“Yes, insanity is the more plausible answer. Let’s go with that,” Luc replied with a half smile. “Remember what I told you.”
“Turn her over, brother,” Michael demanded.
“Should I send you to Hell and be done with it?” Luc asked casually, shifting to shield Nadia from the threat.
His brother’s grin never reached the eyes that flicked to Lucifer’s left.
In that direction stood Raphael, who swore and gestured for the others to leave the park. Only the angelic bunch obeyed.
A beat later, Gabriel stepped from the cove of trees to his right.
Lucifer and Nadia were surrounded.
Not good.
He could only hope Gabriel’s presence meant he intended to level the playing field, and he hadn’t been swayed to Michael’s ridiculous cause.
Luc’s daemons had recognized the impending war and lingered in the background, spreading out, as he’d trained them, to make themselves less of a target should full-out war occur from Michael’s strike.
“Luc, please explain what’s happening?” Nadia whispered. Her fearful thoughts raced through his mind, and he muted their mental link to concentrate on the problem at hand.
“Not now, pet.”
Wisely, she listened and stilled behind him.
* * *
Nadia stared wide-eyed, positive she had wandered into the middle of a bizarre dream and would wake any moment. Despite Luc’s tender kiss, which in itself seemed out of the ordinary, she’d caught Michael’s magical appearance. Combined with the weird weather event, the moment was completely unreal.
But she couldn’t reject the coincidence of the names: Michael, Raphael, and Luc—or as Michael had referred to him, Lucifer. Surely not the Lucifer. For the love of God, she’d joked about making friends with the Devil! And hadn’t he laughed?
A chill raced through her, lifting the hair on her arms.
A giant of a man approaching from their right. His white-blond hair was the exact shade of her own, with the slightest of cowlicks providing a wavy lock across his forehead. When his gaze locked with hers, her jaw dropped.
She knew those eyes!
She saw them every day in the mirror, though his were cooler and sharply intense, as if he were as curious about her identity as she was about his.
“Gabriel,” Luc said in cautious acknowledgment.
“Luc.”
Gabriel’s voice was deep and achingly familiar, but she couldn’t recall the man or any interactions between them.
A shiver traversed her body, accompanied by a heightened awareness of him as he drew closer.
“This is the triscelene?” he asked, tilting his head to study her features. “Dare I ask her parentage?”
“Now is not the time, but you might regret not protecting her,” Luc replied.
His gaze sharpened on her face. “She has the look of Adalyn.”
“Yes, but her coloring is all you, Gabriel.”
Nadia wanted to ask about Adalyn and how she could look like a man who, at best, was ten years older than her, but she remained quiet. Conversations like those weren’t for the current circumstances. Besides, if her suspicions were correct, he wasn’t a middle-aged male.
Presenting his back, Gabriel stood shoulder to shoulder with Luc, forming a unified front against the threat.
