Ash made the mistake of breathing before the dust from the rubble settled. Coughing reflexively, he bent over, wiping the grit from his eyes. Once it cleared, he swore and stood, taking stock of his predicament.

Damn it. The conspirator’s explosion had been well-planned. His prison was undisturbed by the building’s collapse. No debris disturbed the lines of the pentagram and surrounding runes. The area near the door was impassable. He could have dug himself out with enough effort, but whatever infernal spell was powering the angelic trap had created a protected pocket.

If only the council had managed to mess this up like they did everything else. Why did they have to start doing things correctly now?

Furious, he went to kick the radio before checking himself. He picked it up with a rough, choked-off laugh. How long had he been pining for this damn technology to make a comeback? Now look at me, he thought, setting it back on the floor. Innovation had come back with a vengeance, only to bite him in the ass.

This was his fault. He should have expected those bastards to pull a stunt like this. But what was really killing him was something Mazarin had said.

How had he known about Kara? Did he know who and what she was?

Gossip was free entertainment. People would have seen him talking to her at the factory fire and made assumptions. Would Mazarin have thrown out the term lover like that unless he was certain?

Politicians lie for a living. The fat little toad had to be bluffing.

Unless those spies had been trained on his apartment…or worse. What if Ash had been set up?

Marcus was the only one who’d known about him and Kara. He was also the one who’d given Ash the information about this supposed prison.

No, it wasn’t possible. His aide would never knowingly betray him. Ash knew the man didn’t trust Kara yet, but he and Marcus had worked side by side for the better part of two decades. His loyalty was unassailable.

He could have been tricked into revealing something. Someone had obviously fed him false information about the prisoners. Those three must have been planning this for some time.

As long as they don’t know the truth about Kara, he thought, clenching his fists. His breath shortened.

Stop it. Angels did not panic. And it didn’t matter if they knew about his relationship with Kara. As long as they didn’t know about her blood, she would be all right.

Thank God I didn’t tell Marcus anything. Paranoia sometimes pays.

And Kara could take care of herself. She’d kept herself and dozens of others alive in the most inhospitable environment on earth. She could probably take on the council singlehandedly.

She certainly wouldn’t have fallen into a trap like this. He ground his teeth, cursing his own stupidity.

Refusing to accept there was no way out, he began to test the barrier again. He went over it systematically, even leaping above him in case there was a weakness over his head.

The only thing he got for his trouble was scorched feathers. Hours later, his knuckles and elbows scraped and bloody, he finally gave up. Ash sat in the middle of the pentagram, racking his brain for a solution.

No matter what Mazarin said, people wouldn’t accept he had died in the building’s collapse. Marcus would look for him. Once she knew he was gone, Kara would, too.

I hope.

He sat back on the floor with the radio, attempting to figure out how to make the primitive device a two-way box. But try as he might, he couldn’t make sense of the intricate bundle of wire and transistors. Ash was a warrior, not a creator. Invention wasn’t an angel gift.

Time stretched as he waited and waited. Marcus would be looking for him. No, he won’t. Not yet. Mazarin would have come up with a way to distract him. Kara was his best shot.

If only the engineers had figured out how to recreate cell phones instead of the damn radio. Or if Kara was another angel. Then she’d be able to sense his distress and come after him.

Maybe she’ll hear him, anyway.

His connection with Kara was unlike anything he’d ever experienced before. Was it totally beyond the realm of reason that she might hear him if he called?

We just made love this morning. Not to put too fine a point on it, there was still a piece of him with her and vice versa.

Crouching back down, Ash sat in lotus position, making a concerted effort to clear his mind. He focused on her image, drawing the lines of her face until they burned brightly in his mind. He drew on his feelings, balling them up deep inside until he let them out, calling her name silently.

Nothing. At least, he didn’t feel an answering echo like he did communicating with his brothers and sisters.

Try again.

The longest twenty minutes of his life later, the silence was still unbroken.

“Putain,” he said aloud. He banged his breastplate, wondering if the barrier was muting his connection like it did his voice. What was he going to do?

Enlightenment didn’t come with a blaze of light from above the way it did in old cartoons. It was the stinging of his mangled knuckles over his heart…where he’d slipped the demon king’s scroll and the vial of Kara’s blood.

Ash had a way to strengthen his call, right in a bottle nestled against his heart. Except…it meant answering the question he’d been dreading.

It’s time. Putting it off had been a foolish attempt to bury his head in the sand.

Loosening his breastplate, he reached inside for the vial, leaving the scroll where it was.

There was blood on his hand, but he didn’t want to do this on his skin. Ash drew his knife, slicing his thumb. He let a large drop accrue on the tip of the blade, staring at it for several heartbeats.

Just do it. Neck corded with tension, he loosened the stopper and tilted the bottle, letting the blood fall onto the flat side of his knife. It landed next to his.

The drop of blood was the darkest possible red, a variant so dark it was almost black. Lips tight, he straightened the knife until the two drops ran together.

The telltale sizzle was small, but it was there. Ash rocked on his heels, taking a shaky breath.

You knew this. This was what he had expected ever since she revealed what her blood could do. Her ability to read the runes in the devil tower had confirmed it.

Yes, Kara was a witch, that much had been obvious for some time. But she wasn’t some run-of-the-mill practitioner. Though unschooled in the craft, her gift was stronger than any he’d ever seen. Which made sense, of course—she had demon blood running through her veins.