Crysis leans back in his seat, his brow furrowed. “Damn. So who is the real threat?”
“No one knows,” L breaks in. “Lilith was only instructed to keep tabs on us. She had…other…motivations for her dishonesty, but she thought she was saving our lives. However, we suspect the Seraph have something to do with it.”
“The Seraph?” Crysis’s stunned expression would have matched my own if I hadn’t learned the hard way: nothing is what it seems.
“They paid us a little visit shortly before Lucifer took her,” Legion explains, his lips tight.
“They were here? In Chicago?”
The look on Crysis’s face—a mix of shock and hurt—sends an unexpected pang of sympathy to my chest. I can see it in his eyes…the Seraph considered me important enough to come down to Earth for, yet his father could not be bothered. And while their motivations were most likely malicious, the fact that archangels—the most powerful beings in existence outside of God himself—still came means something is seriously up.
Crysis recovers in the next blink of an eye, and gets back to business. “You think they have a vested interest in Eden?”
Legion weighs his words on his tongue before answering. “Eden. Or…Adriel.”
Fucking-A.
Seriously? Again with this shit?
“Let them have her,” I seethe. “Shit, I don’t want her.”
“It’s not that easy, Eden. You can’t exorcise an angel. It has to be their choice. The only other way to force the process is to…” Legion gulps. “…kill you.”
And there it is again. Another way that Adriel has intruded on my life. Legion loved her. Lucifer wants to use her. And now, possibly, the Seraph want to extract her. At the risk of my demise, of course.
I’m grateful when Crysis pipes up with more questions, saving me from thoughts of Adriel, and the fact that the Seraph could possibly want me dead.
“This could explain why Lucifer hasn’t tried to get her back, right? He doesn’t want to risk pissing them off. But wasn’t he so adamant about protecting her? What now? She’s on her own?”
“I don’t know what motivates Lucifer to do the things that he does,” L shrugs. “He’s selfish—completely ruled by his desires. If this is a matter of self-preservation, he’ll save his own skin.”
“You think the Seraph would actually…hurt me?” I ask, my voice just above a whisper.
Legion turns to me, his gaze warm and earnest. “I would never let that happen. I swear to you, I will fight until my last breath on Earth to keep you safe, Eden. Even at the risk of my soul.”
He touches a hand to my cheek when Crysis snickers from the other side of the table. Legion’s expression instantly hardens when he turns back to face him.
“Awww, that’s sweet. Only one problem though: nothing can beat a Seraph.”
“Nothing but one of their own.” All eyes are on L as he continues. “I know the Seraphim; I was one. It’s true—they are indestructible. And outside of the Almighty, only one of their own can stop them.”
“But you can’t…” Legion going up against the Seraph terrifies me. But not only that. He can’t physically beat them. Not as he is now—only a fraction of himself. He holds the key to unleashing the full force of his power, but that could mean unleashing Hell on Earth. He wouldn’t be the archangel he once was. He would be Legion in all his horrifying glory.
He nods once, ensuring me that he shares my reservations. I don’t know how much Crysis knows—he could be picking this out of my head right now—but I’m not going to show our hand until we know for sure that he’s on our side.
“Can you do some poking around within the Alliance?” I ask him, earning a raised brow. I continue. “Maybe someone knows who’s behind the bombing, or maybe there’s a rogue agent acting alone. Anything would help.”
“Like I told you on the phone: the Alliance wouldn’t do something like this.” There’s a flare of irritation in his narrowed eyes.
Legion pipes up, “Well, fact of the matter is, Alliance tech was used. Whether you want to believe it or not, they’re involved. You’re involved.”
Crysis pinches the space between his eyes and huffs out an aggravated breath. “Fine. I’ll see what I can find. And if I do hear something, then what? What can be done? The Alliance of the Ordained is everywhere. We have numbers. Even if I went against them, we’d have what…eight? Nine, including Eden? That’s not enough to beat them, let alone Seraphim.”
“We might be able to get help from the warlocks,” Legion remarks.
