Alex stared at the tea cooling in the delicate, rose-patterned porcelain cup on the oak table before her, certain her cell phone would begin shrieking at her any minute now, a precursor to the Wrath of Roberts. As valued a detective as she knew herself to be in the unit, she harbored no illusions about how little her past performance would mean after the stunt she'd just pulled.

And abandoning Detective Jacob Trent at the coroner's office had been quite a stunt.

She moaned and dropped her head onto her forearm. Away from him, here in the haven of her sister's kitchen, her behavior took on even more bizarre overtones. She'd just left him there. Without a word of explanation or an offer to call another ride for him, she'd ordered him from the car and driven off. Let her paranoia get the upper hand and imagined—

What? What had she imagined? Wings on a man she didn't know but somehow recognized anyway? An electrical something that had shattered her reality when she reached out to him in that alleyway? The rage that flashed into his eyes, its awfulness overshadowed by the anguish that followed?

Or maybe she'd just imagined a desire to reach out to a stranger, to hold and be held, to chase away his demons along with her own.

Alex shuddered. None of what she'd seen or felt, or thought she'd seen or felt, made any sense. None of it was possible. Not in the context of the real world, anyway.

But in my mother's world...

A gentle hand ruffled Alex's hair. She kept her head down, absorbing Jennifer's quiet, healing presence as she had so many times before, trying to focus on the immediate problem instead of the cold fear that had replaced her core. "Roberts is going to crucify me," she mumbled.

"Seeing as how you've been sitting here for twenty minutes and still haven't told me what happened, I'm hardly in a position to dispute that," came her sister's tolerant reply.

"You wouldn't believe me if I did tell you."

"So you keep saying."

Alex heard Jennifer set down the basket of laundry she'd brought from the laundry room, then pull out a chair from the table. From the corner of her eye, she watched her sister sit and take a T-shirt from the top of the pile, folding it with practiced ease.

Jennifer dealt with a half dozen items before she touched Alex's arm. "Come on, Alex. The last time you arrived on my doorstep looking like this was when what's-his-face told you he was married. What on earth is going on?"

"Thanks so much for that little reminder," Alex muttered. "And his name was David."

"It was three years ago. Water under the bridge. Now are you going to tell me what happened or not?"

Head still down, Alex peered warily past her elbow at her sister. "Promise you won't go all psychologist-y on me?" she asked, referring to Jennifer's current studies at the University of Toronto. Proud as she was of Jen's decision to return to school after the divorce, she dearly wished her sister had chosen a program other than one that made her want to delve into others' psyches. Not that she blamed Jen for the choice. It was probably as much her sister's way of dealing with the past as Alex's work was for her. A past that, by some unwritten agreement, they never discussed. They'd never needed to.

Until now.

"Scout's honor," Jennifer replied to her question.

"You weren't a Scout."

"Whatever. I promise. Now, out with it."

"I have a new partner—"

Jennifer slammed her fist down on the table, making the teacup dance in its saucer and Alex jump and raise her head. "Outrageous!"

"Jennifer."

"Sorry. Couldn't resist. Go on." Her sister snagged a pair of shorts from the laundry basket. "I take it you don't like the guy?"

Alex snorted. "He's an arrogant ass."

"But that's not the problem."

"No."

"You do know that having a conversation with you is a little like pulling hen's teeth, right?"

"Sorry." Alex lifted one foot onto the edge of her chair and rested her elbow on her knee, then threaded her fingers through her hair and watched the strands slide between them. "There's just something about the guy that rubs me the wrong way. And he seemed so angry with me when we met."

"Why would he be angry with you? Do you know him from somewhere?"

"No. Yes. I don't know."

Her steady brown gaze serious now, Jennifer sat back to regard her. "You either know him or you don't, Alex. You can't have it both ways."

"I don't. But I feel like I should."

In the silence that followed Alex's words, the numbers on the aged stove clock rolled over from 8:19 to 8:20 with a loud click. Forty-five minutes since she'd dumped Trent.

It felt like a lifetime.

"I see," Jennifer said at last. "Anything else?"

Alex stood and paced the hardwood floor from the table to the blue-painted cabinets and back again. "The guy keeps changing," Alex muttered.

"Excuse me?"

"I know it sounds ludicrous, Jen, but I keep seeing..."

"What?" Her sister's voice had gone tight.

Wings, Alex tried to say. But she couldn't. Couldn't bring herself to admit aloud the undeniable parallel to their mother. She couldn't do that to Jen. Wasn't ready to do it to herself.

"Nothing," she said. "It's nothing."

Jen visibly gathered herself, looking determined. "It must be something, or you wouldn't be here acting all weird and jumpy. Just tell me what's bugging you, for heaven's sake. It can't be that bad."

Alex wanted to tell her. Desperately. She needed to talk to someone before she went nuts just from thinking she was going nuts, but protectiveness surged in her as she looked into her sister's wary face. Several years Alex's senior, Jennifer had taken her in after their parents' deaths, and she hadn't just set aside her own life to raise her little sister, she'd also become the rock that anchored Alex through some pretty horrific years. She deserved better than to have her foundation shaken by Alex's sudden insecurities—at least until Alex knew for sure what was going on inside her own head.

