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aligned with appetite, it was foolish to resist.
    Raziel cast the woman an enigmatic look. “We’re done,” he said. “Martha, you may show Cain his rooms, since you’re the only one who sleeps back there, and we’ll expect you both for dinner. We need to celebrate the return of our lost lamb.”
    In wolf’s clothing. It required no magic spells or ESP to know that that was exactly what had entered Martha’s mind while she was trying not to gnash her teeth over Raziel’s lack of discretion. Cain glanced at her, but she was back to refusing to look at him, and he wanted to laugh. Life wasn’t about to get any easier for Thomas’s widow, and if he were a kinder man, he’d regret the necessity of using her.
    But he wasn’t a kind man.
    Regret was a waste of time. If there was someone so surprisingly tempting to keep him busy, then he was more than happy to take her. She was going to serve him very well indeed.
    If only all decisions could be this easy, he thought, smiling at them all agreeably.

CHAPTER
FOUR
    F OR A DAY THAT HADN’T STARTED out particularly well, things had gone downhill in a truly spectacular fashion, and the very last thing I wanted to do was show how unnerved I was. This was my home, these were my people, and the dark angel who’d arrived in tongues of flame this morning was a threat to everyone and everything I cared about. I wasn’t going to let him hurt them.
    Absurd, of course. As if I could protect mighty warriors like Michael and Raziel from one man, one being, when they were far more capable of protecting themselves. I strode down the hallways as quickly as I dared, wanting to dump him in his room and escape.
    “Is this a race?” Cain’s liquid voice purred from behind me. “Because my legs are longer, and if things really get bad I can fly, so you’ll never outrun me.”
    I slowed down reluctantly and glanced over my shoulder, then jumped. He was much closer than I’d realized, watching me with amusement, as if he knew exactly what I was thinking. “Sorry,” I said briefly. “I have things to do.”
    “Of course you do, little one. I’m certain the Alpha’s request ranks far down on your list of priorities.”
    I slammed to a stop. I was surrounded by tall, graceful people, and my lack of height had always been a sore point with me. “Do not call me little one,” I said in a dangerous voice.
    His long lashes drooped over his intense eyes. “You are little,” he pointed out unnecessarily. “Why should the truth distress you?”
    I considered all the things I could possibly say and rejected every one of them. “I have things to do,” I said again, turning back. I could get past this. I could get past anything.
    The main house was a rabbit warren of rooms and balconies, a strange, cantilevered building that looked oddly like a bureau with its drawers left open. When Thomas had died I’d wanted nothing more than to hide away, and I’d left the rooms I’d shared with him for the annex, a section tucked between the main house and the cliff face behind it, well out of the mainstream of Fallen life. I’d been happily, peacefully alone there, content to grow old and diein blessed solitude. There were two more apartments back there, but I had foolishly assumed no one would ever want to stay so far away from the open camaraderie of the Fallen.
    I was unpleasantly aware that we hadn’t passed anyone at all in the last few minutes. By the time I reached the first of the apartment doors, I was almost running again, and I forced myself to an abrupt stop. “Here you go,” I said hurriedly, turning to leave.
    He blocked me. Easy enough to do—the halls were much narrower back here, and he was much bigger than I was. “Why the hurry? Didn’t Raziel tell you to get me settled, make me comfortable? Don’t you think you ought to make sure that I’m pleased with my rooms? I may need something.”
    “I don’t think Raziel cares whether you’re pleased with your rooms or