“I wanna go. We already talked about it.” Noel glanced my way, as if to double-check. “I mean, I might get antsy and want to come back sooner than normal, but…”
“If you’re sure.” Jai’s attention jumped between us as we both nodded.
“It’s fine. I’ll miss you both, but I want you two to have fun.” I took Noel’s hand and squeezed it, then kissed the tip of Jai’s nose. “I’ll hang out with Gideon.”
“You gonna make an honest man out of him?” Jai teased, and I scowled.
“I don’t think I’m going to miss you after all,” I said as I climbed out of his lap. My towel fluttered to the floor, and I didn’t retrieve it. I walked naked across the room to my dresser and pulled out fresh clothes.
The Committed bonds hummed, but the emotions clashed. Noel’s bond was sad and angry as he studied my scarred back. Jai’s thread was hot with desire, his gaze on my butt. I left them to their feelings as I dressed.
Bending at the waist, I took my time pulling up my underwear, and Jai groaned. “I know you’re doing that on purpose.”
“You don’t have to watch,” I sang.
“Keep up the sass, and I’m gonna spank you until your ass is red,” he growled, and Noel squawked.
“There’s some things I don’t want to know.” My bed creaked, and Noel gasped. “Holy Trinity, the tattoo.”
As I tugged a shirt over my head, I turned to investigate what Noel meant. Jai had stood, but he hadn’t moved away from the bed, staying still as Noel’s hand traced the newest addition to his tattoo. Or was it my tattoo?
My tree was as it had been the last time I’d seen it. A few flowers had bloomed on Jai’s shoulder, and the blackbirds had colonized the branches spreading around to Jai’s ribcage. But I knew what had caught Noel’s attention. A ribbon snaked around the tree, crossing Jai’s rope on the trunk only to dive into the roots, where they curled and knotted together. Noel traced the ribbon in awe.
“I figured it’d be there,” Jai said reverently. “I felt something shift.”
“It’s beautiful.” Noel pressed his lips to Jai’s shoulder, eyes closing as Jai nosed his scalp. “It feels bigger. Between us. I mean, I feel you like I always have, but it’s—”
“More,” Jai finished.
With a nod, Noel stepped back. “You feel it too?”
“We’re bonded to the same Committed. It makes sense that it would strengthen our bond.”
“I guess.”
Cautiously, Jai took Noel’s hand. “Is that bad?”
“No.” Noel dragged the back of his knuckles over Jai’s cheek. “Just unexpected.”
They smiled at each other. I chuckled under my breath. “You guys are cute.”
With matching droll stares, they flipped me off simultaneously and said, “Shut up.”
I laughed harder.
After Jai had showered and dressed, I kissed both my Secondaries goodbye and waved as they clasped hands, glowing bright as the sun before blinking out of existence. I stood aimlessly in the entryway before I wandered down the hall toward the library that doubled as Gideon’s study.
He was sitting at his desk, laptop open, a file in his hands as he flipped through pictures. As I pushed the door open wider, he looked up and smiled. His reading glasses slipped down his nose, and his hair was pulled back into the teensiest little tail at the base of his skull. He was devastatingly handsome.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey,” I said.
“Jai and Noel leave?” he asked, and I nodded. He set his file aside and stretched an arm out to me. I accepted the invitation and climbed into his lap. When I curled into his chest, he kissed the top of my head.
“What’s that?” I pointed to the file he’d laid on the desk.
“Take a look.” He offered it to me.
I settled more securely on his lap. “Am I allowed to look at this?”
“I’m hoping maybe you see something we can’t. Maybe something familiar from Purgatory.” He opened the file and collected a stack of photographs. “They’re disturbing, Riley. You don’t have to—”
With an eye roll, I took the pictures and started looking through them. They were photos of a lab similar to the one Leviathan had used in Purgatory. The setup was nearly identical, and I faltered at a picture of a metal chair bolted to the floor.
My fingers shook. “Is this the lab where the women were found?”
“Yes. We confiscated notes and research, along with the computer’s hard drive. They’ve been at this a long time,” he said gravely. “They’ve been trying to recreate your conception for years.”
“Why? How did Lucifer know I’d even be powerful?” I set aside the pictures. “He had no way of knowing if I’d have powers or if I’d even survive.”
“I think he saw the same threat the angels saw. Perhaps there was a possibility that your Fallen DNA would somehow cancel out your mother’s genes. But it was more likely that you’d inherit the best of both. I think he was betting on that.”
Running my hand through my hair, I shook my head. “We need to stop him, Gideon. All this pain and death. All the lives he’s ruined. He needs to be stopped.”
“He will be. I promise.” He rubbed the back of my neck, and I leaned into the touch.
“I want to kill him,” I confessed, and Gideon’s thumb dug in deeper. “And not for the reasons I should. It’s not altruistic. It’s not for justice or the good of all. I want to kill him because he took everything from me, because he hurt me, because he made me into a monster.” I blew a thick breath through pursed lips. “Worst of all, he made me like the monster. And I want to kill him. I will enjoy it, Gideon, and I don’t know what that makes me.”
Gideon gathered the papers and pictures, tucked them into the file, and then set the file to the side. Then he guided me to face him, his green eyes serious. “It makes you human.”
“There’s nothing human about me,” I said with a splintered laugh.
“I think you’re more human than all of us. And I don’t think that’s a bad thing.” Our foreheads met, and our breaths mingled between us. “I want to kill Lucifer too. He stole from me, from my family, from my people, and if I get the chance to end his life”—his eyes flared dangerously, and I practically purred—“I will relish every moment of it.”
“Good to know I’m not the only murder-y one,” I mumbled, wondering if it was normal to get turned on talking about homicide.
Chuckling, Gideon tilted my head down and pressed a kiss to my brow. “For what Lucifer did to you, he deserves to die painfully at my hand.”
I shrugged. “Maybe it was inevitable. Everything that’s happened to me, to us.”
“The future is never set.”
“But the paths intersect in places. Some fates can’t be escaped.” I mulled over my next words, scared to voice the thoughts that had plagued me for months. “Maybe I was always meant to go to Purgatory.”
Gideon removed his reading glasses and placed them on the desk. “What do you mean?”