Crysis spits out a curse and roughly rakes a hand through his blonde hair. “Shit. Warlocks? Oh, the Seraph would love that, considering they believe magic is an abomination. Warlocks have no allegiance to either side. How do you know you can trust them?”
“How do we know we can trust you?” Legion bites back. “Besides, I trust them. That’s enough.”
Crysis rolls his eyes before sipping his cold coffee. “Whatever. None are strong enough to beat a Seraph. You’re fallen. Even at full strength, you can’t beat them all. There’s one of you. And there’s…”
“Seven,” Legion finishes. “There once were seven of the Seraph. Now there are five.”
“Well, that’s four more than we have,” Crysis grumbles. “Four and a half, considering you’re only at 50%, demon.”
“Maybe not,” I offer, struggling to sound hopeful in a situation that’s wholly hopeless. “There’s one more fallen Seraph…”
“Hell no,” Legion growls.
“Are you fucking insane?” Crysis barks, mirroring L’s indignation.
“Just think about it… He’s in hiding because he doesn’t want to go up against them. However, if we were all working towards a common enemy, maybe we could temporarily put ancient feuds and biases aside. Then you all can go back to hating each other. Look at you two.” My gaze seesaws between Legion and Crysis. “Sworn enemies yet you’re willing to be civil until we get this shit figured out. Lucifer doesn’t want me dead—we all know that. And he doesn’t get off on hurting innocents. The people that died today? My sister? They’re innocent. And with everything going down, the real culprits knew all fingers would point to Lucifer. This could’ve been a set up by them.”
“But he has hurt innocent people,” Crysis urges. “The children killed at elementary schools at the hands of the Called are as innocent as it gets. Look at the rise in crime in Chicago alone. His hands are dirty, Eden.”
“But do you think he made the Called into killers?” I challenge, pressing my elbows onto the table and leaning forward. “Or were they already headed in that direction? I admit—he’s not completely blameless in those deaths, but those humans weren’t pure to begin with.”
Which is why he chose me.
Even without the Calling, I was prone to destruction. I had a hole in my heart. Had the Se7en not come along when they did, I would have eventually been another mass shooter. Or maybe a serial killer, seeking revenge. I can’t even imagine the damage I would have done had I let the pain and loneliness fester into uncontained rage.
“Absolutely not,” L states with an air of finality. “We don’t need him.”
I want to argue that we do, that Lucifer’s help could do a lot of good. Maybe even help them find some common ground for the good of the human world. But I know discussing this with Legion now, especially in front of Crysis, isn’t going to happen. And as much as I absolutely hate to admit it, my best bet might be going through Lilith.
“So what now?” Crysis asks, looking at his watch.
“Now, we turn over every stone for any clues that lead to the bombing,” Legion replies. “Now, we keep Eden out of the public eye, and protect her sister, Mary, until she’s stable enough for us to move her from ICU.”
“Move her where?” My gaze goes wide with alarm. Not another luxury building with a doorman. None of that will protect her now.
“I don’t know. Away from the hospital though. Somewhere she can get the medical ca
re she needs while she recovers, while being protected. Hopefully whoever was behind this attack thinks she didn’t make it—there’s complete chaos all over the city and it’s impossible to sift through all the carnage. Once we know she’s out of the woods, we’re getting her out of there.”
“I’ll do what I can to help too,” Crysis offers. “Our intel might have picked up something yours missed. We’ve got cameras and bugs set up throughout every hospital in the city. I could check for anyone overly interested in finding a specific victim.”
L nods. “Thank you.”
Those two words send a little blast of warmth to my chest. This is a good start. I know this doesn’t let me off the hook for lying, but at least Legion sees that Crysis’ intentions were somewhat honorable. This cease-fire could be more than a temporary truce.
“And the next time you try to get your filthy Nephilim hands on The Redeemer, I will take great pleasure in carving off every one of your fingers with it, before cutting your fucking head off.”
Legion stands and turns towards the door, leaving me with an amused looking Crysis.
