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"Tell us everything," I urged, my voice rough with emotion. "Don't leave anything out."

As Sierra spoke—describing the garden, the stone bench, Azrael's revelation and warnings—I felt my control slipping. The shadows that lived at my command began to respond to my tumultuous emotions, curling around Sierra and me like protective tentacles. They twisted and coiled in the air, deepening the darkness in corners of the room, manifesting my inner turmoil.

I didn't try to rein them in. Let them show what I felt—this mixture of fear, protectiveness, and something deeper I couldn't quite name. I tightened my arms around Sierra, one hand stroking her silver hair—silver like her grandfather's. How had we not seen it before?

When she mentioned her true heat would come on her twenty-ninth birthday, just ten days away, I felt my blood run cold. The implications struck me like a physical blow.

Sierra finished speaking, her body soft but tense against mine. The room fell into silence, broken only by the sound of our breathing and the subtle crackling as my shadows twisted through the air.

Finally, Archer took a step forward, his eyes blazing with sudden understanding.

"It's you," he said, his voice ragged with revelation. "Not me." He shook his head, a bitter laugh escaping him. "All this time, I thought I was the key to forging Lightbringer. But it's not me, it's you, Sierra."

Rowen's head snapped toward him. "Explain."

"The ancient text," Archer continued, his words coming faster now. "'When shadow meets starlight, when heaven's blood mingles with earth's essence, the true nature shall be revealed.' It's not talking about my angel blood—it's talking about Sierra's. She's the heaven's blood. She's the key."

Sierra looked up at Archer, her eyes soft with something like sympathy. "I met your mother," she said quietly. "Lianna. She was there too, with Azrael. She's... she's lovely, Archer. Her eyes are just like yours."

Archer's expression faltered, raw emotion breaking through his usual controlled facade. He opened his mouth to respond, but before he could speak, Sierra suddenly doubled over in my lap, a pained cry escaping her lips.

"Fuck!" she gasped, curling in on herself. "Oh god. That one was bad."

I held her tighter, my shadows responding instantly, wrapping around her like a protective cocoon. I stroked her hair back from her face, leaning close to whisper in her ear.

"I've got you," I murmured, keeping my voice steady despite the panic rising in my chest. "Breathe through it. We're all here."

Rowen and Archer moved closer immediately, both radiating concern. Rowen's tail was now completely still, a sign of his intense focus. Archer's hand hovered over Sierra's back, uncertain whether his touch would help or hurt.

"It's getting worse," Sierra said through gritted teeth as the cramp began to subside. She leaned heavily against my chest, her forehead slick with sweat. "The dream, what Azrael and Lianna told me, it makes sense now. These aren't just regular cramps."

She looked up at all three of us, her eyes wide and slightly fearful. "What we experienced before, when we first met... that wasn't my true primal heat. It was just a... a preview. The real one is coming, when I turn twenty-nine. In ten days."

"Fuck," Archer cursed, running a hand through his dark hair. His usual composure had completely crumbled. "Of course. Angels hit their maturity on their twenty-ninth birthday. It's when their powers fully manifest." He looked at Sierra with new understanding. "If you're quarter angel, especially through the bloodline of someone as powerful as Azrael..."

"It's going to be bad, isn't it?" Sierra asked quietly.

I tightened my hold on her, my shadows pulsing around us both in response to my surging protectiveness.

"Your primal heat is coming," Archer confirmed, his voice grave. "And it's coming hard."

44

Archer

Ibraced my elbows on the library table, pressing the heels of my palms into my eye sockets until white stars burst behind my eyelids. The ancient text before me, a treatise on angelic bloodlines, swam with symbols I could barely decipher anymore. How long had I been at this? Hours? Days? The candles had burned down twice since I'd last noticed them.

My stomach cramped with hunger, a sensation I'd been ignoring for... fuck, I didn't even know how long. Food was an inconvenience. Sleep was worse—every time I closed my eyes, I saw Sierra writhing in pain, her silver hair, the same as Azrael's silver hair, how had I missed that?—splayed across the sheets as her body betrayed her.

I picked up my dagger and began twirling it through my fingers, the familiar motion bringing a small measure of calm to my chaotic thoughts. The repetitive movement had been my anchor since childhood, one of the few constants I'd had growing up in the Underworld.

Ten days. We had ten fucking days before Sierra's primal heat hit with its full force. And if what these texts suggested was accurate, a quarter-angel's first true heat was catastrophic. Potentially fatal without proper preparation.

I slammed the dagger down into the wooden table, where it stood quivering.

"Fuck!" I snarled into the empty library.

I yanked the blade free and resumed my desperate reading. The text described how nephilim, half-angels, experienced their maturation. The symptoms were eerily similar to what Sierra was already experiencing, but magnified a hundredfold. Fever that could boil blood. Pain that could shatter bones. Desire so intense it could drive the afflicted mad with need.