Malachi was disgusted, yet hardly surprised.
“You act completely disinterested, but if that’s the case, why are you here?” Malachi asked. “What’s so special about Ava Rezai?”
For once, he sensed a reaction in the inhuman eyes of the Fallen before him. Jaron might have morphed his form into the shape of the harmless, middle-aged academic before them, but his eyes were the same. Frozen gold that shone with neither fear nor joy. But for an instant, there was a hint of something else. Had he imagined it?
Jaron ignored him and turned to Ava. “Why are you here?”
Her mouth dropped. “Because she’s my grandmother.”
“You already know the magic in your blood comes from your father through her. And you probably guessed she has Grigori blood. What more do you hope to learn?”
“I… I don’t know. I just want to meet her.”
Jaron slid forward, put his chin in the palm of his hand as he rested an elbow on the edge of the desk. “She might not speak. Would you leave here even more confused than you came? Will this ease your mind or torment it?”
“I don’t know,” his mate whispered, “but at least I’ll know the truth.”
“The truth…?” Jaron stood. “An interesting concept. You seek the truth, but will her truth be one you can accept?”
“I want to try.”
“And you?”
Malachi looked up, realizing Jaron was talking to him. “What about me?”
“Why do you want to meet her? What do you hope to gain?”
“This is not about me, Jaron. It’s about Ava.”
“Yes.” Jaron’s eyes bored into his, and Malachi felt his body sway under the power of the angel’s stare. “I have spent much of the past sixty years concerning myself with Ava.”
He drifted off for a moment, his eyes lifting to the high windows that covered one wall in the doctor’s office.
“Come,” he finally said. “Let us meet her.”
WHEN they stepped out of the office, Malachi noticed the quiet immediately.
There was no one in the house.
No chattering nurses near the large oak reception desk. No men playing chess. The fire crackled, but no one took up the knitting needles lying forlornly on the sofa.
“Where is everyone?”
“They’re here and they’re not.”
Ava stepped forward and looked across the now-empty room. “Is this a dream?”
“In a sense,” Jaron said. “More accurately, they are in a dream. A simple twist of time. When I call them back, they will have no memory that they didn’t spend this time in the living area, going about their tasks.”
Malachi felt his skin prickle. “You can just… make everyone disappear?”
“Not humans with angelic blood. But pure humans?” Jaron shrugged. “It’s not without effort on my part, but I hardly consider either one of you a threat.”
Malachi had never heard of such a thing. Never even conceived of it. Why was Jaron revealing this power now? He eyed the man with suspicion but followed him down one hallway and up a wide set of stairs. As Jaron walked, he grew, morphing into the form he’d taken the previous times he’d revealed himself to Ava. Close to seven feet tall, dark hair falling around a clearly inhuman face. He was an ancient god. An artist’s mad dream.
And Malachi sensed he was still seeing only a fraction of the angel’s presence.
It was on the third floor of the massive house that he stopped and turned to Ava. A long corridor stretched before them, empty like the rest of the house.
“Is your mind shielded?” he asked Ava.
“Yes.”
Jaron cocked his head, clearly curious. “How?”
“It’s like… a door. I can keep it shut or open it.”
“Interesting. I always wondered. That door?” he said. “Keep it locked.”
Malachi became aware of a growing power. It called him. He could hear the seductive voice in his mind. Twisted whispers of longing. Need.
Anger.
Whatever called to him was hungry.
Malachi heard a high girlish hum drift down the corridor. It was beautiful. He needed to find the voice. Hold it. Touch—
“Enough!” Jaron lost any human facade when he shouted, startling Malachi out of the trance. “Silence, Ava!”
Without another word, the angel strode toward down the hall. He raised a hand and a paneled door swung open. Malachi followed cautiously, holding Ava behind him.
“Do you feel it?” she whispered.
He nodded but didn’t speak. He felt it. Like coals glowing under long-dead ashes, the voice waited. He hesitated at the threshold but felt Ava’s hand at his back, urging him through.
When Malachi turned the corner, he saw something his years of training could never have prepared him for.
Blinding color filled the institutional room. It was as if he walked in an impressionist painting. Swirling seas and mountain crests. An achingly brilliant sunset covered one entire wall. On the opposite side, a blood-red eclipse hung, surrounded by black night and whorls of stars. Flowers filled one corner. Bones filled another. Twisted roots and looming trees. Layer after layer, the paintings filled the space, even crawling up the ceiling.
And in the corner, a woman sat, huddled on Jaron’s lap.
Beautiful was too soft a word.
Her eyes were closed, and her cheek was pressed to Jaron’s chest. When her breath stirred, the raised glyphs on the angel’s skin glowed with a bronze light. Her hair was streaked with red and gold, her skin a dusky echo of the angel who held her. And on Jaron’s face, an expression of such familiar tenderness that Malachi knew immediately why Jaron had been shadowing his mate her entire life.