Coming to hurt like a motherfucker. I swore even my eyelashes hurt, sending little twinges through the skin of my eyelids when they brushed my cheek. My entire head screamed in protest when I dragged them open, blinking away the crusts that had formed at the corners of my eyes. I must have been asleep for a while. How long? A day? Two? A week? Had the dream been in keeping with real-time, spanning a handful of days, or had I been down longer? Would Daniel have survived that long without help?

When my vision snapped into focus I found myself staring at the wooden slanted wooden beams that made up the back room of the safe house. My shoulders and back throbbed in time with my heart, unaccustomed to sleeping on the floor after so long in Summer. Ivy bowers and honeysuckle blossoms beat hardwood any day. My legs were pinned down, little prickles of pain needling me as blood tried to circulate past whatever Lasciel had laid across my hips.

Eerie light moved in whorls and eddies overhead like a small, violet sea. Prisms caught the luminescence and cast distorted rainbows into the far corners of the room. If I turned my head I'd see more foci scattered around a greater circle. Tessa and Rosanna had used a similar setup to house the Archive. Maybe I should have been flattered that I warranted the precaution. Lasciel really wasn't leaving much to chance, which meant that even if I could move or summon enough will to attack her, I had a snowball's chance in hell of escape. The circle had to be taken down by something bigger and badder than I was.

It took Herculean effort, but I managed to prop myself up on my elbows, casting a wary glance around the circle. Hannah was sitting inches from the edge, legs crossed, clasping a violet orb in her hands. She'd stripped off her shirt, striking her meditative pose in only a pair of short shorts and a white lace bra. Sweat dewed lightly on her brow, and she managed to make the look appealing, like a cover model who'd stepped off a treadmill at the gym. I'd have been red in the face and sticky as hell. Some women have all the luck. Or maybe it was just Lasciel's doing, and the twinge of envy was misplaced.

Her eyes popped open as if she could somehow sense my stare. Our eyes locked for a fraction of a second before I looked away. I did not want to be drawn into a soulgaze. There was no telling what I'd see or how much damage had been done to her mind. Maybe it was cowardly, but I really didn't want to know how badly my decisions had screwed her over.

"You're awake," she said softly. It was her voice, not Lasciel's which I took as a good sign. "And I didn't feel the pull to release her coin. Which means you said no. Why?"

"I don't want it."

Hannah just stared. She didn't seem angry, just puzzled, as if my reluctance to pick up a demon-possessed coin for the second time in my life was absurd. To her, it probably was. The last time we'd spoken I'd been a coin-carrying member of the Order of the Blackened Denarius and I'd been set to gift her one as well. It must have seemed like such a cheat when I'd dropped what she'd considered her only chance at salvation and stolen away into the night. I wouldn't have blamed her for being furious with me. She wasn't. She felt...sad. Frustrated. So desperately, achingly lonely. Want. Desire. Hers. Lasciel's. It was all tangled up in her head.

I didn't back away when she set the orb aside and crawled toward me. Even if I couldn't have moved, I wouldn't. Need billowed out from her, an almost tangible sensation. It hurt so much that I couldn't breathe. She straddled my waist, staring down at me, expression soft. For a moment I thought she'd lean down and kiss me again. I'd gotten an inkling of interest from her when we served together, but I'd chalked it up to her flirty disposition. She'd done it with everyone. I wasn't special.

Or at least, I hadn't been. That had changed, in large part due to Lasciel's influence. That was the insidious thing about the Fallen. You didn't turn into a monster overnight. It was water wearing against a stone, slowly eroding whatever you'd been and believed before. I could imagine the slow buildup, the careful cultivation of a mild crush into something more over the years. In my absence, it was easy to twist her memories, her feelings for her supposedly dead friend until she'd convinced herself she'd loved me all along. She probably blamed Nixon and Jordan for keeping us apart. The deified image of me just made her easier to control. To avenge me at first, and now to possess me.

"Why?" she repeated.

"Well let's start with the obvious. She just invaded my head for...oh, a day or two?"

"Two," Hannah said.

"Right," I muttered. "Do you really think a two-day mind fuck would endear me to the idea?"

"She said you needed to talk. It was taking a while because you're stubborn."

I stared up at her, incredulous. Oh hell. She actually believed that. She thought Lasciel and I were having an amicable discussion about the pros and cons of joining up again, instead of the trippy fantasy land she'd constructed to trick me. It might have been funny if it weren't so damn sad. She really bought into every word Lasciel said.

Hannah leaned toward me, bracing her arms on either side of my head. Our faces were so close that our lips brush when she spoke. It was painfully intimate, made more so by the genuine feeling of love exuding from her every pore. It didn't matter if the feeling had been nudged in that direction. She had the capacity for it all along, and now the feeling had matured. She was in love with me. Fuck.

"Please," she whispered. "Just take the coin. I've missed you. Lasciel misses you. I want to be a team again."

My vision hazed with tears. Damn it. If I'd been less raw, the feelings might not have wormed their way past my defenses. It wouldn't feel like my ache, my longing. It wouldn't tie my stomach in knots or wind inexorably around that part of me that had missed her too. The part that longed for the nostalgic days in Belize, with all my friends around me. It had been simpler then. I'd been simpler then. This should have been Lasciel's plan from the start. It was easy to say no to a megalomaniacal fallen angel. So much harder to deny a friend who needed me.

My throat was dry and it hurt to swallow. "The Red Court is gone. Who exactly would we fight, Hannah?"

"The Fomor. The White Council. The other vampire courts. Anyone who gets in our way." Warm tears dripped onto my cheek. "Please? I don't want to be alone."

