Mists of Velvet

happen.”
    “The flame and the amulet will be found, and none of that will matter.”
    “When was it you discovered you needed Covetina’s amulet, Cailleach? Was it after you fed her to Uriel, or was it later, when her child—Uriel’s—told you?”
    “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    He reached for her, pressing his long, tall body against hers. “You sacrificed Covetina, and then you stole her child.”
    Her body stilled, and Cailleach looked up into Suriel’s face. “She betrayed me. It was against our laws. Our order.”
    “Because she slept with an angel—or because she slept with the angel you wanted?”
    To hear the truth from Suriel was more than Cailleach could bear.
    “You took her child from her. You assumed that with the combined powers of Covetina and Uriel, the child would be of use to you. Either that, or you feared the child might have skill in the Dark Arts, and you wanted to make certain no one else could use her against you.”
    She shook her head, denying it all, but Suriel smiled, enjoying her discomfort. “But what you didn’t know was that Covetina had borne Camael’s babe. In secret, of course, before you banished her.”
    No . Cailleach felt her expression freeze in horror. No, it couldn’t be.
    “I didn’t know, and I certainly did not take Camael and Covetina’s child.”
    “No,” Suriel said with a dark smile. “I did. But he’ll believe me when I say it was you.”
    Cailleach sagged against the stone wall as Suriel looked down at her. “The child has lived and died a hundred times in the mortal realm, and each time her soul is transmigrated to another living being, I watch over it, protecting what is mine—what you need. Do you know whose body Camael’s and Covetina’s daughter claims?” Cailleach shook her head, her mind reeling with the implications that the amulet might be forever out of her reach.
    Suriel bent lower and pressed his lips against her ear. “Rowan.”
    Cailleach stiffened beneath him. “Why?” she asked, still puzzled that Suriel had even known about Camael and Covetina. She had thought him too busy pursuing his own pleasures to take any interest in what she or the others were doing. “Why did you take their child, and into the mortal realm?”
    “To have my revenge on you, of course,” he whispered darkly in her ear. “When you spurned me as a lover, you made an enemy of me, Goddess. I knew that Covetina had given the child her amulet, enchanting it so that it would always follow the child’s soul. And I knew that one day, you would need that amulet. That’s why I wished to possess it—to keep it from you.”
    “You bastard!” she snarled. “You would ruin my world—and all the innocents of Annwyn—because I would not mate with you?”
    “Why not? You ruined mine. I left heaven because of you. Because I wanted so desperately to taste your flesh. But that was a thousand years ago, and I no longer lust for this body.” His hand moved insolently along her curves, touching, pressing. “It holds no more allure for me. I no longer think about what it would be like to sink myself inside you, or what you would look like sated and languid, your high-and-mighty Supreme Goddess sneer wiped away with my kiss. No, that has all been replaced by my vision of destroying you.”
    “You have no powers here,” she hissed. “Your threats are empty.”
    “True, I don’t. But I have power over the mortal who is destined to make rise to the prophecy. You can have no idea what power she holds. I can make her obliterate your beloved Annwyn. I can make her walk the path of my choosing.”
    “How?”
    “Because I am the most commanding angel on Earth. Because I have the power to bring death or resurrection. Because I know what her fate is.”
    “That is why Gabriel wants you,” she whispered. Finally, everything was coming together. “Gabriel wants the knowledge you possess.”
    “Gabriel won’t get it. And neither will you.”
    Cailleach narrowed her eyes. “What is it you want from me?”
    With a smile he pushed away from her. Darkness engulfed him, and he stepped back into the shadows. “I’ll let you worry about that for a while longer. Think on all the frightening possibilities, Goddess, and then make your thoughts a hundred times worse. That’s what I want from you.”
    The shadow swallowed him up entirely, and then he was gone, leaving Cailleach alone, and for the first time ever, truly frightened. Sliding down