As my gaze returned to the terror-stricken eyes of the reaper I had pinned, I became aware that something was very wrong. He grappled at my hand, pulled at my fingers clamped around his throat, and I barely felt anything. Reapers were stronger than that—even the weaker ones. I drew in a sharp breath and released him, stepping back and letting him crumple to the floor.

“They’re human,” I called, waving my arms to the angelic reapers. “They’re human! Stop! Don’t kill them! They’re human!”

A bullet struck my shoulder. It was a pain unlike anything I’d ever felt before, like a major-leaguer swinging a baseball bat into my body at full strength. The force swung me off my feet and my back hit the floor, knocking the air from my lungs. The bullet lodged in my shoulder hurt so bad I couldn’t breathe, and I could feel the heat from my blood seeping from my wound. Will crouched over me, shouting, but I couldn’t hear his voice at first over the heavy thudding of my pulse in my ears as the blood ran out of me. The tissue and muscles trying to heal and right themselves inside me was probably even more agonizing than the initial hit itself. I could feel my body pushing the bullet toward the surface, but what should have been relief was only the blinding sensation of a power drill grinding through my shoulder.

Cadan’s face appeared in my blurry vision and a wave of relief crashed over me at seeing him alive. “Oh, God,” he murmured fearfully. “Did she get shot? Can she heal from this?”

“I don’t know,” Will admitted, the terror in his bright green eyes obvious. “I have no idea. Ellie, please stay with me. Please, don’t go. Please.”

I did my best to give him a nod and tried not to move anymore until I felt the bullet surface through my skin and plink to the floor. Once the wound had closed and the pain began to dull, I weakly sat up with Will’s and Cadan’s help, grimacing in pain. “Wow, that hurt,” I grumbled, clutching my shoulder.

“Are you okay?” Cadan asked as he stared at me in disbelief.

“Yeah,” I grunted. “Give me a sec.” It was still hard to breathe. The deeper tissue trauma the bullet must have caused seemed to take longer to heal. Until then, it would hurt like hell. “You didn’t kill the one who shot me, did you?”

“No,” Will said, sounding disappointed with himself. “I was more worried about you than with taking off his head.”

I sighed with reprieve. “Good. The guards are humans, not reapers. Tell the others to stop fighting.”

“Stand down!” A voice echoed from across the room.

Will and Cadan shot to their feet and I turned my head to see a man emerging through the crowd of armored humans. He was tall, dressed in a suit, and looked to be a little older than my dad had been, with sharp features, and his sandy-blond hair was trimmed neatly. His eyes, a dusty hazel beneath a light brow, surveyed the scene and then glued firmly to mine. His lips, soft but thin, carried a curve of amusement, and the wrinkles in both corners of his mouth told me he was fighting what could have been a smile.

“We wouldn’t have had all this trouble if you hadn’t sent in a demonic reaper first,” the man said in an English accent. “When did you start working with Hellspawn, Preliator?”

Will vanished and reappeared with his fist tightening around the man’s collar and lifting him off the floor. The guards’ rifles raised and clicked into position. “Who are you?” Will snarled, lifting the man higher.

“Don’t fire,” the man shouted to his guards. “Set me down, Guardian, and we can work this out like civilized creatures.”

“Tell me who you are first!”

“Stone,” the man said finally. “Ethan Stone. Now, if you’ll kindly—”

Will dropped him and the man crumpled to the floor with a grunt. “Okay, Ethan Stone, how do you know who we are?”

Stone picked himself up and brushed the dust from his suit, giving Will a cocky grin. “I didn’t need to summon any telepathic talents to tell the obvious once I got a look at you. Again, all of this could have been avoided if you’d simply knocked on the door instead of sending in a demonic reaper. That was asking for a mess of trouble.”

I took a painful step toward Stone and put my hand protectively on Cadan’s arm. “He’s my friend and brother to my Guardian.”

Stone’s hazel eyes brimmed with surprise. “That certainly wasn’t the response I’d anticipated. Not only friend, but brother?”

“Long story,” Cadan replied. “Very scandalous.”

“We aren’t here to chat,” Will said as Ava and Marcus stepped close to either side of him. “We’ve come to take back what you’ve stolen.”

“Yes, yes,” Stone said tiredly, waving a dismissive hand. “I know this already. You want the angelic reaper’s copy of the Lord of the West’s grimoire. I knew you were coming.”

“If you knew we were coming, then why open fire on us?” I asked, confused.

“Like I said,” Ethan Stone replied, “I wasn’t expecting the demonic reaper. My men were only defending—and unfortunately destroying—my property from what they were trained to fight against.”

“You’re a psychic, aren’t you?”

He shrugged. “In a manner of speaking.”

“Then you understand why we need that book,” I said. “I don’t want to take it by force. If you know who I am then you know that I only want to stop the Fallen.”