Sins of the Warrior

• Prologue
  
• Chapter 1
  
• Chapter 2
  
• Chapter 3
  
• Chapter 4
  
• Chapter 5
  
• Chapter 6
  
• Chapter 7
  
• Chapter 8
  
• Chapter 9
  
• Chapter 10
  
• Chapter 11
  
• Chapter 12
  
• Chapter 13
  
• Chapter 14
  
• Chapter 15
  
• Chapter 16
  
• Chapter 17
  
• Chapter 18
  
• Chapter 19
  
• Chapter 20
  
• Chapter 21
  
• Chapter 22
  
• Chapter 23
  
• Chapter 24
  
• Chapter 25
  
• Chapter 26
  
• Chapter 27
  
• Chapter 28
  
• Chapter 29
  
• Chapter 30       
  
• Chapter 31
  
• Chapter 32
  
• Chapter 33
  
• Chapter 34       
  
• Chapter 35
  
• Chapter 36
  
• Chapter 37
  
• Chapter 38
  
• Chapter 39
  
• Chapter 40
  
• Chapter 41
  
• Chapter 42
  
• Chapter 43
  
• Chapter 44
  
• Chapter 45
  
• Chapter 46
  
• Chapter 47
  
• Chapter 48
  
• Chapter 49
  
• Chapter 50
  
• Chapter 51
  
• Chapter 52
  
• Chapter 53
  
• Chapter 54
  
• Chapter 55
  
• Chapter 56
  
• Chapter 57
  
• Chapter 58
  
• Chapter 59
  
• Chapter 60
  
• Chapter 61
  
• Chapter 62
  
• Chapter 63
  
• Chapter 64
  
• Chapter 65
  
• Epilogue
  

For Pat…always

Acknowledgements

This book marks the final chapter in the Grigori Legacy series. It’s been a long road getting it to publication, fraught with construction detours, monstrous potholes, and countless other hazards, and frankly, I couldn’t have managed it without the unflagging support and navigation skills of the many people who never stopped believing in me.

Marie Bilodeau, my wacky and wonderful partner in brainstorming both writing and business solutions—thank you for listening to me whine and moan, for sharing in my successes, and for refusing to accept my excuses when I wanted to give up. You set a shining example for me, and I can never thank you enough.

Laura Paquet, my incredibly patient copy editor who accepted multiple schedule changes at my end and then pulled out all the stops at
her
end to give me the turnaround time I needed.

Lynsey from Designs by Lynsey, my cover artist who continues to amaze me with her sheer brilliance at giving me exactly what I want even when I don’t know what that is.

My long-suffering husband and daughter, who surely must get tired of boxed pizza when I’m on deadline but never complain (and even make
that
themselves).

My beta readers: Shawna, Karen, Lori, Amy, Reanna, Stephanie, Sharon, and Ceri. Thank you
so
much for working around my timeline, and for your insight and feedback. Your comments made the story so much stronger.

And finally, you, my readers. Thank you for your patience in waiting for this book, and for your gentle reminders that you
were
still waiting. Your nudges spurred me to finish Alex’s story and to give you the closure we all needed. I hope you enjoy!

Five thousand years ago

Emmanuelle stared at the Archangel steps away from her. Massive black wings rose above his head, half-extended against the riotous pink backdrop of the rose garden, their rigidity the only sign her words had had any impact on him. She sure as Hell couldn’t tell from the granite of his face.

“That’s your decision, then,” Mika’el said, his voice as flat as the emerald eyes watching her. “You’re running away.”

Her chin shot up. “I’m choosing not to be a part of my parents’ game anymore,” she corrected. “We’ve been at war with my father for almost a thousand years now, and a piece of parchment isn’t going to stop that. Neither will making my brother into a pawn. As long as the One and Lucifer remain unchanged, their very nature makes peace impossible. My father won’t back down, and the One won’t do what’s necessary to stop him. Theirs is a struggle without end.”

“And so we should all stop trying?” His voice went cold. “Give up? Pretend we’re not part of it?”

She laughed at that. Harshly. “You really don’t get it, do you? I’m
not
part of it, Mika’el. From the day I was born and it turned out I wasn’t enough of a gift for my father after all, I haven’t
been
part of it. A handful of obscure Virtues raised me, and my mother pays more attention to this damned rose garden than she ever did to me. I’m not part of anything here, and I don’t want be.”

“You think she doesn’t love you, but she does. All of Heaven does.”

“Including you?”

Hands in his pockets, Mika’el paced the perimeter of the little rose garden with long strides, his wings brushing the blooms. Pink petals drifted to the ground in his wake. His jaw grew harder with every step. When he stopped to face her, the width of the garden stood between them.

“You are my soulmate, Emmanuelle,” he said heavily. “What you and I share has always been a gift. But it’s not a calling.”

Ice speared a corner of her heart and slowly spread to fill it. She swallowed against the universe of hurt waiting for her. A universe she would endure alone.

“That’s your decision, then?” She echoed his words, but as a question she wanted—needed—him to refute. “You’re staying?”

“You couldn’t seriously have imagined otherwise.”

“I had hoped you would choose…” She trailed off, unable to finish.

His lips tightened. “You hoped I would choose you?”

She flinched from the accusation in his voice. From the idea that he thought her selfish. “No, Mika’el. Us. I hoped you’d choose us.”

For a moment, he hesitated.

For a moment, she hoped.