“Um, I’ll talk to you later,” I stammer, before following after L.
Well, so much for that plan. I give them a week before blood is shed.
“You really think you can trust this motherfucker?”
I smile to myself and shake my head. Even though he isn’t firmly planted at his seat across from Legion, I can clearly picture Cain’s face, screwed in foul bitterness.
The remaining seven of us sit around the dining room table, mugs of coffee emanating with curls of fragrant steam in front of us. Cain is at the hospital. After Toyol and Phenex checked out the situation, and dropped off enough weapons and ammo to defend an entire city block, they raced back home to meet us. When Legion calls a family meeting, everyone attends, even if it is by speakerphone.
“We don’t really have a choice, now do we?” L states, loud enough for his booming baritone to be picked up over the receiver.
“Hell yes, we do!” Cain whispers harshly. I imagine him in Sister’s hospital room, phone pressed to his ear, shrewd gaze pinned on the doorframe. It’s well past midnight, but it doesn’t feel like it. That’s the problem when you run with beasts of the night. You lose all sense of time.
“Cain, the Nephilim agent can get us intel from inside the Alliance. Something we haven’t been able to achieve because of him. And the fact that he has some kind of attachment to Eden leads us to believe that his intentions are honorable. Betraying us would hurt her.”
I spare a glance at Legion, whose jaw is tight with distrust, maybe even a touch of jealousy. He doesn’t return my stare. I’ve apologized a dozen times, and while he claims he’s over it, that Crysis is not a threat to him, I can tell that his distrust isn’t solely reserved for the angel-human hybrid I had been regarding like a dirty little secret. He doesn’t fully trust me.
And I’ve earned that. I kept a secret that could have potentially put him and his family in danger. Maybe if I had been forthcoming from the start, we could have thwarted the attack on my sister. I don’t know how, considering we don’t even know who the hell is behind all this, but I could have done something. And that guilt—that unshakable sinking in my gut that physically makes me ill every time I think about my sister…scared, covered in blood and debris—is something I may have to live with for the rest of my life.
“I don’t know about this, L,” Andras chimes in. He shakes his head, causing a lock of his bright blonde hair to unravel from his man-bun and fall into his sky blue eyes. He brushes it back behind his ear. “I mean, how well do you know him? How well does Eden know him?”
All eyes are on me. I swear, I can even feel the intensity of Cain’s sneer from over the phone. I suck in a deep breath and sift through the chaos in my head, hoping to unearth the right words.
“He’s an asshole,” I begin. “He’s brash and arrogant. He thinks he walks on water. He’s deceptive; lying comes way too easily for him. But…but I feel like he’s telling the truth. I feel—in my heart—that we can trust him. He could’ve turned over info about me a long time ago, making it so I would have never walked out of the Alliance’s headquarters that first night I met him. But I did. He kept his promise even after I told him I wouldn’t steal for him. So yeah…I know him. At least enough to know that he can be trusted.”
It’s silent for a good thirty seconds before Cain groans, “Oh, for fuck’s sake! So we’re working with Nephilim now?”
“Seems like it,” L answers.
“Well, look at it this way,” Toyol begins. “If he steps out of line, there’s seven of us, and one of him. He’s gotta come out of hiding some day.”
I don’t have the heart to tell him about Crysis’s gifts of deflection, making him pretty much impossible to track. It’s exactly why they didn’t detect he was anything more than some ordinary human man the night they showed up at that bar, just in time to stop me from doing something I’d regret. It’s also why their signals would scramble anytime they got close to the Alliance’s headquarters. Crysis is a weapon. And it’s better to have him with us than against us, especially now that we could be up against something virtually indestructible.
Still, it’s not enough.
If the Seraph is indeed involved, we need numbers. Manpower. We need to fight fire with fire.
“Lilith…” I can’t even believe her name is on my lips. Just the act of turning my head in her direction and looking at her pains me. “Do you think…?”
“Fuck that,” Legion growls, knowing exactly where my thoughts are headed.
