Her eyes closed for a moment. It seemed unlikely anyone could long retain their sanity in such conditions, but she would have to put her hands on him to determine absolutely whether his mind could be salvaged.

Taking a deep breath, Siobhán said, “Don’t be afraid. I won’t hurt you.”

The unique, compel ing resonance of her voice—one of her many angelic gifts—was irresistible to mortals. She heard the panicked beat of his heart slow and the raggedness of his breathing even out.

“What’s your name?” She approached him cautiously, as she would a feral beast. He couldn’t harm her, but she could hurt him if she was startled into defending herself against a perceived attack.

When he didn’t reply, she wondered if the ability to speak had been taken from him, either physical y or mentally.

“I’m going to touch you,” she warned, crouching beside him. She couldn’t see his face beneath a matted beard and dark hair that hung in a dirty curtain to his pectorals. His limbs were gaunt, his bones standing out in harsh relief beneath his paper-thin skin.

“Don’t be afraid,” she repeated.

Stil , despite the powerful compulsion embedded in her voice, he flinched at the barest touch of her fingers.

His memories slammed into her in a violent, churning deluge of impressions and emotions that rocked her back on her heels. She yanked her hand away and he caught her wrist so quickly she was shaken. She moved faster than mortals could track with their inferior eyes, but the connection to his recol ections had hit her so hard he’d taken her off guard.

His name was Trevor Descansos, and he’d once had the face and eyes of an angel.

“Please,” he rasped, in a voice that struck a chord deep inside her. “Kil me.”

That had been her intention. To be merciful and put him out of his misery. While his mind wasn’t broken, his soul was shattered. He was likely damaged beyond repair.

Even if she healed his body and wiped his memory, the devastation to his soul could be a lethal blow. He may never be the man he’d once been, a man who’d dedicated his life to saving the lives of others, both as a warrior and a healer. He might never again flash the dazzling smile she’d seen in his memories, never laugh his carefree laugh with his sister’s family, never charm another woman into experiencing the delights of his once beautiful body . . .

“Don’t leave me like this,” he said hoarsely. “Please . . . not like this.”

Abruptly, she knew she had to try to save him. She couldn’t give up on him without a fight. He’d already been thrown away and forgotten once. She couldn’t do it again.

“I won’t,” she promised. Moving careful y so as not to spook him, Siobhán gripped the shackle that chained his wrist and snapped it open with a tug—child’s play for a being of her strength. She did the same to the others: the one on his other wrist and the two on his ankles. “I’m going to pick you up, Trevor, and carry you out of here.”

His chest rose and fel in an elevated rhythm—the sound of hope too fragile to survive even the slightest blow.

“Can you lean into me, Trevor?” She deliberately used his name repeatedly to remind him of the man he’d once been, a man who would’ve done whatever it took to get out of this dank cel . “I don’t want to move too quickly and frighten you.”

It was a wise precaution. It took him several long minutes to gain the courage to lean toward her and rest his head weakly against her shoulder.

She summoned a blanket with a thought—another handy angelic gift—and wrapped him up with it. Then she lifted and carried him across the basement of horrors, up the stairs, through the house, and final y to the outside where the others waited.

“Burn it down,” she told Daniela, who stared at the pitiful figure she cradled close.

She stood on the lawn with Trevor’s arms draped around her neck, watching the house until the faint licking of flames visible through the broken windows expanded to engulf the entire façade. He whimpered and she realized the bright light after living a year in the darkness was excruciating to his eyes. Arching her wings over them, she shaded him, cocooning him from further harm.

His head lifted, pul ing away from her. Through a scraggly, greasy part in the curtain of his hair, she saw one bloodshot blue eye focused on her wings. Then his gaze rose to settle on her face.

“Angel,” he choked out, tears streaming down his face. “What took you so long?

Chapter 2

“Do you know what you’re doing, Siobhán?” Malachai asked as their plane taxied down the runway in preparation for takeoff.

“No,” she said honestly, because Sentinels never lied. They evaded and were selective with the truth, but they never lied outright. There were less than two hundred of them on earth, with orders to contain tens of thousands of vampires from spreading too far and wide. The Sentinels couldn’t afford to be anything less than completely honest with each other or they’d never survive their endless mission.

“I think he’s beyond saving.”

“Maybe I’l end up kil ing him,” she acknowledged, although she couldn’t bear the thought, “but I have to try to help him. He’s had Army Ranger training and he remained a reservist while prepping for med school. There’s a chance he’s strong enough to make it through this.”

The blond Sentinel nodded, but he looked wary and unconvinced. She didn’t blame him. Looking at what was left of Trevor Descansos, it was difficult to imagine any meaningful recovery was possible.

Siobhán went over to the huddled form in the back of the plane and studied the evenness of his breathing. She’d put him in a coma for his own safety. He was too fragile, both mental y and physical y, to take any sort of shock to his system.

Once she got him back to her laboratory in Ontario, California, she’d get his body strong first. Then she’d work on healing his mind. His old life was forever lost to him, but perhaps he could heal enough to work for Raguel Gadara, one of the seven earthbound archangels and a mogul whose secular businesses funded his celestial operations in North America. Then Trevor could live a mortal life, while unknowingly being under the protection of a powerful angel. It was no less than he deserved after all he’d suffered.

When they landed in Ontario, Siobhán carried Trevor into Mitchel Aeronautics’ private hangar at the airport, beneath which were the subterranean facilities where she housed her lab. For the last month, she’d lived underground, which was miserable for an angel. It was a blessing she was so engrossed in her work or she would’ve gone mad. She told herself that was one of the primary reasons why she was taking on the task of rehabilitating Trevor Descansos—she needed more distractions and chal enges.

She tried not to think about how he’d sobbed at his first sight of her or how many times he must’ve begged for deliverance before he’d been found. As an angelic being, the vagaries and extremes of human emotions were beyond her. She hadn’t been created with the heart that mortals had. She hadn’t been created to love or fear or mourn.

She was a Sentinel, the elite warrior caste of the seraphim, the most powerful of all the angels. Everything about her physical form was weaponized and her emotionless state was designed to reinforce that purpose. To feel such a depth of compassion was novel for her, a surprise for one who’d existed for so long that nothing was new or unknown to her.