“How did Lucifer know about me? What did he tell you to look for?” Annalise asked, leaning back into me. She was small enough to fit right up against my chest, the top of her head under my chin. She pulled her legs up and threw them over the side of the chair, wiggling down even more. Again, I was about ready to say fuck the conversation and drag her to my room.
The intoxicating scent of sex was still all over her, making me hard and fucking ready.
Cabe walked back into the room, saying, “We don’t know how he knew about you, but he had your scent, somehow. It was me who recognized you because of the visions. I had no idea that you were even Nephilim. For all these years, I saw you as a Human, but I never got the chance to catch your scent, the visions didn’t work that way. Lucifer had one of your shirts; it had your scent all over it.” He dumped two boxes of pizza on the coffee table, but no one moved, everyone still focused on the conversation at hand.
Well, aside from me. I was focused on the way Anna’s right ass cheek was caressing the hard dick in my pants. She didn’t even seem to notice.
“But there has to be something hidden in this scenario that leads us back to why he wanted to find me in the first place. That’s what I don’t understand,” she stated, chewing on her thumbnail absently. Her tongue peeked out and licked the pad of her finger.
I bit my lip, unable to focus.
“Quint,” Lanier called, breaking me out of my staring contest with the hot pink tongue in Anna’s mouth. “You said it was your father who told you about the Elite Angels, yes?”
I paused to think about it, trying to redirect my thoughts.
“Yeah, but it was like two decades…” My voice trailed off as it clicked.
No fucking way.
“What?” Anna asked, looking up at me from my lap.
“Holy shit,” I sputtered, pulling her to my chest so that I could sit up a little more. “It was two fucking decades ago, guys.”
“Back up, Quint, what was two decades ago?” she asked, now playing with a strand of her hair. Like me, she couldn’t sit still, had to always be moving or doing something.
I shook my head and told them what I remembered. “About twenty years ago, there was an upper level Demon running around Hellfire, talking about the ‘Elite Angels.’ He said that soon this group of Angels would bring war on Hellfire. I didn’t think much of it at the time because, if they weren’t widely known, I wasn’t about to go searching for them. I lived in Hellfire back then; it was my home, and while I hated it, I had no reason to come Topside.”
Not until my father asked me to years later. I still hadn’t told any of them that I had been Topside for longer than they knew. I wondered briefly if it mattered, if it was connected.
“What would the war even be over?” Lanier asked, all his attention on me. He didn’t seem to care that Annalise was still firmly planted in my lap, but he still had an eye on her, always watching to make sure she was okay. The look on his face said that he was glad she could handle her own, but he wouldn’t hesitate to step in if she needed him. Interesting.
“I think The Maker has always planned to find a way to get rid of Hellfire. The only way to do that would be to kill the Demon who rules over it,” I replied.
“Lilith,” Cabe filled in.
My sister.
I growled involuntarily. I hated that bitch, always had. She was the epitome of evil, the very definition of what it means to be a Demon. “Yes, along with my brother Lucien.”
“I’m confused,” Anna stated, her eyebrows scrunched together. Fucking adorable. “What do you mean ‘get rid of Hellfire?’ Isn’t Hellfire just…hell? Why would The Maker want to get rid of the place that houses all of his enemies?”
I chuckled. “I forget you don’t know anything about this world. Hellfire only houses about one eighth of the Demons that exist. It’s a place for Demons to go if they wish to go Topside. Just before I was born, The Maker created it in exchange for a favor from my father. No one knows what He asked of Lucifer, but no one cared at the time because Hellfire was something that my people celebrated. It was a chance to live with Humans. That’s priceless.”
She paused, searching for her next question. “How do—or rather did—the ceremonies work? How will we break the bond?”
Her question formed a brick in my stomach, souring my mood, making me anxious. She looked up at me, searching my gaze with sad, knowing eyes. She didn’t try and comfort me though, which stung. Instead, she turned back to Lanier, ready for him to tell her how easy it would be to leave me.
“Believe it or not, the ceremonies typically happen in a church with a Nephilim priest, but the ceremonies have stopped since all of those priests disappeared over the course of a few months. Human priests have stepped up to replace them, not knowing the difference, just thinking that the previous one quit. But as a Neph, the difference was obvious,” Lanier explained, his eyes bouncing between hers. He continued, “Shortly after the priests went missing, the bonds stopped forming all together. I was told by a few older Nephilim that it was as if the priests were taken on purpose.”
She nodded. “So there isn’t anything we can do until we find a priest? And when we do, we just say we would like to deny the bond?”
Cabe answered, “Yes, exactly. They have the power to sever the bond and strip a Neph of their powers, leaving them Fallen.”
“Do they become Human?” she asked, her voice steady.
“No, the opposite. They become Demons. When they pass the barrier to Hellfire, they become Demons officially. The Fallen would have to figure out how they feed. Like Quint, he feeds off negative emotions. Another Demon or Fallen could feed from sins or even prayers to false gods. They lose their access into The Kingdom, or Heaven, as you may know it as.”
Annalise shook her head, eyes wide from all the information.
“Okay, so these Angels would start a war to get rid of Hellfire?” She was desperately trying to understand, all of her attention focused on the sound of my voice, the words I said.
“Yes, essentially,” I confirmed before continuing. “That’s what the rumor was. And it would make sense because Hellfire enables Demons to mess with Humans. The Humans are The Maker’s most prized possessions. He loves them more than He loves his Angels. If He wants to keep them safe and away from Demons, then Hellfire would have to go.”
“And what does that have to do with Annalise?” Cabe asked, leaning forward as if he were sucked into the story.
“Well, that’s almost too simple. My father asked us to find a female Neph that was about to Transition, exactly twenty years after the rumor was spread? New Angels being born to bring war against his people? Lucifer must have suspected that you”—I bopped her on the nose—“are one of those Angels, Pup.”
I didn’t want to scare her, so I kept my tone light. But my hypothesis was a good one, and if I’d guessed correctly, it could mean so many dangerous things.
“He told us to keep her safe, why would he do that? She would be a threat to Hellfire. If Demons wanted her, why would he care?” Lanier mused, not really asking anyone specifically.
“That’s another thing I don’t know. He seemed to think she was in danger, and he was pretty specific on his instructions to keep her safe. He wanted us to bring her here, no matter what we had to do to make it happen.”