“I’m guessing he didn’t behave like someone with special permissions then?”
The tiniest snort came out of her nose. “No. Though I heard it repeated enough times to learn that my father was, in fact, a powerful man, he never behaved as such. He just wanted to be left alone to his books for the most part, though him sneaking me into the archives would probably have ended poorly hadwe ever been discovered.” Her nose scrunched. “Aren’t you also quite high ranking? Wasn’t it only princes and dukes and the like that fell?”
“Jumped,” I corrected her. “I suppose I am, though I don’t participate in the systems of Hell that would award me any kind of tangible power. I hold my post here, monitor the doors, keep to myself. What would I even do with sixty-six legions?”
“That sounds like a lot.” She smiled, her sweet nature more and more evident as she grew comfortable here.
“I suppose it is. My brothers mostly have twenty or so each. Though none of them really have use for them either.” I rumbled a laugh, realizing that I was looking at the only reason any of us would have had for calling upon them in centuries. “Though if Heaven picks a fight…” I shrugged and Phin shifted, understanding crossing her face as she nodded.
“Do you have a title?”
I shifted in my seat, uncomfortable. I’d never cared for the labels, meaningless as they were. “I do.”
She watched me expectantly. “Well?”
I sighed. “I am a Mighty Prince as well as a Great President. But those are just words. They bring no value to my life, nor do they make me anything other than who I am.”
“My father was a Great Prince, and he felt the same. Rank and power didn’t appeal to him. Things like music and art did. Chasing butterflies in a meadow or trying to figure out the mathematical music of a stream moving over rocks.”
“I recall talk about him being a poet. Those things certainly sound like something a poet would enjoy.”
I hadn’t thought it possible, but her face brightened even further, her pride in him evident. “He was. Every word was important to him. He absorbed knowledge in the archives like it was water and he was parched earth.” I wondered if she noticed that she’d behaved very much like a poet herself just then. Herbody had taken on a levity while speaking, her shoulders back and chest out, everything about her quietly confident. Radiant.
She was beautiful.
“Keep going,” I said quietly, encouraging the burst of happiness to continue when she started to sag back into herself.
Phin sighed and set her tea on the side table. “I really can’t think of anything he couldn’t do, a kindness he didn’t perform. He loves my mother with every bit of himself, and I was probably very spoiled by them both.”
“You seem the opposite of spoiled, Phin.”
She shrugged. “Well, that was a long time ago. Things are different now.”
“What’s your mother’s name?”
“Terra.”
“That’s lovely. You obviously take after him. What does she look like?”
Her eyes closed and a slow smile spread across her face as she fell into her memories. “She’s our opposite. Eyes so dark they’re nearly black, The most incredible, warm smile. She always kept her hair braided because it was long. It had grown past her waist last I saw her. It looked wavy when she let it down. I often wished I’d gotten her dark-brown hair instead of Father’s silver, her warm brown skin.” Phin rubbed her arms and reached up to touch her very short curls. She cleared her throat and took another drink. “I had the best of both worlds growing up, in every sense. He always made sure we had everything we needed, that we spent as much time as we could in Heaven. But we also hated leaving my mother behind, so we went back and forth a lot.”
“She couldn’t go with you because she was human.”
“No, she couldn’t. But she never made us feel guilty about it, she knew it was important. Said that was what she signed up for when she fell in love with an angel.”
“Were they fated?” I asked, the words quiet, my heartbeat pounding in my ears.
“Yes, they were mates.” Her response was breathy, the way her eyes locked onto mine when she said the single affirmation sent a jolt of awareness through my whole body.
I had to swallow before speaking again, the tension suddenly thick between us. “How did they meet?”
“My father had come to Earth to find a certain book. The church, the vault there, it’s always been somewhere those kinds of things happen to end up.”
“There are still several priceless items there, and that was Armaros’s excuse for visiting, so I can only imagine. My brother Vassago did actually locate one of his beloved tomes in that building once upon a time.”
“Really?” Her eyes danced. She shifted around in the seat, her chin propped on her hand. It was distracting how engaged she was, how interesting she made my stories—me—feel. “Anyway, he was looking for a book and my mother was with her family, traveling through. Love at first sight and all that.” She blushed. “Father always said there was simply no way he could have let her go after watching her single-handedly manage their caravan camp. Sold him immediately that she was not just beautiful, but capable and not afraid of hard work.”
“Mate bonds do work in mysterious ways,” I said, noncommittally, my own bond burning fiercely as I stared at her.
