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"Well?" Sarah demanded the second she couldn't stand the quiet any longer.

"He's not dying." Jace didn't look up. He was too busy to do anything that made Abraxos's whole body go rigid beneath her hands. "But your bond's doing half my job for me right now, and that's the problem. He's pouring grace through it faster than he can spare. Every ounce he sends you, he's stealing straight from an already low tank."

"He's giving it to me instead of keeping it for himself." Sarah's stomach dropped somewhere around her boots. That tracked. Self-sacrificing idiot was basically his whole personality. And what she loved so much about him.

"Pretty much." Jace's jaw ticked as his power continued flowing into Abraxos. "I can't cut that off without cutting the bond, which is not something I would ever do unless your lives depended on it. Right now, both of you have enough left to survive."

"You can't cut us apart." The words came out sharper than Sarah intended. Abraxos's eyes cracked open at the sound of her panic. They were glassy, but tracking her as if her voice were the one thing that could bring him back.

"Wasn't planning on it." Jace's mouth curved into a grim expression. "I'm just telling you to figure out how to share a tank before you run him dry. The bond isn’t fully formed, so it’s not supporting him the way I would normally see. That's a you problem, not a me problem."

Abraxos's fingers tightened around hers. His grip was weak but stubborn as hell. He refused to let go, even with half his blood on the floor. "You need to rest and recover from your magic expenditure," he told her in a voice wrecked to gravel. "Not standing over me like this."

Sarah rolled her eyes and let go of the breath she was holding. "You took a Titan's claws meant for me, Sparky. Rest isn't exactly on my agenda tonight."

"Should be." He tried to push up on one elbow before Jace's palm landed flat on his sternum, shoving him right back down without so much as an apology.

"Both of you should be," Jace agreed. "Neither of you is doing that because you’re too worried about each other. I swear, every angel in this house treats my orders as if they’re a suggestion instead of an order."

The healer tipped his chin toward Sarah without breaking focus on the wound. "Her hands are shaking. Somebody get her water before I've got two patients instead of one."

Izzy was through the door before Sarah could argue that she was fine. Honestly, the word that had stopped meaning anything days ago. Donovan crossed to the foot of the table and joined them. “At least you managed to seal the tear," he told her. She appreciated the distraction.

"I did seal it. Thanks to the bond Abraxos initiated. I wouldn’t have been able to do it otherwise." Sarah kept her hand wrapped around Abraxos's. Her thumb traced slow circles over his knuckles while her other hand traveled to the fresh wrap of bandages across his side. The tension in her chest eased when she noted there was no blood on the white cotton.

"That's not how it looked from where I was standing." A muscle worked in Donovan's jaw, tight and unhappy. "Walk me through it. What did it feel like right before he grabbed you?"

"Like hitting the bottom of a well that's already empty." Sarah looked down at the black mark on her palm. It had gone dull. She fought the urge to lift her hand to the mark Abraxos left on her neck. She could feel it rising as the seconds passed. "I had maybe two more seconds in me. He gave me his grace, and it was as if somebody opened the flood gates."

"Hmmm. The bond's not backup." Donovan's mouth flattened, the pieces clearly clicking into place behind his eyes. "It's a bridge to get you past your ceiling."

"That's what it looked like to me, too," Izzy added as she breezed back through the doorway with a water bottle. She crossed the room without breaking stride and pressed the bottle into Sarah's free fingers before dropping into the chair against the wall. It was almost as if her legs had finally clocked out for the night. Something I never thought I’d see with the vampire princess.

"Which means Ithuriel wasn't being cryptic when he told you to lean on your mate. He was giving you instructions," Izzy continued.

"Those instructions cost Abraxos a broken wing and half his blood supply." Sarah looked at Abraxos, who had the nerve to look pleased with himself despite his state. "That's like getting a bill I don't know how to pay."

"You don't pay it." Abraxos's voice came out rough, but there wasn't a shred of give in it. "There is no need to keep score on what this bond takes out of me, Sarah. You'll lose that argument every single time, so don’t bother fighting me on it. I'd happily bleed out on those stones before I let you burn alone. I would give everything to save you."

She made an angry face at the same time her insides melted. "That's not comforting. That's terrifying."

"Good," he told her. "Terrified means you understand what's at stake. I'll take terrified and honest over brave and lying to both of us."

"As much as I love a good declaration of devotion over a medical table," Izzy cut in, "we've got a bigger problem than whether Sparky's blood pressure can handle being mated to a woman who treats danger like a hobby."

"Do tell." Sarah latched onto the change of subject like a lifeline. She was grateful for anything with edges that weren't aimed straight at her chest. They’d figure out this whole mating thing, but she needed to wrap her head around what it meant for her, and that was not something she could do sleep-deprived to the degree she was at the moment.

"The lieutenant told Micah we had two days. That clock started the night the flensers hit this house." Izzy leaned forward, elbows on her knees. "Which means we have until roughly dawn tomorrow before Lucifer stops waiting for an answer. Somebody explain to me why he had a Titan waiting under Angel's Alley tonight. Hours ahead of schedule. It was in the exact spot we only decided to scout after your mother's dream this afternoon."

"Maybe he's just impatient." Sarah offered it up even though it didn't feel quite right.

"That doesn't explain how he opened a hole right over a Titan to attack us at the right time." Donovan shook his head and leaned back against the wall next to the table. "If he were impatient, he’d throw more demons at whatever door's closest. What he did tonight took planning. He knew where to open it before we knew where we were going."

Sarah's stomach dropped somewhere around her boots. "You're saying he moved before we even finished choosing the location. He has to have a seer."

"That's not what I was thinking. He made his move the second we picked where we were going. He's got to be watching us or something." Donovan's expression had gone grim. "He isn't waiting for a countdown. He's reacting to us."

The word leak hung over the table without anyone saying we had one outright. It didn’t seem possible that any of the warriors or angels were sharing information with Lucifer. The black mark on Sarah's palm throbbed as if it had heard the accusation and wanted to add its two cents.