“So she’s nothing but bait? Cannon fodder? Something you designed to take him down regardless of the outcome for her?” Anger burned through me.
There was a lot of talk about angels and demons, often placing angels on the side of the heroes, but they’d just as easily sacrifice a living being for their own gain as a demon would. Perhaps they were no better.
“To be clear, I did not design Merri any more than you did. I am not in charge of fate.”
“No, you’re just the Messenger.”
Gabriel glared at my snide tone, but simply said, “Yes.”
“He will kill her once he realizes what she’s doing.”
“Perhaps.”
Releasing a heavy breath, I reined in my temper and tried again. “Isn’t there a scenario where we can do the heavy lifting for her? Where we can trap him, or I don’t know...”
Gabriel considered the suggestion before shrugging. “I’m sure there are plenty of scenarios, but the limitations of the dream realm will be your greatest deterrent. For instance, the last time Lucifer was trapped, it required the efforts of an entire coven. You could bring a coven into the realm, but anything they required for the spell outside of their innate power would not come with them. And dream elements are all figments of the dream realm.”
“They hold no actual power,” I said, stating what he had not.
“Precisely.”
“So we’re just meant to send her in to fight him alone?”
“Just as David fought Goliath. Your mate will face Lucifer.”
My heart stuttered. “She’s not my mate.”
There was far less conviction in the statement this time.
Gabriel sat up straight, leveling me with a dubious stare. “Isn’t she?”
“Horsemen don’t have mates. We have no souls. It’s impossible.” I’d come to understand the meaning of what a soul was very quickly. Reaping countless of them resulted in a deep and intimate knowledge of who did and did not possess one. I could touch my brothers. None of us had souls to be reaped.
Gabriel laughed. He fucking laughed at me. “Who told you that?”
“No one. I put it together easily.”
“Well, you’re wrong. You may not have a human soul, but I assure you, you’ve got one.”
“How can that be?”
“Likely much the same way it is for angels and all other supernatural creatures.”
“Angels can have mates?”
He nodded, some of the light leaving his eyes. “They can, though it requires them to fall.”
“How is that fair?”
“Who said anything about fair, horseman? Love rarely is. Though it very well may be the only thing truly worth fighting for.”
I didn’t have any rebuttal. I was too rocked by his admission. I could have a soulmate. I could have Merri. She’d been right all this time, and I’d thrown her vulnerable confession back in her face and dismissed it as ridiculous.
Unable to fully wrap my head around the truth he’d just laid at my feet, I mutely shook my head and pulled myself back to my original purpose.
“So there’s really nothing you can tell me that could help us against him?”
Gabriel tilted his head incredulously. “As if I did not just hand you the most important thing on a fucking platter?”
