Emerging in Aspen’s mind immediately made me dizzy. She was twisting in the air, her combination of white hot streaks of fire and cutting winds were tearing the vampires approaching her into ribbons.

  Behind her, I caught glimpses of Wintre and realized that she was the last line of defense. If she failed, or if the other angels called her home in the middle of this, it wouldn’t matter if Tristan succeeded with tonight’s plan. There wouldn’t be anyone left to save.

  What was going on? I didn’t understand. London said that I had three days. That would place the attack tomorrow. But clearly it was happening tonight. What’s more, somehow the vampires had known what they’d been planning; they’d ambushed them in the field, and sent another army to attack a practically unguarded Wintre.

  I was completely and utterly helpless. I was hundreds of miles away. Even Tristan wouldn’t be there just yet. Not that I wanted him anywhere near this. I could only watch and pray for a miracle, and even with my being an angel, it seemed like too much to hope for.

  My eyes closed and again I found Darren’s mind. The field was covered with vampires, but the Circle seemed to be holding strong. I was about to look through Darren’s recent memories to find out how they’d managed to stay alive amidst such overwhelming odds but a new wave of vampires surged out of the forest.

  Duncan raised his hands. “Ready!” he called.

  Every other hand rose to join his. Darren began to concentrate on butterflies. The thought threw me at first, but then I could see the sky become full of fiery little butterflies. It was just like I’d witnessed at my mother’s birthday party, when they’d put on that fire show for us. Now I could see that they had a real purpose.

  “Wait until my command!” Duncan ordered.

  The vampires advanced on their position and the warlocks stood perfectly still, their arms raised in unison. Darren was concentrating on keeping his part of the sky filled with fire, ignoring the very real possibility that none of them would be alive to see tomorrow morning. They couldn’t keep this up all night.

  “Are those…children?” Darren heard Chris’s father ask from a few rows up.

  Darren looked closer, and noticed for the first time that these vampires were a lot smaller than the last wave had been.

  “Now!” Duncan called, bringing his hands downward. He’d waited ‘til the last possible moment, until the vampires were but a few dozen feet away, before he gave the order. Darren knew that waiting ensured that their attack would do the most possible damage. Unfortunately, these guardians were made up of uncles and fathers and seeing the faces of children had no doubt brought their own to mind, causing just the slightest hesitation on some of their parts. But it was enough that the attack was uneven, with some parts of the sky blacking out completely.

  The child vampires left standing continued their advance, leaping into the circle and taking down guardians in the outer rows. Duncan had only narrowly avoided being bitten himself. The Circle was built for such an attack, and when a guardian went down the warlock behind him stepped up to take his place. All except for one.

  Chris had been just behind his father, and when his father fell he’d destroyed the vampire that had ended his life. But now the reality of what had just happened was settling in, and he was now paralyzed by grief. He wasn’t stepping up to fill his father’s place in the outer row.

  I felt the sentiment rising in Darren’s mind and every part of me wished for it to go away. In the next instant he was sliding his way toward the front, taking Chris’s father’s place in the newly formed front row.

  A look passed between Duncan and Darren in that moment, as newly gained respect passed from Duncan’s eyes to Darren. It filled him, and quieted his fear. As much as Darren hated him for what he tried to do to me, he had always admired Duncan’s bravery as Chief Guardian. And his respect was not something he took lightly.

  A lone figure emerged in front of them. She arrived so quickly that I was sure she could have killed any one of the guardians standing in the front row and been back before anyone had even realized what happened.

  Instead, she smiled at them, going as far as to give them a round of applause. She was tall, with short silver hair that contrasted with the youth in her face. The cloak she wore was the same as Surya had worn a few months ago.

  “The name is Nathena,” she announced.

  I recognized it. She was one of the Four that Daemon had turned personally. This was her army.

  “Well done,” she continued. “Who is in charge here?”

