“Protecting humans.”
“From what? I take it vampires aren’t your enemies.”
Eclipse chuckled. “No. Vampires are here for the same reason we are.”
“To protect humans?”
“They’re responsible for eliminating Lucifer’s creatures, and we—my brothers and I—handle the demons who create those creatures.”
“That sounds like a full-time job. There are only seven of you?”
“Technically, no. But last I heard, Michael hasn’t yet released the other factions.”
“Who’s Michael?”
“The archangel who created us,” he said easily.
“The tatted guy with wings?”
Eclipse chuckled. “Angel, but yes.”
Orianna lifted her head, peered at him in the dim light from the fire. “I thought you said you have parents.”
“I do. But Obsidian does not. He was Michael’s first creation. God didn’t like that Michael had encroached on his style, so he forced Michael to utilize traditional reproduction manners by using archsires and archdams.”
That sounded far too clinical for Orianna’s taste, but she didn’t interrupt.
“Michael has a dedicated pool of angels who reproduce for him. The strongest, fastest, most intelligent beings he can find. They raise the offspring until they’ve reached puberty, then send them to Michael for training.”
“At what age does an angel reach puberty?”
“Puberty is roughly after the twenty-fifth year, when they stop aging. As for full maturity, that depends on the upbringing, but generally close to the century mark.”
Orianna smiled as she lowered her head once more. “And you’ve been alive for seventeen centuries?”
“I have.” His hand caressed her arm, warm and comforting.
“Is Penelope an angel?” she asked after a few beats of silence.
His hand paused briefly, then resumed its slow, easy caress. “She is now, yes.”
“How did that happen?”
“Obsidian mated her.”
Orianna thought back to that vision of herself lying cold on the floor with Eclipse hovering over her. How she knew, she wasn’t sure, but it made sense. That was a premonition of the day she would die, and the reason it didn’t scare her was because it wasn’t the end.
“I’m going to die,” she told him. “I’ve seen it. You’re going to kill me to bring me back so I can be at your side for eternity.”
His hand stilled, squeezing gently, though she wasn’t sure he realized he was doing it.
“I’ve seen it,” she explained. “In a vision. I’ve wondered about it because it doesn’t scare me.” A soft chuckle escaped her. “I guess it probably should, huh?”
Eclipse moved then, his body shifting so Orianna was forced to her back. He propped himself on an elbow and stared down at her. She loved the way he looked at her, as though she was the most important thing in the entire universe. It was a feeling she’d never experienced before. Not even with her own parents. Amber had always been their parents’ favorite, and honestly, Orianna had never really cared. But here, with Eclipse, she wanted to be his everything.
“You are,” he whispered, his eyes wandering her face. “You’re my everything. My light in the darkness, my heat source in the blistering cold.”
God, how she wanted to believe all those sweet words. Based on her experiences thus far, she had no reason to doubt him, but it wasn’t easy to shed the tough skin that had been calloused by years of being alone. Before Eclipse, Orianna would’ve run screaming from the room if a guy even looked at her as though there was something more he wanted than sex. With Eclipse, she had no desire to run, but she hadn’t let all those walls around her heart crumble. But the foundation was weakening with every minute she spent with him.
