“But I thought you worked for her.”

“I am more powerful than Evantia, but she doesn’t know this. I have long had further ambitions. When I kill her, I will assume control of England and every demonic reaper within a thousand miles.”

“You did terrible things tonight just for power?” I asked him. “You would kill for it?”

“We all kill for something.” He gave me a tired, pointed look. “You kill to protect. I kill to control.”

“And look where it has gotten you,” I said, biting back a snarl. “You’re so proud of yourself. Look at all you’ve accomplished.”

The look he gave me was cruel and scathing, sending a strike of fear through my entire length, but in the next moment he exhaled and softened. He reached for me and I shied away from him, causing horror to fill his eyes. He opened his mouth to speak, but could not. He tried again and his voice was tiny and broken. “I am so sorry. I am not proud. But I had to do it.”

“You really believe that you have no choice?” I asked him. “Everyone has a choice, no matter who or what you are. I am angelic. You are demonic. And I chose to love you. I can choose not to love you, but I won’t. Not yet. Because I believe you know what is right and wrong and that you have done wrong tonight. If you know that, then I have faith in you. I believe you could one day understand that you can choose to walk away from all of this. You’re happy when you’re with me, aren’t you? And tonight, in the aftermath of whatever you’ve done, you are not happy. Bastian, you can be happy if you choose to.”

“Forever is a long time to keep fighting.” His eyes had grown so bright, like burning stars. His entire body trembled as he fought with himself, whatever that internal war was. He lifted a hand to reach for me again, but he stopped himself when he noticed the blood. “I have to go wash.”

I said nothing and watched him exit the room, leaving me by myself with the crackling firelight. I would stay with him tonight, because he was in too fragile a state to be left alone. I believed I may have gotten through to him, but I feared the breakthrough was only temporary. I went into his room and climbed atop the thick blankets of his bed. I curled against the headboard and waited. He returned, wearing the same haunted look as before. He moved toward the bed in the dark and sat down beside me, unable to look at me. Guilt ravaged his heart and I wished I could help him.

“May I tell you a secret?” he asked, his voice a sliver through the darkness.

“Of course.”

“Antares—”

“Did you kill her tonight?” The question was the first thought in my mind and I hadn’t even hesitated in asking it. Antares was the western cardinal lord, one of four lords of all the Grigori angels, imprisoned on Earth for rebelling against Heaven and left here for so long they became elemental.

“No,” he said. “She’s my grandmother.”

I fell silent, considering this. A reaper’s demonic or angelic heritage was determined by his mother’s side, but if Bastian’s grandmother truly was the Watcher of the West, it meant his father had to be angelic. His closeness to Antares’s bloodline explained how he was so powerful. The angelic reapers were the offspring of the Grigori angels, while the demonic reapers were the offspring of the Fallen angels imprisoned in Hell. In the rebellion against Heaven, the truly wicked followers of Lucifer became fallen, but the Grigori could be redeemed, and instead of being sent to Hell, they were chained to Earth in punishment for their crimes. During the war, the Grigori had been led by four generals, the most powerful of their kind: Antares, Aldebaran, Regulus, and Fomalhaut. The birth of any reaper was rare, but to be a direct offspring of a Grigori lord guaranteed potentially limitless strength. To be a reaper of both angelic and demonic heritage … I didn’t know what that meant.

“When the angelic found out about me,” Bastian continued, “they killed my father. He let them kill him. A son of Antares, he was a most ancient creature, already thousands of years old even when I was young. He could have annihilated his persecutors, but he refused to kill his own kind even to defend himself. In his selflessness, he left my mother unprotected. They killed her too, because he loved her, because she was demonic. Never again to this day, four hundred years later, have I felt even a pale shadow of the fury that had ignited in my heart. I had inherited my father’s strength, but none of his selflessness. I killed all who were responsible. I am Death.”

I was silent, overwhelmed by the horror of the tragedy that was his origin. Nothing wicked should ever come from love, only hope and peace. But that was not the way of the world we lived in. “Are you afraid if anyone finds out about you and me, they will kill us?” I asked.

“No,” Bastian said hollowly. “I would allow no one to kill either of us. When my death comes—and all things must end, even the ageless, even the world—it will not come by my enemies. They are always trying to kill me and I never let down my guard. If anything, love would be my undoing, because I would least expect it. I imagine the one to destroy me would have first loved me. The irony would be fitting.”

I reached out and brushed my fingertips over his cheek. He closed his eyes at my touch and some of the tension in his body seemed to wash away. “Does anyone else know about your heritage? Where you come from?”

“No one knows,” Bastian continued. “But I fear Evantia is suspicious. She was alive when it happened and she may have heard rumors. No one can ever know that I am half-angelic. You are the only one alive who knows. I killed the rest.”