His attitude was beginning to irritate me. "Must I remind you that you are at my mercy right now?"

"You don't destroy the angelic. Killing me would be to your discredit."

"I have no reason to believe you aren't demonic," I said.

"What if you're a traitor to your master? You may have rebelled against him to stake out your own territory. For that, you would be punished severely. I understand the politics of your kind."

"I'm a traitor to no one," he growled. "I'm only doing my duty as the angelic should. If you don't believe me, then put your fire to my flesh. It won't harm me."

If he was truly demonic, then he was brave. But if he told the truth . . . I held his gaze for several heartbeats until I finally took up my sword, the silver blade swallowed in angelfire. I used the tip to part the collar of his shirt wider, exposing his bare chest. I looked up into his eyes. He stared firmly back without fear as the light from the angelfire danced off his features. Whoever he was, I admired him. I drew a line of blood down his chest with the blade as the fire licked at his skin, and his jaw tightened rock hard from pain. I stepped back to examine the wound. As he'd promised, the angelfire did no damage to him at all.

"Told you," he said with a dark grin. His wound closed, leaving only a trickle of blood behind.

"I can still leave you chained up."

"If you cut me down," he said, "I can help you. We're both hunting the demonic."

"I don't need your help."

"You don't want anyone to watch your back?"

"I can watch my own back."

"Sure you can." That beautiful grin widened. "Then turn around."

As soon as he said that, I felt a power flare behind me and I turned and swung my swords, removing the head of a reaper who'd lunged at me from behind. She went up in flames, and I turned back to the angelic reaper.

"See? I'm useful."

I glared at him. Then I took up my swords again and cut through his chains. He slumped to the ground and sagged against the wall, gasping from pain. "What's your name?" I asked.

"Just call me Will."

I stared down into his green eyes as he dragged himself to his feet. "I never want to see your face again, Will."

I turned my back to him and heard the music again. I shut my eyes, focusing hard on the gentle sound until it was all I heard.

When I opened my eyes again, I'd returned to the crumbling old warehouse. I breathed a sigh of relief. A veil of warmth fel over me as I realized I'd just remembered the first time I met Wil . I smiled to myself, recal ing how annoyed I was with his sharp tongue. Then I remembered he had introduced himself to me in September the exact same way he had when I met him five hundred years before: "Just call me Will."

I listened to the music again and fol owed it back out into the main warehouse storeroom. I pushed the heavy door open just a little, letting the soft music flood my ears and the hal behind me, and I peeked through.

Wil sat in a chair against the wal with an acoustic guitar in his hands. I studied the way his hands moved quickly, fluid and precise like ripples on water, the muscles in his arms tight and defined. The way his head bobbed and his foot tapped the floor with the beat captivated me. I recognized the song, though I couldn't quite place it. But the name of the song didn't real y matter. I was entranced. It was kind of sexy watching him play. Sexy and beautiful, like every other aspect of him.

As I listened and watched, I knew he was as perfectly aware of me as I was of him, though he kept his infal ible rhythm. I knew he could sense every inch of my skin from across the floor, as I could his, feeling every thread of the powerful centuries-old bond we shared. In that moment my lips grew numb and something spun deliciously warm in my chest. In that precise moment I knew I was undeniably in love with him.

I took in a breath for courage and pushed the door open al the way so I could step through. I folded my arms across my chest as I eased toward him, smiling as if nothing had changed in me. He didn't stop playing as I approached, but he glanced up at me and grinned, turning my stomach to pudding. That knowing smile was the same smile he had given me the night I'd met him five hundred years before.

"I guess I'm lucky, then," I said, remembering what he'd told me about this side of him.

He never missed a chord. "I guess you are."

I said nothing more until he finished and I clapped for him.

"What was that?"

"Journey," he said. "One of my favorites. 'Wheel in the Sky.'"

"It was real y good. Where did you get the guitar?"

"I keep some of my things here. Most of my belongings are at Nathaniel's house."

I imagined what other things he might have kept over the years and longed to see them, just to know a little bit more about him. "Why don't you play more?" I asked.

He shrugged and set the guitar aside. "There are other things on my mind, I guess."

"Can you sing, too?"

He laughed and shook his head. "No. Singing is not one of my talents."

"That's too bad," I said, and chewed on my lip, mustering the bravery to tel him about my flashback. "Wil , as I was leaving the office, I remembered something. It was the night I met you, when I cut you down from those chains al those centuries ago. You were a smartass even then."

"I don't deny it."

"How did you get captured like that?" I asked.