“So, angels are hard to fight. They are fast and they can teleport. The quickest way tostopan angel in their tracks is to fuck up their wings. Kujo and Nero, you have wings, so you know how powerful wings are. They are also weapons. There is a spot between the wings that is insanely painful to hit and they won’t be able to use them again until someone hits another pressure point on their lower back. They can’t reach it themselves.”
“Uh, what the fuck, cousin. You said we had to practice this on you. That sounds shitty.”
“I practiced by doing it to my dad. My dad and Lucifer trained to fight through the pain. I’ll be paying you back by thumping you in the same spot when your wings come in so you have an edge. According to Dad, he, Abaddon, and Lucifer are the only three who trained through it. They are the only reason the other princes survived the rebellion. As far as I know, they never learned after they fell because it completely sucks.”
“Your pep talks suck.”
“You don’t need a pep talk for this. You need brutal honesty because if I lie about it and hit that spot for the first time, you’re never going to continue training.”
Something told me she would. Sydney fought to win, and she wasn’t afraid to play dirty. I’d be shocked if Kujo wasn’t pissing blood.
“Well, show me your wings. Let me see what’s in my future.”
We all gasped because she just didn’t know what was and wasn’t taboo in Hell. Wings were personal. If you had them, they were a source of pride, but you didn’t whip them out everywhere and if you didn’t have wings, you certainly didn’taskto see someone else’s. Nero and Kujo had wings, too, but they were completely different from each other and would be different from Sydney’s wings.
Wrathhog just rolled her eyes like she thought we were being stupid. She whipped her shirt off and had a racer back bra underneath. She popped the strap and gave Sydney a pointed look.
“You’re going to want to redo your situation for the girls because you’re always going to want access to your wings and flying without support sucks. Dad couldn’t teach me that, but Mom certainly did.”
“That is an excellent point and I wouldn’t expect Satan to know about good bras.”
“You ready for this?”
I think we all were. I’d seen Kujo and Nero’s wings all the time. The fallen and their children seemed to think the rest of Hell was beneath seeing theirs. Wrathhog rolled her shoulders and giant wings with black feathers snapped out of her back.
“Angels have white wings. The fallen have black wings. If you run into an angel in the mortal realm and their wings are black, that means they’ve fallen, but aren’t going to Hell. I have my theory other angels have fallen. It’s been a while, but I can’t prove it.”
“Badass.”
“So, the four of you, come look behind me where my wings meet my shoulders. You see the ridges? The third ridge is what you want to hit. Don’t poke it with your fingers because you’re just going to piss someone off and get bitch smacked across the room with a wing. You want to make a single finger knuckle and punch the shit out of it.”
“I don’t want to punch your wings,” Nero whispered.
“Well, I wasn’t going to stand here andletyou. Neither would any angel you’d be fighting. It’s pretty straightforward. Single knuckle punch the third ridge and our wings are disabled so we can’t fly away. Most of us are also in too much pain to fight back. So, get your wings out andearnit.”
I’d be fighting on the ground with Sydney until she got her wings. Her eyes bugged out of her head when Nero and Kujo ripped their shirts off and let their wings free. Not in araised in the human world and seeing a demonway. No, I wasn’t an incubus, but I noticed the blush on her chest.
She was turned on. The other fallen would lose their minds. If one of them didn’t have plans to marry her, they’d intend to marry one of their sons off to her. They didn’t want to look super hard into them being blood related or just divinely created. They might not want to look that closely, but Sydney wasn’t going to take the chance.
Sydney turned to look at me expectantly. She was tapping her foot and looked impatient.
“Sorry, Felid demons don’t have wings.”
“I figured. I just wanted to see you with your shirt off. We’realltopless. You’re overdressed.”
Oh.I found I wouldn’t mind if she checked me out, either. We were all employed fetching Cambion, so we didn’tneedto incessantly workout between calls. If there was a human around when we found our Cambion, most of them fainted when they saw Nero and me.
I ripped my shirt off and yeah, she was looking. I liked the way she licked her lips as her eyes roamed down my chest. I smirked at her and gave her a wink.
“So, I’m not a full angel. I’m half fallen, half Succubus. I’m not even close to fighting an angel, but I’m still harder to fight than most demons. There are four of you and one of me. If you’resmart,you’ll work as a team because that’s how you’re going to win if you have to take on a fallen.”
That made sense, so I called a time out. I could do that, right? We were learning, not fighting for our lives. We had to learn the pressure points, but we had to learn to work as a team, too. I knew how to do that with Kujo and Nero. We had to learn with Sydney and Sydney and Kujo didn’t play well togetherat all.
“Go ahead and plan well because I won’t go easy on you.”
Nero looked like he was about to lose his damned mind. He’d always been one of Wrathhog’s fan boys. Nero actually just had a thing for all powerful women that weren’t mean to him. He had to learn to use his fists because it was illegal for him to use his magic. He was basically a marshmallow most of the time, but you really didn’t want to get into a brawl with him. He was loving every minute of getting fight lessons from one of his heroes.
Kujo was a hothead with a bad temper, but he knew what we were getting dragged into. He might not think Sydney could pull off the things she wanted to, but he knew what it meant for us to be asked to guard her. He’d be taking this seriously. Kujo might not like her, but he’d protect her.
