "Would you really have told her?"

"You saw her. Do I have a choice?"

"She'll never believe you."

"I'll make her."

"No." Seth shook his head. "There are things in her past that won't let her believe, and telling her might destroy her."

"How do you know? She's had no Guardian to record her life."

"She is Nephilim. Apparently Mittron was still keeping track of them, at least at a cursory level. Verchiel couldn't find anything more than a chronological history, but we were able to read between the lines."

"And?"

"The woman—"

"Alex."

"What?"

"Her name is Alex," Aramael snarled, silently daring the Appointed to comment.

"Of course. Alex." Speculation gleamed in Seth's eyes, but he kept his thoughts to himself and continued, "Alex's mother was mentally ill. She saw things, heard voices. She called them her angels."

Aramael stared at him. "She was Nephilim, too? Is it possible what she saw was real? Is that why Alex—?"

"The Nephilim blood flowed through the father's veins, not the mother's. The mother's illness was just that. She was normal enough when she took her medication, but rarely did so. When Alex was nine years old, her mother killed her father and took her own life. The wom—Alex found the bodies. Because the illness, schizophrenia, can be inherited, she fears becoming like her mother."

Aramael did some of his own reading between the lines and felt his stomach knot. "Bloody Hell, she thinks she's imagining me?"

"Part of you, yes. If you tell her the truth, she may see it as proof of the illness. She doesn't have schizophrenia, but she can still be driven to madness."

"Bloody Hell," Aramael said again. Remembered the fragility he had sensed in Alex. The desperation. He thought of her reaction to the murder scene they'd attended before her attack and how she had refused to hear the answers to her questions this evening. So much made sense now. A hollowness formed beneath his breastbone. "Then the best thing I can do for her is to find Caim and be out of her life."

"Of course." Seth sounded surprised that it even needed to be stated.

The hollowness grew to encompass Aramael's entire chest. He had always known his ultimate goal was capturing Caim. From the moment he'd accepted the assignment, it had been about protecting the Naphil while hunting Caim. It had been simple.

Until he'd met Alex. Until he'd touched her, and felt her, and—

"You have feelings for her." Seth's expression was a mix of intrigue and accusation.

Aramael stared at the Appointed, denial rising in him. Feelings for a mortal? A Naphil? Impossible, he wanted to say, but his tongue cleaved to the roof of his mouth. The angel in him would not allow him to refute what he knew to be true. He stayed silent.

"Does she know?" Seth asked.

"I didn't know," Aramael growled. "How could she?"

"Do I know what?" Alex's voice intruded between them with all the subtlety of Judgment. She looked between Aramael and Seth and held up her hand. "Never mind. I don't want to know."

She turned to Aramael. "That was the coroner on the phone. They came up dry on the claw. They've sent a sample out for chemical analysis; Bartlett doesn't sound very hopeful, but there's a possibility it might be something man-made."

Aramael said nothing. He didn't think he needed to; she already knew what he thought. The haggard lines around Alex's eyes deepened. So did the unhappy ones about her mouth. He watched her straighten her shoulders.

"Well. That's it then," she said. "I'm going to bed."

She'd reached the halfway point on the stairs before he found his voice. "What about us?"

Alex paused. "Trent, for all I know, we have a fucking werecat tearing apart these people. You want to watch my back tonight, be my guest. I'm too goddamned tired to argue anymore."

She took two more stairs then looked back at him. "Just do me a favor and lock up after yourself if you change your mind, all right?"

Aramael watched her climb the rest of the stairs and listened to the tread of her feet down the hall. A door closed. He waited a moment and then turned to Seth.

"So. Exactly how is it you're supposed to help?"

Chapter Twenty-four

Alex intercepted her Staff Inspector at his office door the instant he emerged. "I need to talk to you."

Roberts paused, looked at her warily, and then strode toward the conference room and the morning briefing. "Is this another complaint about Trent?"

She swallowed a sharp retort. All things considered, she probably deserved that. At least from Roberts's perspective. "No."

"Then what do you want?"

Alex glanced at their surroundings. Too many ears for this kind of conversation. "In private," she said.

"Fine. This afternoon. Three o'clock."

"It's important—"

"Three o'clock, Detective. You'll have five minutes."

He pulled open the conference room door and stalked in, leaving her to follow. Alex tipped her head back and put a hand up to massage a knot in her left shoulder. Shit. Trust Roberts to be in one of his bulldozer-type moods. She'd been up half the night, wrestling with herself over this decision. One minute she'd be certain it was the right thing—the only thing—to do, and the next she'd have convinced herself it wasn't necessary, that she was fine.

She was a fighter, not a quitter. She'd never run away from anything in her life, never allowed her past to interfere with her present, never used it as an excuse, never let herself be weak. But this—this case, this untenable situation with Trent—this was too much. With every incident that occurred, she came a little more unraveled, a little less able to keep herself stitched together. Regardless of whether or not Trent's wings were a part of her imagination, a decision she'd decided was best to simply avoid, the stress of this case would put her over the edge if she stayed.