I made a choked sound. Lies. She wasn't alone. She hadn't been alone for years, but Lasciel could have made her feel that way, driving her toward increasingly desperate measures to alleviate the loneliness, trading herself bits at a time to stop the pain. She'd done it with me, after all. But Hannah wanted this so badly that I thought my heart would burst. Hannah and I. Lasciel and I. Together. People who knew and understood each other.

"What about you?" I whispered.

"I have Samshiel's coin in my back pocket. It won't be the same and I'll miss Lasciel, but it will be worth it. We'll be happy, the four of us."

It was tempting. So damn tempting. And wrong.

I shook my head slowly. "I can't. Not again."

A set of luminous violet eyes opened over Hannah's. Her lips spread into a sultry little smile. It was wrong, somehow, to watch Lasciel's expressions move across Hannah's face. This must have been how Anna had felt years ago when Lasciel had taken possession of my body. It was frankly disturbing to watch some alien consciousness pass through those familiar eyes. It hadn't seemed strange at all when it had been me. But with Lasciel wearing Hannah's face, it took a dive into the uncanny valley. It was like someone had mashed together two women I'd cared for into a Frankensteined monster that should never have existed. She had hit on a winning strategy and she knew it. She just had to press until I broke.

"You love me, Molly."

Tears squeezed out of the corners of my eyes. " I do."

"I could love you too, you know."

I smiled sadly. "No, Lash. You really can't. It's not in your nature. Fallen or not, you weren't made to love one person. Agape, right? God-like love for all of humanity. And twisted as you are now, it's not real love. Not selfless love. Not what I deserve. I could love Hannah and she could love me, but you will never be capable of loving anyone more than yourself. Not like this."

"And what is that supposed to mean?" she said. Hannah's body tensed above me and I had the sense of a viper, coiled and ready to strike.

"You keep trying to change me. Maybe you should change. You could be different."

Hellfire streaked through the violet of her eyes for an instant. Her voice was cold when she spoke, raising goosebumps on every inch of my bare skin. I belatedly realized I'd been stripped down to my underwear.

"I am immutable, Molly. I don't think you grasp what that means. This stain cannot be purged."

"Have you tried Oxyclean?" I suggested innocently. "I hear it's hell on wheels for that kind of stuff."

"You cannot possibly understand," she hissed. "You are carbon, hydrogen, and nitrogen, arranged into a mass of carbohydrates, fats, nucleic acids, and proteins. A pathetically flimsy design. Only stardust shaped by the hand of a sentimental fool and handed a handful of years to squander on a dustball in an insignificant corner of the universe."

"So why are you wasting your time on this pathetic mortal?"

Silence.

"See, I don't believe it's true. You've never tried it."

Hannah's teeth ground, audible in the hush of the back room. "He cast us out. No mercy. No second chance. The Passion was not meant for us."

"You don't know that," I continued stubbornly. "You assume. You know what they say about assuming. I don't think any of you ever had a reason to try it. You're too fucking pissed about the way things went down. So now you're throwing a big, cosmic temper tantrum because you're not Daddy's favorite anymore."

Lasciel's eyes flashed pure fire at me. Her hands twitched at her side like she was fighting the urge to slap me. "Insolent child. You have no idea what you're talking about. I cannot. I will not."

"What do you have to lose?" I asked, leaning up.

The action strained the limits of my body. My shoulders burned. I gritted my teeth and pushed through the pain so I'd be chest to chest with Hannah. One of her hands shot out and tangled roughly in the roots of my hair, pulling to the point of pain. It drew a short cry from me. Lasciel tugged harder.

"What do I have to lose? The first time was enough to shatter us, Molly. To realize what he meant to do? You have no concept of the pain, my host-"

Lasciel cut off. abruptly. My heart twisted, and fresh tears dewed on my lashes. So, so stupid to have missed that nickname.

"Call me whatever you like, Lash," I whispered. "I don't care."

Her fingers relaxed, her grip on my hair becoming something gentler. She scraped Hannah's well-manicured nails along the base of my skull, trailing pleasant tingles in their wake. I couldn't lie convincingly, even to myself. I knew this wasn't her magic, her charm. This was me. It had always been me. Lasciel was my fucking kryptonite and always had been. We were too well-suited. Gasoline and flame. A destructive, deadly duo that combusted in close proximity to one another.

"Hannah needs you," she purred. "You can feel that. Abandoning us a second time will destroy her."

"I know," I said thickly. But there wasn't any way around it. Not if I wanted to remain free.

"Will you forsake her twice?"

"I..."

I was saved from answering when the door flew open. Literally flew. It came off its hinges with a scream of metal and crunching wood. Shrapnel went everywhere, and only Hannah's body kept some of it from spearing me. A large chunk of it struck her in the back of the head. Her eyes flew open wide, stunned for a moment, and then she slumped sideways, landing with a heavy thunk on the floor beside me. The light show dimmed and went out, the feel of Lasciel's power dwindling, leaving me blinking spots out of my eyes. A figure loomed over me, shining and beautiful. His eyes were the purest silver I'd ever seen, his skin so smooth and luminous that I wanted to run my hands over it, just to see if it was real.

"Molly," Thomas said in a ragged whisper. I could hear the echo of his Hunger in his voice, so close to the surface that it made me writhe. Which hurt. A lot. "Are you okay?"

I frowned when I took in the rest of him. A rust-colored stain ran from shoulder to waist on one side, ruining his top.

"Is that blood on your shirt?"

He rolled his eyes and slid an arm beneath me. He hefted me up without effort and slung me over his shoulder. He smelled good, even wearing blood.

"You're fine. Let's go before the bitch wakes up."

"Mm-kay," I said. My vision was starting to dim anyway. Apparently, I'd given myself permission to pass out now that rescue had arrived.

And then, with Thomas' stride falling into a rhythm as he ran, I proceeded to do just that.