“Because you are still in love with him, and you are going to miss him?” he asked as if I was crazy. “I saw how sad you were when you said goodbye.”
“Yes. Damien and I are…complicated. Our affection is hard to understand, but it is as real as Heaven and Hell. You probably don’t believe it, but he truly loves me.”
“He threatened to kill your future child right in front of you.”
“He would never do that. It was just the desperate talk of the devil that lost his mate and dream.”
“Your love for him is blind. How could you be so sure?”
“Oh for fuck’s sake, have you ever seen him kill anyone, Zavariel?”
He stared at me pensively for a few seconds before he frowned and shook his head in response.
“Yeah. The devil doesn’t kill people. He got nothing but his whispers. That’s his only power.”
“A power as destructive as murder.”
“True, but he’s not going to murdermychild. He needs me to bring down Heaven, and he’s arrogant enough to believe he can still turn me and have me on his side and smart enough not to cross me in any way that would ruin his chances at doing so. Killing my baby is my one-way ticket to Heaven. Do you think he’ll give it to me?”
What I said didn’t unhook his brows. His scowl deepened even more. “Perhaps he will not kill our baby himself, but he has the means to find someone who does.”
“Like who?”
“The Darkborns.”
I blinked, and my heart—since I wore the crown I forgot I even had one—dipped. “Darkborns can kill Lightborns?”
“And vice versa.”
My breath shivered on my lips. Then I clasped my hands and covered my mouth with them, closing my eyes to process. “Well, that gives us a few years then before they grow and understand what they’re up against.”
“Damien is going to spare nothing to have his hands on those girls sooner or later. The second the Darkborns are in touch with their darkness, he will own them.”
“Maybe if I talk to Inferno, they can postpone telling the girls what they really are. It can buy us a few additional years, too. With how protective Vixen is of them and how she refuses to believe they are dark, I think she’ll welcome the suggestion. Maybe she’ll never tell them, maybe their family can protect them and Damien won’t get to them at all.”
“That might work.” He wrapped his arm around my waist and touched my belly, sending a shiver through me. Then his breath fell right under my earlobe, giving me another tremble. “Even if it does not, I shall kill anything that ever thinks about touching a hair of our Lightborn.”
The way he saidour babyandour Lightbornwere hotter than Damien’s dirty talk. They set a jolt of arousal swirling all over me. “We have to make our Lightborn first,Archangel.”
He gulped audibly as he drew back and gulped again when he stared at my body. I must have looked hideous for him, covered in the worst kind of blood ever.
I scratched my hair. “Uh…that look floats Damien’s boat more.”
“You are still beautiful. Even blood looks good on you.”
Oh. The angel had his way with words. Who would have thought? “That was…” I bent his head to mine and crushed my lips onto his. He met my need with passion, his sensual lips owning me, taking my breath away. “Now what?”
He did this thing when he licked my taste off his mouth that drove me out of my fucking mind. “We go somewhere private.”
“It doesn’t get any more private than this.”
He smiled. “True, but we are forgetting something.”
My shoulders fell. “Yeah. That tiny thing when you cut off your other wing to fully fall.”
“Yes, thattiny thing. And when I do, I will not be able to fly us out of here.”
“So where do we go without risking Damien finding us?”