So Alex made her shoulders shrug and her lips curve upward. "It's nothing. Really. I think this case is getting to me, that's all. I'm sure a good night's sleep will help." With luck, it would also provide inspiration on how to deal with the massive abandonment-of-her-new-partner problem she'd face in the morning.

"Well, if you're sure."

The relief in Jen's voice belied the concern that remained etched on her face, telling Alex she'd made the right decision. She picked up her cold tea and carried it to the sink, then turned to give Jen, now standing, a quick hug. "Thanks, sis."

"I don't know what for, but you're welcome." Jen returned the hug. "Call me tomorrow and let me know how you're doing, all right? Better yet, come for dinner if you can. You haven't seen Nina in weeks."

"She'll be home on a Friday night? How'd you manage that?"

"We had a little incident and agreed it would be best if she took a couple of weeks off from some of her friends."

Alex held back a snort. She knew how difficult things had become recently, with Jen's divorce and the hormones running rampant through Nina's sixteen-year-old body, and she could just imagine the tone of such an agreement. "Something I can talk to her about?"

"Not right now, thanks. It was just a few missed curfews, so it's not even that serious, really. She's just testing me, that's all." Jen shook her head and sighed. "Hell, it was even church related, in a way, so how bad can it be?"

Church related? Alex wanted to ask more of her strongly atheist sister, but Jen's hard face told her now wasn't the time. She walked down the hall to the front door, Jen trailing in her wake, and paused there, hand on the knob. One question, she told herself. Just one to reassure herself.

"Jen?"

"Mm?"

"You don't think—"

"No." Jennifer cut her off, soft brown eyes darkened by the heavy, unnamed cloud that hung over them both. "Don't say it, Alex. Don't even think it. You're nothing like her. Nothing. Do you understand? You're just tired. You'll be fine."

Far from imparting reassurance, however, Jennifer's vehement denial sat, cold and heavy, in the middle of Alex's chest.

Right beside the realization that Jen had answered the question before Alex had even asked it.

***

Aramael shifted his weight against the tree trunk. The rough bark scraped through his suit jacket, chafing at his body even as the inactivity chafed at his mind. This standing about, this idleness, was interminable. Unforgiveable. He should be stalking the city streets, homing in on his prey, finding Caim.

He should not be standing here waiting for Alexandra Jarvis to emerge from the tidy, two-story house into which another woman had admitted her almost an hour ago. Shouldn't be wondering what she was doing in there. Who it was she spoke to. What she was saying.

Would she talk about what happened back there in the alley? Or the recognition that had flared between them? Or the way her hand had brushed his wing? Aramael resisted the urge to reach up to the spot she had touched, where a tingle still warmed the flesh beneath the feathers. He wrenched his thoughts back to the question of how much she might have figured out. If only she had a Guardian he could ask—

He ruffled his wings irritably. Hell, if she had a Guardian, he wouldn't be in this mess to begin with. Wouldn't be shackled by an obligation he'd wanted no part of in the first place and now found himself unable to surrender. Wouldn't be torn between his purpose and a desire he should not—could not—feel.

His purpose. Did he even remember what that was? Did he remember that he existed only to hunt the Fallen Ones, to do what the rest of Heaven couldn't do, what none of them had the stomach for?

A tiny bird, black-capped and bright-eyed, flitted onto a branch near his head and regarded him with interest. Overhead, the evening sky darkened with premature gloom. Aramael glowered at the gathering clouds. A natural weather occurrence, or Caim at work again? His mouth twisted. He shouldn't need to even ask that question, damn it. He should be so attuned to his brother's energies that he knew exactly when Caim became active again, the very instant his brother targeted another mortal.

He should be, but he wasn't. Because a woman, a Naphil, had become more important.

The front door of the house opened and the bird departed in a flutter of feathers. Aramael drew back behind the tree as Alex emerged and descended the stairs toward the driveway, her jaw set and her face clouded. She passed by on the flower-bordered walkway, unaware of him, a bottomless weariness in her eyes. Reaching her vehicle, she stopped, back turned to him, and inserted a key in the door lock.

Notice me.

The thought slid through Aramael, unbidden, making his breath catch in his chest. The gossamer thread of awareness that stretched between them suddenly took on the strength of spider's silk, wrapping around him, entangling him in steely softness. The thought came again.

Notice me. See me.

He stared at Alex's abruptly taut back. Disbelief joined the seething mass that had once been coherence. She'd heard him. But she couldn't have. He hadn't spoken aloud, couldn't have said what he hadn't even known he felt—

He stepped further behind the tree as Alex turned. Felt her puzzlement, her indecision, the faint uneasiness that ran through her. He held himself rigid, waiting for her to decide she had been imagining things, to get into her car and leave so he could follow, undetected—

And then he felt Caim.