She knew that, and still it had taken everything she had to persuade herself she had to do this, had to remove herself from the case. It had taken even more to make herself go through with it, only to be shut down cold before she'd opened her mouth. Shit.

"Jarvis! You planning on standing out there all day, or can we get on with this?" Roberts bellowed from the room.

Alex gritted her teeth against the desire to tell her boss what he could do with both his meeting and his three o'clock appointment. Reassignment would continue to pay the bills; suspension without pay would not.

She stepped into the conference room and scanned the gathering. One chair sat empty on the other side of the table, right beside Trent. Her gaze locked for an instant with his, noting the anger there, and then she took up a position by the door and leaned against the wall, determined to ignore him. He could be as pissed off as he liked that she'd left home without her alternate bodyguard; it wouldn't be nearly as pissed as she'd been when she'd woken to find Seth Benjamin ensconced in her living room and Trent himself missing.

She glowered at the memory and her spine went stiff with indignation. If she hadn't made up her mind during the night to take herself off the case, she'd have done so this morning just to be rid of her self-appointed wardens.

Roberts rapped on the tabletop, cutting through the murmur of conversation in the room. "Okay, people, let's get this show on the road. What do we have that's new? Ward, anything on the victim in Etobicoke?"

"Nothing. We're still waiting for the prelim autopsy."

"ID?"

"Nada. But we do have IDs on the construction site victim and one of our John Does from downtown—and it turns out they're connected." Ward looked down at the notebook in his hand. "An Arthur Stevens, age fifty-five, and his son Mitch, age—"

A sudden crash outside the conference room door cut off Ward's words and made them all turn. Alex, closest to the door, saw Christine Delaney with briefcase in hand and a shattered vase of flowers and spreading water stain at her feet.

Roberts heaved a aggrieved sigh. "Christ, Jarvis—first you and now Delaney. What are you, contagious? Someone get some paper towel and let's help her clean up."

Alex watched a half dozen people move to help Delaney—or rather, do the work for her, because Delaney herself stood rooted to the spot, white-faced and silent. Alex edged past the others to touch the fraud detective's shoulder.

"Delaney? You all right? Do you need to sit down?"

Delaney twisted away. "I'm fine. Thank you," she mumbled.

Alex regarded her doubtfully, half convinced the other woman might join the flowers on the floor. "You sure?"

Delaney jerked her head up and down in what Alex presumed was a nod. "Don't bother," the fraud detective said harshly to Joly, who was trying to pick the flowers out from amidst the shards of glass. "I don't want them."

Alex stared at the blossoms scattered at their feet. "Are you sure? They're orchids, aren't they? They look expen—"

"I'm sure. I'm allergic. Keep them if you like. They're from—I was bringing them to show—" Breaking off, the fraud detective whirled on her heel and stumbled away.

Alex looked down and met Joly's eyes, finding her own puzzlement mirrored there. "What was that all about?"

"Beats the hell out of me." Joly waved the flowers in his hand at her. "You want 'em?"

Alex took the flowers from him. The orchids were truly gorgeous. Huge, exotic-looking black blooms, they might have been just plucked from a tropical island somewhere. But for all their perfection, something about them made Alex's skin crawl. She shook her head.

"Thanks, but I'm not the flower type." She dropped the flowers into the trash can alongside the broken vase and stared after Delaney. Marble white, the fraud detective disappeared down the corridor that led to the elevator and stairs.

Alex frowned. That woman was seriously twisted up about something. It occurred to her that someone ought to go after her and make sure she was all right, but Roberts's voice hailed from inside the room and, with a last look after the departed fraud detective, Alex turned back to the meeting.

#

Christine jabbed blindly at the elevator button. Missed. Tried again. Connected. She stared at the display over the doors and fought to control her breathing, the shaking in her chest that had begun when she'd heard Ward: Arthur Stevens, age fifty-five, and his son Mitch—

A coincidence, she told herself harshly. It had to be a coincidence. The names weren't all that uncommon. They didn't have to be connected to the fraud file she'd brushed off so easily. The file that had led her to William.

Her stomach spasmed, forcing bile into her throat. No way could the two files be connected. William couldn't possibly be involved. It would be too bizarre for words. It would mean—she swallowed a bubble of hysteria.

It would mean she'd been dating a serial killer, for fuck's sake. That she'd been—she thought of her time with William and cringed. In only two days, she had explored facets of sexuality she had never even dreamed of, let alone imagined she would participate in. Surely to God she would have known if her lover was a killer. Surely she would have sensed something...

She shuddered, remembering the intensity behind William's touch as he took possession of her, the way she seemed to lose a little of herself to him each time. The emptiness that remained in her when they were done, never quite filled. An emptiness she saw reflected back at her in his eyes.

But a serial killer?

The elevator doors slid open. She stepped inside, made herself nod to the uniform already there, and pushed the button for the parking level.