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him.
    “If you do that again,” he said in a harsh voice, “I’ll strangle you myself. Though you would probably prefer that, would you not?”
    He moved back in, grabbed my wrists, and tied them with quick, jerky moves. I ignored the pain—it no longer mattered. I was sickened by what I had done, by the rush of emotion and longing I’d felt for my soon-to-be murderer.
    I managed one last salvo. “Prefer strangling to what? You said you weren’t going to burn me. Are you just going to leave me here to starve to death?”
    He shook his head, threading the heavy chain around my tied wrists and ankles and clamping it to the floor. He really wasn’t taking any chances. He moved away, and that shaken expression was gone, leaving him stark and cold and beautiful in the waning light.
    “I’m leaving you for the Nephilim.”
    “And they are …?”
    His disbelieving snort would have been annoying under any other circumstances. “They are an abomination. As are you. You cannot be killed by human means, and I prefer not to touch you. The Nephilim are a fitting end for you.”
    “And just who are the Nephilim?” I demanded again, not certain I wanted to hear the answer.
    “They prey on the unearthly. You. And my kind,” he said. “We have killed most of those that roam the world, but there are still some here in Australia. I am leaving you for them.” He brushed the dirt off his dark clothes, almost as if he were brushing off the guilt of killing me. “It will hurt,” he said. “But it will be over quickly. And you shouldn’t have too long to wait.”
    There was almost kindness in his voice. Anexecutioner’s mercy. I watched as he moved toward the door, his figure outlined by the setting sun, and my voice stopped him, for just a moment.
    “Don’t.” My voice broke this time. “Please.”
    But he left without looking back, and a moment later I heard the car start up, heard the tires on the rough terrain. I listened until I could hear nothing, and the darkness began to close in around me.
    And I waited to die.
    H E DROVE FAST. H E OPENED all the windows, ignoring the dust that was swirling into the POS Ford, his foot down hard on the accelerator. A car accident wouldn’t kill him. What was true for the Lilith went for him as well. It would take an otherworldly creature to finish him, and as appealing as that sounded, there would be no one around to do the job.
    He could have waited. Bound himself to that chair beside her and let the Nephilim come. When he’d felt her cool hand slide over his hot skin, he’d wanted to. Nothing could make him want to release her, nothing at all, but dying with her might have had a certain desperate symmetry.
    He could have waited to make certain they’d finished her, but he knew what he could and couldn’t do. And there was no way he could watch as they tore her into pieces, feeding on her fleshwhile her heart still pumped blood. He would come back in the light of the new day and find traces, blood and bone and skin. The Nephilim left destruction in their wake, and there would be enough left to bring proof to Uriel, if he chose to do so.
    He was driving east, and in the rearview mirror he could see the sun on the horizon, sinking low, bright splintery shards of light spearing outward toward him. They would come for her as soon as the sun disappeared. They would come, and they would feast, and it would be over. There would be no way for any of the insane prophecies to come true. The Lilith would take no more innocent newborns; she would steal into no man’s dreams and take his very breath.
    And she would never marry the king of the fallen angels and rule over a hell on earth.
    That particular prophecy had been scorched into his brain since the beginning of time. He had no idea who had existed longer, the Lilith or the Fallen, but they were both from before time was measured. The harsh judge who’d cast out Azazel’s kind and cursed them was the same who’d cursed the first