And as before, I couldn’t stop it; I couldn’t control it. My body filled up with heat and light and it exploded out of me in a supernova, and I had no time to think or to worry about Gabriel because I fell away into the darkness.

13

“MADELINE. MADELINE.”

Someone was calling me. I floated in water and darkness, and I was tired, and I wanted to sleep, and someone kept calling me, telling me to wake up. There were hands on my shoulders, strong hands that held tight, tight enough to hurt. I feebly tried to push them off, but they only shook more insistently.

“Madeline, open your eyes and look at me,” he said.

“Go ’way,” I mumbled. “Sleep.”

“No, do not sleep,” he said, and his voice was a command, and the command pissed me off. I opened my eyes to tell him so, and saw Gabriel’s anxious face.

“Stop looming,” I said crossly, and he released me instantly, the relief in his eyes palpable.

“Thank the gods you are all right,” he said.

“What happened?” I asked. “How come I’ve been knocked out again?”

“You do not remember?” he asked carefully.

Images started to filter back—Gabriel’s hands, Gabriel’s mouth—and I felt my face redden. I sat up, and immediately felt dizzy. Black spots danced in front of my eyes.

“What do you need?” he asked immediately.

The question was entirely innocent, but our recent activities made it seem very suggestive to me. I wondered vaguely if everyone felt this stupid and awkward after they made out for the first time.

“Umm, some water,” I said.

He got up and went into the kitchen, and more memories trickled back, and then I remembered the explosion. I shot to my feet, then swayed and grabbed the doorknob so I didn’t slide to the floor again.

Gabriel came back in with a glass of water and saw me hanging on to the wall for dear life. “Gods above and below. You are as white as chalk.”

He placed the glass on the table and rushed to my side, lifting me easily. He laid me on the couch and would have pulled away, but I grasped his hand and pressed it.

“You aren’t hurt?” I asked urgently. My eyes roamed all over him, looking for signs that his skin had been blasted off like Ramuell’s. But he looked as perfect as ever.

“I am unhurt,” he said, and to my surprise the tips of his ears turned pink.

I looked at him questioningly. “What happened? How come the starburst didn’t mince you up the way it did Ramuell?”

“I do not know why your power behaved that way, or why it harmed Ramuell and not myself,” he said. “I have never seen a manifestation like that before.”

“But something happened to you,” I guessed.

“Yes, well, I imagine it was due to the nature of our activities at the time,” he said, turning his face away.

I had never seen him less than perfectly composed, and that in itself was so distracting that it took me a minute to put two and two together.

“It felt good, didn’t it?” I guessed.

“Yes,” he said, barely opening his lips.

“How good?” I pressed.

“Very good,” he almost whispered. I was surprised to see a bit of red creep up his cheeks.

I gave out a bark of laughter. “So Ramuell gets roasted alive, I get a hangover, and you get a happy. There is something very unfair in this equation, and I’m pretty sure it’s unfair to me.”

Gabriel stiffened for a moment, and then some of the tension went out of him and he laughed. He kissed my forehead gently. “I think the issue to address is the source of this power. It seems to manifest itself at unexpected moments.”

“And, apparently, it has varied effects,” I said.

“Most important, it appears to exhaust you completely afterward, which is dangerous. If this power burst out of you while you were in combat with Ramuell or Antares, you would be left vulnerable to an attack.”

“Assuming that the power didn’t blast them off the face of the Earth,” I pointed out.

“I am not certain that we can count on that happening,” he said. “Obviously, your power affected me differently from Ramuell. The next time, it may do something else entirely.”

A sudden thought occurred to me. “Just tell me that Beezle slept through this.”

“I have not seen the gargoyle,” Gabriel said.

“Good,” I said. “Because I don’t want to hear any lectures right now.”

“Lectures?” His right eyebrow quirked up.

“Beezle thinks that it’s dangerous for me to . . . involve myself with you.” I watched his face carefully as I said this, and my heart sank when he turned grim.

“The gargoyle is correct,” he said. “It is very dangerous for you, which is why this must never happen again.”

“I don’t understand,” I said, and I cursed the plaintive note in my voice. Why did he make me feel this way?

“For us to be involved, as you put it, would threaten your life and mine. Lord Azazel would not thank me for putting his beloved daughter’s life in peril.”

“But you haven’t explained why,” I said. I wanted to cry out in frustration or to beg him not to say these things, and I thought that attraction was a terrible thing if it made you so vulnerable.

“Maddy, no matter how much I may want you,” he said steadily, “it cannot be. We cannot be.”