“Just fucking dammit, Lucille.”
My cheek rested against his bare chest, his skin smelling of fresh rain and floral soap. His fingers threaded through my wavy locks as the hungry hiss of my flames filled the quiet.
“You have to tell them.”
“I—”
“No. NoI. We.” His hand paused in my hair. “Have you heard how powerful Miriam is? Have you seen the state of Hell recently? I’m not discrediting your mother. Maybe Lucifer does want to kill you. But there’s a possibility it’s something else. Someone else. And I officially want the two other males who would brutalize this world if anything happened to you to know and be watching.”
“Okay,” I conceded.
He resumed playing with my hair and massaging my scalp.
“Do you think your mother knew about the guardian bond and placed it on you to protect you?”
“Except I’m the guardian.”
“Maybe the rune malfunctioned. It’s not like we have much information on the bond.”
“We don’t. But my mom might’ve…” I sat up. “She had an entry on it.”
“And?”
I stood, and my feet sank into the soft rug as I paced.
What did it say? What did it say?
“Born… to balance? No. Born of imbalance.” I tried to picture the passage, but the words were blurry. “Destined to… to…”
Come on. I’d read it!
But not just read it—heard it. From Aspen.
“Right the wrongs of the past.” I waved my hands in time with my words, excitement crackling through me. “A force written in ink shallemerge. Sacrifice will pave the way as voices whisper secrets of the fallen!”
“I don’t believe that was the definition of a bond. That sounds like another prophecy.”
He was right. It did.
“Sacrifice will pave the way as voices whisper secrets of the fallen,” I repeated slowly.
That one, I didn’t know what to do with.
“Fallen as in… angels?” Oliver asked carefully.
Something about the word sat wrong in my stomach.
“My mother was a fallen angel.”
Oliver said nothing. He didn’t need to.
I cleared my throat, pushing past it.
“The only part we know for sure isa force written in ink. The tattoo on Aspen’s back only I can see. And I suppose the one Ronen had on his.”
Oliver chewed on his lip.
“Your mom had the Guardian Rune in the margins of a page with Miriam’s prophecy. Then she had another book that listed the rare bond with potentially another prophecy instead of a description,” he mused.