“L, if anyone would know how to contact him, it’s her. And if we stand any chance of survival—”
“Do you even realize what you’re saying to me? I said, no!”
He slams his palms against the tabletop, causing the marbled stone to tremble in fear, before jumping to his feet and striding down the hallway. The bedroom door slams, the clash of wood and steel ricocheting around the apartment. I don’t have to lift my head to know that every eye is on me, casting awkward, sympathetic glances.
“I’m…I…” I swallow, my mouth bone dry.
“You can’t do that. After what Lucifer did… After what L went through to get you back. You can’t do that.” Cain’s voice is clear…sober. It reminds me of that night when he caught me trying to sneak out. The night after Legion dragged me back from Hell.
“I just want to help,” I explain, lifting my chin in defiance of my embarrassment. “I’m just trying to find a way to keep all of you safe. I’m not trying to hurt him.”
“Then stop doing it.”
I can’t argue with Cain’s candor. He’s right. Ever since I escaped Hell, I’ve been looking for an excuse to leave. I didn’t feel worthy of Legion. There was blood on my hands, and no matter what I did—no matter how hard he tried to convince me it wasn’t my fault—I couldn’t wash it off. I would never be clean enough for him. Would never be good enough for his secret, sidelong glances and his rare, dimpled smiles, and his searing, heart-stuttering kisses.
Even with all I had done to survive twenty-two tumultuous years as a forgotten freak, nothing would ever compare to the guilt that festered inside my bones like cancer ever since the day I sat in that blood-jeweled dining room and watched as my high school foes were brutally raped. And that cancer spread every night…every-fucking-night…with every vile exhibition that I didn’t try to stop.
And now, I was hurting the very person that wanted to heal me from that sickness. Who wanted to rid my heart and soul of the foulness that bittered my blood, without asking for anything in return.
I can’t keep doing this. I can’t keep hurting the only man I’ve ever truly cared about because of fear. Fear of losing him. Fear of losing myself.
I push myself up from the table and take a deep breath. “I’m sorry. This isn’t what I wanted for any of you. And if you all want to bow out and wash your hands of me, I wouldn’t fault you. I honestly don’t know why yo
u haven’t done it already.”
I look around the table, preparing myself for the blow of rejection that never comes. Not even Cain has a smartass remark.
Phenex smiles at me, warm and radiant, and says, “We aren’t going anywhere. Family doesn’t run. So even if it’s five, or fifty, that stand against us, we’re with you, Eden. Whether you like it or not.”
I nod once, unable to form coherent words that wouldn’t result in me sobbing on the floor in the fetal position. I don’t deserve their grace. And honestly, I don’t even know what to do with it. They know me. The ugly scars, the irrational temper, the deadly secrets…they know me.
When I’m finally able to move without risk of breaking down, I turn and walk down to the end of the hallway. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t want to see me right now, but I can’t let another second go by without him knowing how sorry I am. Cain was right—I’m hurting him. I’ve been hurting him. And he’s too patient and kind and understanding to call me on my bullshit.
The bedroom is dark when I enter, save for the thin strip of light radiating from under the bathroom door. The shower is on, and wisps of steam skate across the hardwood. I lift my fist to knock, but think better of it. Instead, I simply open the bathroom door.
Even his blurry silhouette is spectacular through the fogged glass, and I have to take a moment to simply admire him. With his head bowed in contemplation and his arm pressed against the tiled wall, he takes my breath away. And with the steam intensifying his intoxicating scent, I feel dizzy with the need to touch him, hold him. I’m practically aching with the overwhelming urge to run my fingertips over his water-slickened skin, and collect every tiny droplet with my tongue. And because impulse control has never been my thing, I find myself stripping off my clothing and sliding open the glass door.
He lifts his head, his weary eyes watching me through the hot spray. When he parts his lips to speak, I gently brush his sensual mouth with my thumb while trailing his strong, angled jaw with my fingers.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought him up. I’m just scared, L. I’m afraid and I don’t want you or anyone else getting hurt.”