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On the fifth day, the doctors declared my werewolf heritage had worked another goddamn miracle and that I was fit enough to go home. That was music to my ears.
I rang Ilianna and arranged for her to pick me up, then climbed out of bed and took a shower. I was clean, dressed, and ready to get the hell away from the hospital and the awareness of death that continuously washed over me, thanks to the presence of the sick and the dying, when a different kind of awareness hit.
Azriel had finally decided to show up.
He appeared on the other side of the room, his arms crossed and his stance easy. And, as usual, his expression gave nothing away. He was holding his emotions—and his thoughts—very much in check.
I studied him for a moment, then said, “What did you do?”
“You know what I did,” he replied, voice even. “I made you live.”
I snorted softly. “Okay, let me rephrase that. How did you do that?”
He hesitated. “By leashing our energy beings together.”
Fear curled through me. A fear unlike anything I’d ever experienced before. “You leashed our beings? As in, forever bound together?”
“Yes.”
“So if you die, I die?”
“If I die, you take my place.”
I stared at him. Did that mean . . . ? “No, that’s not possible. I’m a flesh-and-blood being. I can never be what you are.”
“You were never just flesh and blood, Risa. You were born half Aedh and became more so after what Marin did. When I snatched you from fate’s pathway, I altered not only your destiny, but your very being.”
No, no, no! How was something like that possible? How could I be born one thing and be made, on death, into another?
“What if I die? What if I decide to kill myself rather than become something I never wanted to be?”
Something flickered through his eyes. Anger, fear, hurt. I wasn’t entirely sure. “You would not kill yourself.”
“But what if I did?” I all but shouted.
“Then you would still become what I am—a dark angel.”
I just stared at him. I couldn’t do anything else. I was stunned. Broken. Betrayed. Again.
“Damn it, Azriel, why?”
“You know why.”
“The mission. The key.” I swung away, not wanting to look at him, not wanting him to see the hurt. It was always the damn key. Always about the damn mission.
“It wasn’t about the damn mission or the key!” The sharp denial was accompanied by an explosion of anger that rolled my senses and just about fried my mind. “And if you’d listen to your heart and your body, you’d know it!”>I closed my eyes briefly, took a deep breath, then stepped forward.
It was then that Azriel appeared and blocked my path to the reaper.
What on earth are you doing? The words seemed to echo across the golden light, and an odd hush fell around us.
I’m sorry, Risa, but this cannot happen.
It is my time—
Yes, it is, but that does not mean I can let you go.
It is better for everyone—