  No one spoke, but she’d caught Darren’s eyes shift to Duncan. She smiled.

  “Your men are very brave,” she commended. “They face certain death without fear. I could almost confuse them with some of my own. But please understand, you will die tonight. It is simply a matter of my choosing when. You must know that we are not all so susceptible to your rather quaint fire tricks.

  She was toying with them. She had been this entire time. She was right; Tristan had stood in fire to protect me on that stake. The vampires she’d sent so far were the product of diluted venom, it was no wonder they were so easily defeated by fire. If she were to send a group of vampires with purer venom, closer to that of her and Tristan, they would kill every warlock on this field.

  Panic flooded my mind, but I stayed. If this really was the end for Darren, then I wanted to be here with him. I needed to be.

  “We’ll fight as long as we have to,” Darren said.

  Nathena smiled. “And while you fight, I wonder who’s protecting Brighton? I do hope your heir isn’t there. I was so looking forward to killing her myself. It’s been so long since I’ve tasted a grey-eyed heir.”

  A chill spilled down Darren’s back, and murmurs were audible behind him. He knew they’d left Aspen behind as insurance, but she was very upset by Duncan’s return and he wondered if even she could face an army the size of what they were dealing with. The images of what I’d showed him returned to the forefront of his mind. Only, it was much harder to send them away this time. For the first time since I’d showed him, he admitted to himself that I could be right about everything.

  “The famous Duncan Mathalbane,” spoke Nathena. She took a step closer and Duncan’s face hardened. “I brought someone out here to meet you. She says that it’s been a while.”

  Duncan lost his edge. Worry lit his eyes now.

  Another figure emerged from the trees, not as fast as Nathena had, but still at a pretty good pace. The vampire came to a stop next to Nathena, and Duncan let out a pained cry.

  Darren didn’t recognize the young woman, but I did. I’d known her as Lexy. Her name was Elena; she was Nathan’s mother, and Duncan’s only child.

  “What’s wrong father, not happy to see me?” She had short brown hair and her eyes shared that same warmth I’d seen in little Nathan’s eyes the first time I met him. Those eyes were deceptive, because little else about her felt warm or kind. She wore the same scowl I’d seen on so many other vampires and the teeth beneath her lips were stained red.

  Duncan could only stare at what his daughter had become. The will to fight seemed to leave him all at once. “Elena, forgive me for allowing this to happen to you. I’ve spent my whole life protecting others, and I couldn’t even keep you safe.”

  Elena nodded, stepping away from Nathena and closer to her father. Immediately, alarms went off in Darren’s mind. But before he could move his lips to caution Duncan, Elena had closed the distance between them, burying her teeth into Duncan’s neck.

  Gasps rang out from the Circle as Duncan fell, and in the next instant the shouts from the trees started up again, and the vampires surged into the field once more. These vampires moved much faster than the others had and the guardians barely had enough time to react before they were face to face with them.

  Darren hadn’t even enough time to comprehend what it meant for them to have lost their leader before he’d been shoved to ground. He could hear Nathena’s laughter, standing still as her army moved past her in the night. Vampires were hovering over him, holding down his arms and legs so that he couldn’t move. Still, he was focused on her.

  “Do something!” I shouted in his mind. “Fight them off!”

  He had given up. His life was over and he knew it. Nathena’s words played in his mind, over and over again. “I was so looking forward to killing her myself. It’s been so long since I’ve tasted a grey-eyed heir.”

  “Kora Mortae!” he screamed.

  Nathena’s eyes exploded with a combination shock and rage and she clutched her chest with both hands. Darren hadn’t a full second to celebrate before the fangs descended upon him. His arms, his neck, his legs, I could feel the teeth boring into his flesh. I was screaming it hurt so badly, but Darren would feel none of it. I had flooded his mind with memories of us: the first time he’d met me on that stair, our first kiss in the school lunchroom, the first time I told him that I loved him.

