Sins of the Angels by Linda Poitevin Page B

him?”
    â€œIt’s complicated.”
    â€œThen fucking uncomplicate it.”
    Aramael hesitated. Damn it to hell and back, it would be so much easier if she knew at least some of it. But what? The fact she was in danger and he’d been sent to protect her? He’d known her only a few hours and was already certain she would never let him stop there. She would demand more, much more than he could reveal under the cardinal rule against interfering with a mortal.
    â€œI can’t.”
    Alex’s face went dark with anger. In spite of himself, a small admiration glimmered in Aramael. He’d never dealt this closely with a mortal before, never come to know one this intimately. He couldn’t help but wonder if they all had Alex’s courage, her capacity to stand up to something she so obviously didn’t understand. To challenge it despite the underlying fear he sensed in her. Perhaps the One’s faith in her mortal children wasn’t entirely misguided after all.
    He watched her hands clench at her sides.
    â€œDetective Jarvis?”
    Aramael went still at the interruption. He knew that voice; it was as unmistakable as it was out of context. Impatience sparked from Alex as she turned to the woman in uniform who had joined them.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œStaff Inspector Roberts wants to see you again.”
    â€œNow? Can’t it wait?”
    The uniform shrugged. “I’m just the messenger, Detective. Sorry.”
    Alex closed her eyes for a second. “Fine,” she snarled. She leveled a ferocious look at Aramael. “I’ll be back in a minute,” she said. “And just so we’re clear, you and I are nowhere near done.”
    Aramael watched Alex stalk away, waiting until he was certain she was out of earshot before he rounded on the uniformed cop who had remained at his side. Glared into familiar, pale blue eyes.
    â€œIt’s about bloody time I got some help on this.”
    Verchiel sighed. “I know it’s difficult, Aramael—”
    â€œYou know nothing, Dominion.”
    The other angel’s expression clouded with what looked like guilt, but Aramael was unmoved. He spread his hands wide. His empty hands, because he had not captured Caim.
    â€œDid either of you stop to consider how impossible this would be?” he demanded. “In your great wisdom, did you or Mittron give a single thought to how I might hunt without leaving Alex’s side? How I could stay with her and not explain what the hell I’m doing? I had him, Verchiel. I had him, and I had to let him go.”
    Verchiel quirked an eyebrow at that. “Had to?”
    â€œYou’re the one who sent me to protect her,” he pointed out, hearing his own evasiveness and hating it.
    â€œThat’s what you were doing? Protecting her?”
    â€œWhat I’m doing,” Aramael enunciated between clenched teeth, “is the best I can. I told you I am not a Guardian, and shackled as I am by your lack of foresight, I’m not much of a bloody hunter, either.”
    Verchiel glowered back at him, her own frustration evident in the crease between her brows. “What would you have us do, leave the woman to Caim?”
    The idea hit Aramael like a fist to the center of his chest. He struggled for air, and to keep his reaction from the Dominion. He had seen what his brother was capable of, and the thought of Caim wreaking that kind of damage on Alex—
    â€œWait,” his handler said, her frown deepening. “You called her Alex just now. When did you begin thinking of her by name?”
    The sharp question delivered a second blow. Wrung a reply from him he’d rather have kept to himself. “I didn’t realize I had.”
    But he knew, immediately and instinctively. It had been when Alex had answered her cell phone that afternoon, when she had reached out to him, irrevocably altering his entire universe. He met Verchiel’s