Which made my pregnancy even more puzzling. Lucifer and I had been cursed to never procreate, but when human, no angel was allowed to. I didn’t even know if they were able to.
If God found out, He'd be so angry. And He'd probably find out. He always did.
"Okay," Gabriel covered his face. "What a mess."
I grinned. Gabriel had such a potty mouth for an Archangel. I loved it. "Lucifer is acting like Johnny Boy Next Door, you're pregnant, and both of you should've died years ago. Is that the extent of it?"
Considering what I could remember, I thought that was it.
"I think?" I shrugged. "Who knows?"
"Someone has to have done all this to you two," Michael said. "Lucifer is not acting like himself. I can't believe I didn't see it years ago. He's more likely to be in a seedy bar than a country club."
I sighed. "Now that I remember it all, the way he is here on Earth is amazing, so different than before. He's attentive, loving, and worries about my needs. In Hell, he'd been letting the chaos get to him. Being in charge of all the sinners and tempting the wicked was getting to his head."
"Come sit," Michael said. I settled beside him again and Gabriel grabbed my legs. He slipped off my shoes and rubbed my feet. They were so swollen and tired.
"I'm sorry we didn't see it before." Michael wrapped his arms around me. "The job must be getting to him. If this break on Earth doesn't give him the reset he needs, tell us. We'll make sure he gets some Angelic interaction to help combat the stresses of the job."
I sighed and sank into them. "Thank you. It was getting to me."
As long as they didn't do anything drastic until I had the baby, we could figure it out. Once I delivered, we could make sure the baby would be safe or take Turtle back with us, depending on whether he or she came out human or angelic.
Only time would tell.
Chapter 8
Constance—Lilith
Gabriel stoppedin again every day this week when Lucian went to work. Adam came by as well, but not as often, as he had his human job to maintain. I missed him when he didn't come with Gabriel. I'd never been able to spend time with my family on Earth, not all three. It had always been one at a time.
And never in this lifetime.
Every time Gabriel or Adam was near, they tried to convince me to kill Lucian, but I couldn't get them to understand how I felt about the baby. To them, it was simple. The baby would be born, I'd die and go to Hell, no big deal. They meant well, but they weren't parents. They couldn't understand how I could be so attached to a child that wasn't even born yet. I had news for them. We'd been a team for several thousand years, and we'd be a team in this too. Lucian may have fathered this baby as a human, but they'd all be helping me take care of it. Whether that meant finding a surrogate family to raise it or helping me raise it themselves.
If they did something that ended up hurting this baby, I'd kill them. With my bare hands. Or maybe use a spoon. A dull, rusty spoon.
"Gabe," I said nearly a week later. He'd been hanging out with me all day and spent half the time still trying to convince me to kill Lucian. His pleas fell on deaf ears with me. "You've got to wait for the baby to be born. Full stop."
"Lil." He was growing testy with me. "You don't see how bad it is. The gates are crumbling." He'd said it before, several times.
The Gates of Hell were both physical and metaphysical. They held the realm of Hell closed, and only the Fallen and some of the higher Demons were able to go in and out on their own. A physical gate guarded the entrance to the realm, and the condition of the metaphysical was reflected there.
If Gabriel saw the stones breaking, that didn't bode well for the condition of the realm as a whole.
Demons slipping out was a huge deal. I'd never known a demon to escape Hell without the help of a Fallen or higher Demon. And those higher Demons were closely monitored to ensure they didn't take matters into their own hands and let their lesser Demon counterparts out.
My home in Hell was both inside and outside the gates, positioned so that I could both help Lucifer with the management of the realm as well as have a place to live with my angelic family.
"Do what you have to do to shore up the gates." I took his hand. "Use the Fallen and have them add layers of protection to it. We only have weeks to go. Surely, we've waited this long, we can wait a few more weeks." He had to see reason.
Gabriel shook his head. "I'll try, but if it doesn't work, I'm going to have to take him out."
I thought about my handsome, winsome husband. As much as I knew it was necessary, I didn't want to lose him. Lucian was the husband that Lucifer had forgotten how to be. Over the last few centuries, Lucifer had become jaded. He'd gotten into his role as the devil a bit more than I thought was healthy. He enjoyed sentencing the dark souls sent to us from the Pearly Gates. "You just hang on until this baby is born if you know what's good for you." I'd disagreed with him enough. I left no room for argument in my tone.
Gabriel froze and turned his head toward the road, which wasn't too close to our house. We had a long driveway. "Lucian is home."
He pressed a firm kiss to my cheek. "I may be gone for a few days," he said. "Trying to deal with the gates without killing your husband."