  And then I was back in the hotel room. I tried to reconnect with Darren’s mind but couldn’t find it. It wasn’t there. The boy with the handsome smile, who had captured my heart, was dead.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Allegiance

  Over the course my existence, I’d known loss several times, but seldom like that which gripped me in that hotel room. The first time was after the defeat of Lucifer, when so many of my brothers and sisters were cast out of heaven, never to return. The second time had led to all the others. It was the death of Daemon when he was just a baby. It was my very first experience with human loss and it led to my greatest mistake. I had brought him back to life, using magick forbidden to angels of heaven. Because Daemon lived, Darren’s life was cut short. Everyone in that field was gone before they should have been.

  Again, people had suffered because of me.

  **********

  I cried myself to sleep.

  When I woke up, it was still night. The room was covered in flowers of every kind, all made of flame, glistening in the dark. Nothing was burning though, and the smoke was twisted into the branches and leaves of my garden of fire. This wasn’t the work of a mere witch, but of something more.

  A lone hibiscus flower lay beside me on the sofa, sparkling in yellowish orange light. I recognized it because it was my favorite. I’d left one next to the headstone of Nadia’s grave.

  “I was wondering when we’d finally get to meet,” I spoke into the darkness. My voice was still weak from crying.

  Out of what seemed like thin air, did Aspen’s body appear. Light shone out from behind her brown eyes, causing them to shimmer.

  Nadia.

  “Why are you here?” I followed. “Shouldn’t you be protecting Brighton?”

  With a wave of her hand, one of the flat screens powered on. Footage of a wildfire was being shown from what had to be a helicopter flying overhead. So my plan had worked, to an extent. It had ended the vampire’s attack on Brighton. If they hadn’t attacked a day earlier than I’d expected, there would have been no way they could have attacked at all. Not with all the attention large wildfires bring. I would have then revealed to them where it was I was hiding, getting them to chase me. I could have led them as far away from Brighton as was possible. I couldn’t say how long that would have kept Brighton safe, or me alive, but if it had worked, Darren and the rest of those men would still be alive.

  “You can’t change the past,” she spoke gently.

  “It’s not nice to read people’s mind without permission,” I said softly. Nadia was technically my daughter but I hardly felt like her mother. Admonishing her, even in jest, felt awkward.

  She smiled faintly. No doubt she’d heard those thoughts as well. She took a seat beside me on the sofa and began to rub my back. It only took a look for her to know what I was about to ask.

  She shook her head.

  “He was bitten too many times by too many vampires. He won’t become one of them.”

  My heart sank.

  A few moments passed before she spoke again. “You weren’t supposed to run.”

  “But I wasn’t!” I said pitifully. “I was just trying to lead them away from Brighton. I was just trying to keep everyone alive.”

  “That may have been your intent,” she replied, “but how was what you did different than any of the lives you’ve led before? We can’t judge you on what you meant to do; only what you did. And what you did was run off with Tristan yet again.”

  She was right. My “brilliant” plan had failed; I hadn’t led the vampires away from Brighton. My haven had been attacked tonight, and I was hundreds of miles away. In the end, it was no different than if I had chosen Tristan over Darren and ran away from my purpose like I had in every lifetime before.

  “Then you did have permission to be here?” I asked. “London said that I was on my own.”

  She nodded. “You were on your own. I wasn’t allowed to give you advice like London could in your previous lives. It’s why we’re only now getting the chance to talk. My purpose was to keep you alive, and to keep Brighton safe.” She paused. “London didn’t give you your memories so you could run, Ana. She gave them to you so you could fight.”

  “I-I would have, but I got a vis—”

  The most excruciating pain exploded in my back.

  Nadia wrapped her arms around me and pulled me close. “I’m sorry, but this will be the only chance we’ll ever get to meet. They’re clipping your wings. You won’t ever be allowed back in heaven.”

  My eyelids began to feel heavy. I was losing consciousness. The last image I saw was Aspen’s teary brown eyes looking down at me.