And then the great black wings sagged, trailing against the gravel path.

“I am her warrior, Emmanuelle. She needs me.”

Anger surged in her. Helpless. Impotent. Agonizing. She wrapped her arms over her belly, anchoring them there, holding herself together. Oh, how she ached to go to him. To bury her head against his chest and feel his arms go around her. To be one with him again.

Mika’el sighed. “She needs you, too. More than you know. More than she knows. If you leave—”

“Whether I leave or stay makes no difference. Unless my mother grows a spine, my parents will continue gouging out bits of one another until they destroy themselves. And they’ll take all of Heaven with them, Mika’el. They’ll take
you
with them. I won’t stay to watch that happen.”

Fierce emerald eyes fastened on hers, their pain reaching inside her to wrap around her lungs, her heart.

“Choices have consequences, Emmanuelle,” Mika’el said. “Are you sure this one is how you wish to define yourself?”

“I’ve made my decision.”

For a long, silent moment, he stared over her head, the flint of his face edging its way into his eyes. Then his gaze returned to hers.

“So be it,” he said, and turning from her, he lifted from the rose garden on his great black wings.

ALEXANDRA JARVIS JAMMED HER
hands into the pockets of her coat and leaned against the rough brick wall, hunching her shoulders against the bite of wind-driven snow. Steps away, a jumble of train tracks crisscrossed, stretching east and west under the thin glow of lights lining the narrow rail yard that ran through Toronto’s heart. A mesh of metal designed to carry things into and out of the city.

Things, maybe, like her niece, who had only six days to live.

“You holding up okay?”

Alex started at the voice. Damn, she was getting sloppy. She hadn’t heard a sound as Raymond Joly approached. She shrugged.

“As well as I can,” she replied. “Anything yet?”

The other homicide detective shook his head.

He turned his gaze toward the railway tracks. Together they watched the massive black German shepherd casting about for a scent halfway across the steel network. Its chances of finding one diminished with every passing minute, every snowflake that fell, every bitter gust of wind.

Alex burrowed more deeply into her scarf.

Joly squeezed her shoulder. “Hey. We’ll find her.”

“You don’t believe that and neither do I.” She looked sideways at her colleague, who had miniature icicles clinging to his handlebar mustache. “I’m running out of time, Ray. We’ve been chasing sightings all over the city for almost two weeks. This is the only place the dogs have caught a scent. If she managed to get onto one of the trains—”

The dog’s handler gave a shout and Alex’s head snapped around. Nose a few inches above the ground, the dog headed diagonally across the tracks toward the west, moving with new purpose. Alex straightened up from the wall. Everything in her screamed with the need to follow, but she made herself stay. Terrain like this didn’t hold a scent well to begin with, especially in this weather. Another person walking around out there would only confuse things.

She blinked snow from her lashes. The police dog stopped, lifted its head, tested the air with its nose, and swung left. In the concrete wall lining the yard, almost straight across from Alex and barely visible through the snow, stood the door to a utility access. It was mostly closed. But not entirely. The dog’s ruff stood up along its neck and shoulders, and a warning, deep, low, and guttural, rumbled from its throat. Alex’s heart smashed into her ribs.

Nina?

The dog gave a sudden yip and bolted—not toward the door it had indicated, but away, further down the snow-covered tracks, until it hit the end of the lead still held firm by its handler. Then it cowered, tail between its legs and the whites of its eyes visible in the beam of the flashlight Joly shone toward it.

“What the hell?” Joly muttered.

The dog handler barked a command, but the dog only sank lower. The hairs on the back of Alex’s neck prickled. No police-trained dog ever backed down from a threat. Ever. She’d seen them go up against people with knives, guns, baseball bats…

Oh, fuck
.

“It’s one of them,” she said harshly. “Call everyone off. Get them out of here.”

Joly looked blank. “What? One of who?”

“
Them
, Ray.” She had to make herself meet his gaze. To force the words past lips that were frozen but not from the cold. “The Fallen.”

Joly’s hand went to the gun at his side. Alex tugged her own hand from her pocket and grabbed his.

“Guns won’t—”

On the other side of the tracks, the utility door crashed open, slamming into the concrete wall beside it. The snow fell faster and thicker now, muffling the thud. A hulking figure emerged. It ducked under the door header and stepped into a pool of light.

Huge. Male. Winged.

And carrying a very pregnant Nina in his arms.

Alex inhaled sharply. Beneath her hand, Joly’s fingers closed over the handgrip of his weapon.

“Don’t,” she croaked. “You can’t.”

“Listen to her, mortal.” The Fallen One’s rumble rivaled the earlier one of the dog. His gaze swept their small assembly: the dog handler on his right, backing slowly away to join his cowering animal; the handful of uniformed officers down the track to his left, standing in an uncertain half circle, guns drawn but still at their sides; Joly and Alex across from him. His focus settled on Alex. Narrowed. His head tipped to the side.

Alex stood rigid beneath his scrutiny. Did he know? Could he tell what Seth had done to her, what he’d made her?

Would it matter?

“I have no bone to pick with any of your companions,” he said. “But you…you are persistent. Three times I’ve had to move the Naphil because of your efforts.”

They’d come close that many times? Alex shook off the agony in the thought. Tried not to stare at the fragile, unconscious bundle in the Fallen One’s arms or to see the pallor of Nina’s face.

Tried, desperately, to be a cop and not an aunt.