From long habit he started to pull gently away – and then stopped. For the last year or so, the sense of his half-angel girl had grown so strong that Seb had stopped having even flings with human girls; it had felt like he was betraying her. But she wasn’t real, she never had been – he had to get that through his head. Since giving up his search he’d been even lonelier than usual; achingly aware that he was the only one of his kind. This girl didn’t want a relationship with him, so why not? She obviously liked him – and it had been so, so long.

As if in response, he caught the sense of his half-angel girl again, like a whiff of perfume floating past. Seb’s jaw tightened. Why couldn’t she just leave him in peace, instead of taunting him with what he could never have?

He didn’t pull away. After a moment he felt Lucy’s hand slide down his arm and find his. “Maybe you can give me a psychic reading later,” she said softly, under cover of the sound of a mariachi band that had just started up.

Seb took in the clear invitation in her eyes. No human girl could ever give him the true companionship he craved; he knew that. This, right here, was the most he could ever have – and he’d take it, because he wasn’t saint enough to spend the rest of his life alone, never even feeling the warmth of someone’s touch.

Fighting the wistfulness he felt, he pushed the beautiful phantom out of his mind and let his fingers close around Lucy’s. “Are you sure?” he said. “I’ll find out all your secrets.”

“Promise?” She smiled, and flipped her ponytail back. She said something else, but he didn’t hear what it was; in a sudden flash, a blinding white figure had come into view overhead. There was an angel cruising over the crowded stalls. Its wings burned in the late afternoon sunlight as it glided, gazing down at the shoppers.

Reflexively, Seb shifted his aura to the dullest colours he could think of, making it look stunted, unappetizing. He’d fought an angel only once before; he had no desire to ever do it again. “Come on, let’s go this way,” he said, pulling at Lucy’s hand. Amanda was lagging behind looking at jewellery; he took her arm too. “Come, there’s a stall over here I want to show you.”

“Hey!” protested Amanda as he dragged her off. “I was going to buy that.”

“No, don’t bother,” he said. “This stand’s better, I promise.”