  “I love you, mom…”

  And then nothing.

  **********

  “Wakey, wakey.”

  My eyes awoke to a face I wasn’t expecting. “Leia?”

  She smiled. “Welcome back.”

  I was in my bedroom. The curtain over the glassed wall had been pulled shut and daylight was leaking in from around the edges. “What happened?” I asked. “How did I back here?”

  “What happened was we finally got you out of limbo. You’re one of us now.”

  “A vampire?”

  She laughed. “A fallen angel. A fallen archangel. Sorry about the whole false vision thing, but we needed them to cut you loose.”

  “You sent me the vision?”

  She nodded.

  Rage erupted inside of me. “Because of you, all those people are dead!”

  Leia’s eyes widened. “Use it Ana. Use your anger. Darren is dead because I tricked you into running away.”

  Leia’s words stabbed me in heart. I felt so incredibly angry. “Why? I don’t understand. What have I done to you?”

  She wasn’t listening. She was admiring something above me. There was something in her eyes as she did so, like a dull shine. I realized I’d seen a flash of it when she was in the back of the truck with Tristan. “Magnificent,” she said, shaking her head.

  I turned to have a look. Enormous wings spread outward from my back, but these were black and withered, and flames danced across the surface.

  My head dropped. I had been cast out. I could never go home now.

  “You couldn’t go home any way,” Leia replied. “Not until you killed Daemon. Now you don’t have to.” She’d been listening to my thoughts. “You’re an earthbound now, no more tests or vague riddles about your purpose. You can enjoy your life. Join our family, Ana. We’ve been hiding for so long, but now that we have you, everything’s changed.”

  “You lied to me… to Tristan.”

  “I’m sorry. I have a gift with people’s minds. I can make them see things that aren’t there, or hear voices that belong to someone else. I only showed you those images because I knew that they were your worst fears. I’d been in your mind, so I knew what solution you’d come up with…Tristan was the wildcard, once I saw that he was trying to reclaim what was once his, well I had to get there first. Had he shown up to Brighton with an army of vampires, you definitely would have stayed.”

  I was shaking my head. “All those people…they’re dead because of what you did.”

  A smile slipped across her face. “What if they weren’t? What if I could give Darren back to you?”

  “What?”

  “Would you join us then? You’ve already been cast out; you may as well have friends. We may use underhanded methods sometimes, but we’re not demons, we still have good in us. We won’t be a bother, we’ll stay out of your cozy little life here. All that I ask is that when the time comes, you remember where your allegiance lies. There are much bigger things at work than a silly rivalry between vampires and witches.”

  I thought on her words. How could I turn down the chance to have Darren back? “If you bring them back then…”

  She smiled brighter. “It’s already been done. All of the guardians whose bodies were preserved by the venom were healed. Your Darren is coming up the stairs right now.

  I leapt for his mind…and found it. He was coming up the stairs, he was carrying flowers. I jumped Chris’s mind, his father’s. In their memories I could see them waking up in that field, watching figures with wings of fire disappear into the sky. I could see them marching home through the woods, careful to avoid the wildfire. I witnessed the tearful reunions as women and children who’d stayed up all night ran out to meet them as they approached the mansion.

  Darren poked his head through the door, and Leia suddenly looked like a maid. Her face and bodily shape were completely different. She winked at me.

  Darren and I watched her leave, and then Darren came over to sit beside me. A powerful relief spread through me. When he leaned over to kiss my forehead, tears started down my cheeks.

  “You don’t know how happy I am to see you,” he said.

  “I think I do know,” I joked.

  “Was it you that brought us back? Because I can remember dying, Ana. And then… waking up.”

  “Let’s not talk about death right now. Can you just lay with me for a while?”

  He nodded and crawled into bed with me. He put his arms around me and I knew that whatever the price for this, it was worth it. I loved this boy. I could never live without him.