“No. I’m Legion,” she answers.
“An angel,” Delta clarifies, and my brows nearly jump all the way into my hairline.
“So we’re...half demon, half angel?” I ask, my voice higher than usual.
“Yup.”
I suppose that means Mama was only half wrong.
Beside me, I feel Flint tense and let out a low whistle as he and Alder exchange a look.
“I think you need to start at the beginning and tell us everything you know,” Alder tells them.
So...they do.
* * *
Two hours. That’s how long it takes for us to hear the whole story, from the moment Delta got hired as a “security guard” here at their graveyard, to right up when I heard Nefta say my name and we walked in here.
It’s a hell of a lot to take in. Pun intended.
Now that we have the full story, everyone is talkin’ at once. Alder and Flint are arguin’ with all of Delta’s demons, who are arguin’ right back, while Nefta and Taz are goin’ at it, shoutin’ in each other’s faces with barely restrained hate.
“She needs to come to Nihil to get her wings and so that the fucking wardsyouput on her can come off,” Taz bellows.
Nefta pokes him aggressively in the chest, but she looks like she wants to grab the sword strapped to her back and poke him with that instead. “Absolutely not. Hell is thelastplace she should be! I tried to hide them from all this.”
“Yeah, and look what good that did!” he yells, lookin’ like some avengin’ winged demon ready to rain down fiery flames.
“Please. Like you could’ve done any better. You and your army can’t even find Morax,” she accuses.
“Neither can yours!” he roars back.
My stomach roils with nausea at all the aggression in the room, the shouted voices poundin’ against my eardrums. I don’t like altercation, and to be honest, I’ve never had to deal with it much. My mama and daddy never fought like this. I’m so damn grateful that I was dropped off on their doorstep, far away from these two.
“Stop arguing for a fucking second and focus!” Delta snaps at everyone. “What are we going to do? The Ophidian is a problem. He’s obviously not going to stop. He came after meandMedley. Even if Lucifer did manage to destroy the realm Morax created, along with the rest of his army, his power means that he can easily get a new horde and control them to do his bidding. We need a plan.”
Everyone is quiet for a moment, contemplatin’ this. Then Taz looks over at Nefta again, like he just can’t help himself. “I can’t believe you gave birth to twins and didn’t fucking tell me.”
Nefta’s purple eyes dart away, and she mutters somethin’ under her breath.
Delta leans in. “What was that?”
Nefta sighs and then places her hands on her hips, feet spread, like it’s her own personal power pose and she’s about to face-off with everyone. Liftin’ her chin, she looks Delta in the eye. “I said, I didn’t give birth to twins. I gave birth to triplets.”
Silence.
Everyone in the entire room gapes at the angel. Tazreel looks about as lost as last year’s Easter egg for a moment, until what she just said seems to sink in.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” he rages, his voice so loud that I swear he makes the whole room shake.
He takes a threatenin’ step toward her, and my breath gets stuck in my chest, because he looks murderous. I gotta hand it to Nefta though, she doesn’t back away or back down. She stands her ground as he looms over her, and my skin prickles with the angry power that seems to waft around him, suckin’ the light right out of the room.
“Where’s the last one, Nefta?” he asks in a lethal tone.
Delta is watchin’ with bated breath, her eyes as wide as mine.
Nefta blinks up at him, and for a split second, I think I see her hand shake, but then she just curls it into a fist, so I can’t be sure. She swallows hard. “I don’t know.”
