She wasme.
“Do you understand now?” Lucifer’s asked. He was standing so close behind me that the sensual rasp in his voice sent butterflies down my spine. I could feel his masculine heat and how it seeped into the skin of my bare shoulders, its intoxicating warmth sinking straight to my core.
His fingers traced my shoulder blades, then dipped to the valley between my shoulders where my wing had once been. Then a low, rumbling growl revibrated from his chest—a purr of a growl meant only for me.
The animalistic sound stirred Reckless Jess—no, it stirred my true nature. The demon spirit. My beast.
“Do you see?” he muttered in my ear, his teeth grazing the soft skin below my earlobe. “That fiery side of you, the one that’s always driven you to search for something more behind your human existence, the one you call ‘Reckless Jessica.’ That’s your beast. Even if your wings are gone, she’s still in there. She led you to me.”
“Lucifer…” My heart was in my throat, my pulse pounding so erratically I thought it might just give out. This was all so much to process, but everything was falling into place. As emotional as it was, it felt right.
“Before you say anything, I want you to look into the next pool.” With his hand on my hip, he guided me a few steps over to the second pool that would show my present. I was surprised to see two faces that I recognized. I had seen Melanie and Gabriel on Friday night, but it felt like an entire lifetime ago. They were in their condo, with Mel almost completely naked, wrapped up in the red afghan she’d knitted him one Christmas. And Gabriel was shirtless in bed while Mel argued with him from the doorway.
“Well, looks like they’ve finally put the whole ‘will they or won’t they’ thing to rest. I’ve been waiting for them to get together for years.”
“They are fated too, unfortunately.”
“Unfortunately?” I looked over my shoulder at the celestial to see him frowning down at the water.
“Mhm. Gabriel is a guardian, and Mel is his ward.”
“Just like you and Eve?”
“Exactly. Think of how the Almighty punished his own son. No doubt Paradise has already uncovered his sins of the flesh.”
“What’s going to happen to him?”
“Hard to say. But knowing Michael and the rest of the arch celestials, twisted as they are, they won’t waste the opportunity Gabriel presents. He knows me; he’s familiar with the business I do in Seattle. And he’s one of their best warriors. I’m sure my brother offered him some sort of olive branch. A deal where he’d be allowed to keep his wings and Mel if he kills me.”
I gapped at Lucifer in horror. “You think that’s what they’re fighting about?”
He gave a grim nod. “Yes.”
“How can you know that if you can’t read their minds from here?”
“Well, I can’t read his mind at all regardless of proximity. But in any case, I don’t need to. Look at the dresser.”
I looked at the dress and saw an ancient sword sitting on its surface, casually next to the Old Spice deodorant and his car keys. The crazy thing was, it was on fire, the flames having no effect on anything around it.
“It’s the Flaming Sword of Justice. It’s an angel-killing sword, one used for only severe punishments. All arch celestials have one. And that one in particular, with its garishly over-ornate details, is my brother’s.”
Being speechless wasn’t something I ever had a problem with up until this weekend. But what was I supposed to say? Gabriel, my friend since freshman year of college, had been tasked by an angel to kill my… What was he? The word mate was weird to use. Was I even really a shifter anymore? He wasn’t my boyfriend. He was more than that.
He’s mine, my beast purred.That’s all that matters.
Lucifer’s arms banded around my waist as he planted a kiss behind my ear, causing me to shiver in his arms. “Don’t worry about your friends, for now, Kitten. This Gabriel isn’t a threat to either of us. I may not be able to read his mind, but I do know he cares for you. He isn’t like the rest of them in Paradise. He’ll come around to our side eventually.”
Lucifer’s lips stretched into a grin against my neck, and a dark chuckle tickled me. “Gabriel hates Abaddon. Maybe I can get him to help me kill him. That sounds like a lovely bonding actively, wouldn’t you say? But for now, look into the pool again, Kitten. There’s one more thing I want you to see in your present.”
I did as he asked and looked back down into the pool. The image of Mel and Gabe had faded, and in its place was another scene, one that struck even closer to home than the last. It was my dad’s living room. A mariner’s game was on the TV, but my dad wasn’t in his recliner. Something was wrong. He wasalwaysin his recliner, and when he was able to summon the energy to get up, he’d take his oxygen tank with him.
Instead, he’d left it under his TV dinner stand beside the recliner.
“Where is he?” I cried, my voice splitting with panic.
“Ask the fountain to show you your father,” the devil whispered over my shoulder.
“Um, fountain? Show me my father.”
