“That’s not an excuse for me to let my power control me. There’s no excuse for me hurting innocent people.”

“True, but we have to try and understand you,” he said thoughtfully. “You are a being of two worlds, Heaven and Earth. What you’re capable of could be limitless. It’s not a question of if you can control your energy. Your body is human and your power is archangel—the most powerful being ever created. Something conflicts. An archangel was never meant to live as a human girl.”

What he said was almost exactly what Michael had told me when I asked him why I lost myself to emotion and to my power. Maybe he and Cadan were right. “There’s something wrong with me.”

“No,” he said softly, reaching forward to slide his fingers along my jaw toward my chin. The gesture was soothing, and in the frigid cold, his hand was surprisingly warm. The cold never affected the reapers. “There’s nothing wrong with you. Through your lifetimes, your humanity has grown stronger. Your human passion is taking over your angelic heritage, and I don’t think it knows how to handle all that divine power. Once you understand and can balance the two sides of yourself, you will be unstoppable.”

I looked away from him. “If Bastian doesn’t find a way to destroy my soul first.”

“I’m sorry for what he has done to you,” Cadan said. “For everything that he’s done to you. I’m not sure if I’m strong enough to kill him, but for you, I’d try.”

“I wouldn’t ask you to.”

He let out a long breath. “But I feel responsible. I should’ve done something sooner,” he said earnestly. “I wish I’d known that you aren’t some awful thing who only destroys. Maybe this would all be different.”

“I don’t think Bastian would’ve listened to you if you had tried to reason with him. He’s out to kill me for good. He’s pretty dead set on it, actually, if you’ll pardon my morbid pun. God, I’m making fun of myself dying. I am so screwed up.”

He shook his head. “You don’t understand.”

“I do understand, Ca—”

“He’s my father.”

I stared at him, unsure of what I thought I’d just heard him say. “What?” was all I managed to articulate.

“Bastian,” Cadan said. “He’s my father.”

“Oh.”

He picked up my hand carefully and studied my skin, touching each of my fingers with a gentleness that entranced me. My fingers were feeling less numb from cold by the second. I couldn’t look away, though I knew I shouldn’t have let him touch me so much. But for some reason, he was comforting.

“I should have said something to you sooner,” he said. “I didn’t think if you knew that you’d trust me.”

I didn’t speak for some time and just sat there processing. “He would kill you for helping me?” I asked. “Even though he’s your father?”

“Of course.”

I looked up to meet his gaze. The fiery opal flecks in his eyes danced and glimmered, like sunlight hitting newly fallen snow. I didn’t understand how something so dark and wicked could create something so beautiful and kind. Cadan was by no means harmless, but he was gentle with me. I trusted him.

“I didn’t betray you,” he said. “I’d never betray you.”

“The guys in my life have too many secrets,” I said distantly.

He laughed and touched my cheek with the back of his hand. It seemed that he took any opportunity to touch me, and with the awful way I felt, I ached for any source of comfort. “Maybe you are just terribly imperceptive.”

“That could be it.” I laughed and wiped at a tear beneath my eye. “You boys are always confusing the hell out of me.”

Cadan smiled with the warmth of amusement and fondness. “I never thought you’d be like this.”

“Like what?”

“I hear stories of you,” he said, “of your violence and ruthlessness. But you’re just a girl—a very beautiful, vulnerable girl.”

Being called beautiful was one thing, but I couldn’t afford to be weak. “Thanks, but I’m not vulnerable.”

“You are,” he insisted softly. “And I think it may be part of the reason why I’m so drawn to you. I am utterly enthralled. You’re innocent, so unlike the beast you’re said to be. Ellie, you have this softness about you that I could never dream of damaging. It would be like stomping on a flower. What would be the point?”

I almost laughed. “The point? How about the fact that I kill the demonic? Why would you not want to destroy me?”

“You’ve never once tried to kill me.” His statement was matter-of-fact, as if he were telling me something as mundane as the weather.

“Why did you save me from Ivar?” I asked. “Why did you kill her when you’re supposed to be on the same side?”

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Because she would have gone back to Bastian and told him that I’d been to see you. He’s suspicious enough of me already.”

“But Ivar was in love with you,” I said. “I’m sure she would have stayed quiet if you’d asked her to.”

He shook his head. “No. She would’ve thought nothing of using me to look better in Bastian’s eyes. She never felt love for anything, least of all me.”