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to have those things.” His warm breath ruffled the hair at her crown. “You know I do. But I can’t let you have those things with someone else, not when I know I’m the guy you want.”
    “I can’t have those things with you. I can’t even have you.”
    “That’s your fear talking.”
    “I’m not—”
    “You’re trembling,” he pointed out wryly, tightening his arms around her. “And I get why. You’re trying to distance yourself, so if something happens to me it hurts less.”
    “Can you blame me? You have demons and angels of all persuasions gunning for you.”
    “We’re not together now. Does that make it easier for you to deal with the risks of me being mortal?”
    Eve’s fingers flexed restlessly into the hard muscles on either side of his spine. Easier? She didn’t want to let him out of her sight. “No.”
    “I’ve regretted every minute that we haven’t been together. They’re all missed opportunities for happiness in a life you know is damned fucking hard.” His lips brushed across her temple. “After dealing with the shit we do all day, I want to come home to you and just be me for a few hours. Aren’t you tired of being a Mark 24/7 with nothing in your life to make you feel human? Don’t you want the freedom of sharing your life with someone who knows and loves you for who you are in your private moments?”
    “I get it.” She’d been letting her life as a Mark overtake whatever was left of the mortal she’d been before. Her personal and professional lives were both being moulded around her goal to get her former life back, which – until now – had been only a distant possibility. She had a family: two parents, and a great sister and brother-in-law with two kids Eve loved madly. The thought of them growing old and dying while she lived for years afterwards was crushing. Just thinking of it made it hard to breathe. But was that selfish of her? Wouldn’t she be more useful to them as a protector than not?
    Pulling back, Eve looked up at him. “You need to shelve the proposal for a bit.”
    “Ouch.” He grinned, knowing her too well to take offence.
    Still, she explained. “You’re mortal and until we deal with the safety issues around that, I can’t think about what you’re asking me.”
    “I still know how to protect us. Taking away the power doesn’t take away the skill.”
    Her thoughts rewound through the events of the day before, then rushed ahead. “Zaphiel took me with him to meet the head guy who’s in charge of cleaning up after the Fallen. Adrian. I just can’t see him missing a vampire in his own backyard, especially one living in a place like Arcadia Falls where the neighbours are unusually friendly. Adrian seemed too sharp, Alec. He’s definitely not someone I’d ever want to piss off.”
    “You have to understand Zaphiel. He has a problem with the seraphim, so he likes to fuck with them, with or without a valid reason. He believes they’ve been given too much power, to the point that they’re encroaching on the cherubim.”
    “What kind of power?”
    “Like elevating a Mark to archangel.”
    “You.” She began to pace, which helped her think. “You’re saying this is about the deal you struck with Sabrael for your promotion?”
    Alec’s ascension to archangel had come at a price – he’d agreed to perform some unspecified future service for the seraph who had promoted him. That bargain gave Sabrael a tremendous advantage over everyone else in the angelic hierarchy: the seraph had at his command the greatest weapon since Satan.
    Watching her, Alec nodded. “The only way to break free of my deal with Sabrael was to go higher up the food chain, but I had to be careful not to position myself as the sole target of retaliation.”
    She understood. “If you went to God, Sabrael couldn’t take it out on the Almighty, so he’d have to vent his anger on you.”
    “Exactly. When I heard that Zaphiel was coming to see Adrian about a recent