“How?” she asked.
“By having a Lightborn child.”
Perhaps I was wrong about him, too. He did yank her out of my arms with his resolute kiss. He’d been enjoying touching her and watching her being loved. He’d been having urges to save her rather than trying to kill her.
I thought it was a silly infatuation angels tended to have whenever they visited Earth that quickly faded and was easily forgotten, but it seemed that infatuation was an understated word here.
“I… Are you saying that I can give birth to aLightborn?” Belle laughed under her breath in disbelief.
“It is rather complicated yet achievable. I must tell you, however, I have not been completely honest about how Lightborns are conceived, and to Heaven, a Lightborn is as forbidden as a Darkborn,” he confessed. “But having a Lightborn shall heal your curse, and you would not need Damien’s deal to remain immortal.”
For an angel to reveal such a secret was heavily penalized. For an archangel, it was catastrophic. He would lose his wings for sure. Perhaps that was exactly what he was aspiring for.
For her.
Infatuation was certainly not the word to describe Zavariel’s feeling for Isabella. It was silly, though.
“So to answer your question, yes, Belle. You can give birth to a Lightborn,” he said.
I wasn’t going to wait until he told her about the nature of Lightborns and how they were made. I had to stop him before he messed her up. She belonged with me. Only with me. Not with the predatory mutts or the pathetic leech, and certainly not with a fucking archangel.
I am the only fallen angel for you, Isabella, whether you liked it or not.
I manifested in the cabin. “And you believe him, darling?”
The lounge turned into a flare of instincts on steroids when they saw me. I unbuttoned my suit jacket and took a seat right next to Isabella. “What? No welcome home, Damien?” I glanced at the witch. “Hello, Katrina. Long time no see. Have these barbarians offered you something to drink? They forget their manners sometimes.”
Alec was first to pounce, but I punched him and sent him barreling backward until he hit the wall and fell on his ass right next to Katrina. The other twin was about to retaliate, but I raised a warning hand. “None of that. Not now.” I pointed at Zavariel. “We have to deal with this intruder first.”
“I am more than happy todealwith you, Damien,” he seethed.
“Sure. When would you like to do so? Before or after you fuck our wife?”
“Damien!” Belle yelped.
I glared at the wolves and the vampire. “I leave for a couple of days and you let another male, a messenger fromHeaven, kiss her, twice, and lure her into his bed with his blunt proposal of impregnating her?”
Alec jumped to his feet. “Wow, wow, wow, WHAT?!”
Kayden and Joshua expressed their disbelief as well, only a little crasser.
“Damien…” Isabella stared at me, “…what the fuck?”
“Tell them what the fuck,” I grinned at the sparkling angel—I certainly didn’t miss that look—“Zava.”
He crossed his ridiculously big arms over his naked chest. “As I was explaining before the insolent interruption, Lightborns are conceived when an earthly female creature and a fallen light angel…”
“Fuck,” I finished for him.
The house turned into a battlefield in a matter of seconds. Isabella was about to get off her seat and assist, but I held both her hands in mine, keeping her by my side. “Don’t leave me, darling. Ever.”
“I don’t want to, but he’s going to hurt them. He’s very strong, and they need all the help they can get,” she said.
“If they can’t protect you from the miserable fuck that’s trying to steal you, then they don’t deserve you.”
She ducked as a chair came flying above us. “But I don’t think Zavariel is trying to steal me. He said to have a Lightborn I must sleep with a fallen light angel. That’s not what he is.”
I kissed her hand and put it on my cheek. “But he has orders to do whatever it takes to stop you from achieving your glorious destiny, my queen. He’d do and say anything, like he’d fall for you, only so you’d follow the path he wants you to take, and before he’d give you that child you long for, he’d take your soul, darling.”
