“Looking for Eden. She was beneath the temple, imprisoned there. Or, Cassia thought she was.”
“I was,” Eden said.
“The Bo…” I trailed off, deciding it was best not to unleash a legion or two of demons for saying the word. The Bog was my father’s secret safe, and to speak of it outside of Hell was forbidden. “Basement of my father’s temple.”
“I was there,” Eden clarified. “I freed myself.”
“That’s impossible,” Jared said.
Everyone traded glances, seeming confused.
“I don’t think anything could have held her there, anyway,” Claire said with a smirk.
Nina stared at her daughter. “You’re different.”
“She died,” Bex said. “Maybe her human side died with her.”
“I don’t know how, but yes, I’m different,” Eden said. “But I’m still your daughter.”
Nina’s bottom lip trembled, and she pulled Eden to her, holding her tight. “Don’t leave me again.”
“I won’t,” Eden said. She looked to her father with the same smile she had before my father stole her from us.
Eden now had powers beyond anything any of us could understand—maybe she always had them—but she was still the young woman we remembered. She’d just saved me against two sons of Hell and Cassia, so different and still the same from the being I fell in love with so many eons before. Her light, her mind drew me to her in the beginning. Eden made me curious about how the other side worked, why they were so patient, loving, somehow more so with their enemies. She wasn’t just an angel, though. She was more: powerful, and confident—even in the presence of God Himself.
“Let’s get you both upstairs,” Jared said, gesturing to the door. “Unhook him, Bex.”
Bex quickly and carefully pulled the needle from my vein and connected it to a bag for Ryan’s blood to fill for later use.
Eden let her mother go and stood next to me, hooking my arm around her neck. She was unhappy about something.
“Bex?” Eden called. I couldn’t decipher her expression, but she’d gestured toward the doorway that led into the foyer.
“Oh shit,” he said, his eyes wide. He took a step then stopped, frozen.
In the space Eden had gestured to seconds before stood a woman I hadn’t seen before. Her long, reddish brown curls fell six inches past her shoulders onto her navy-blue top, her honey brown eyes through her black, rectangular-rimmed glasses, her eyes wide as if she was the one caught.
“Allie,” Bex breathed, stepping into view holding a thick roll of gauze and a large bottle of antiseptic.
“Who’s she?” I asked, my eyes dancing between Eden, Bex, Eden’s parents, and the woman.
“Allison,” Eden said, smiling softly at her, but whatever tenderness Eden felt for her was replaced with concern. My father was en-route.
Allison slid her palm down her front, nervously flattening any possible wrinkles. She was older than Eden, closer to Bex’s age. It was hard to tell exactly how she fit into their circle besides that Bex was obviously in love with her. She only wore a thin gold band on her left finger, a small oval diamond shimmering in the sun that slipped through the window shades.
She began picking at her nails like Nina did when she was anxious. “Your phone call,” Allison stuttered. “I had to check on you. You sounded awful.”
“Bex,” Eden warned.
“I know,” Bex said. He sighed and took a step, finally unfreezing from the spell she’d unwittingly put on him. “You can’t be here. You have to go.”
Allison looked at each of us, her cheeks flushing pink.
“You’re right. I shouldn’t have come. I’m sorry,” she said, trying not to cry.
“Allie,” Bex began, and then looked up. “It’s too late. Allison, wait!” he commanded, his voice almost a yell. He rushed over to her and brought her back within seconds, holding her tight to his side.
I felt it, too, and Bex was right. Whoever Allison was, she’d be safer inside with us. Lucifer appeared next to Eden, smelling her hair. She wasn’t affected, but she put a hand on my chest because I was a second away from attempting to attack him.
“You’re still healing,” she said, calm. “Don’t move.”
I glared at my father, my voice shaking with anger, each word emanating from my throat slowly. “Don’t touch her.”
Lucifer smiled, then took a step back.
Jared pulled his wife close, stepping quietly into a protective stance. Human eyes may have missed him using his thumb and index finger to keep her from lurching between her daughter and the Devil. It wouldn’t surprise me, and it certainly wouldn’t have surprised my father. In fact, he was probably counting on it for one of his two dozen plans for what might happen next. I couldn’t blame Nina. Eden was her only child, and Nina had protected her since before she was born. Any rational thought left her once the entity that had murdered her child once had stood too close. Nina would try to end him with her bare human hands whether Eden needed protection or not.
“Mommy, don’t,” Eden said firmly.
Lucifer snarled in Jared and Nina’s direction, but then his attention was taken by the only other human in the room.
Allison’s mouth hung open, startled and confused by the impeccably dressed, clean shaven, black-eyed monster who had just appeared in the blink of an eye.
“Look away, Allison,” Bex said, but she was transfixed.
I could see in his eyes a mixture of fear, angst, and caution—that Allison was no stranger to him. If she wasn’t family, he was devastatingly in love with her. Bex took both of her hands in one of his, the other touching her chin with his thumb. His touch instantly broke her from her frozen state, and she looked up at him, a single tear falling down her cheek and catching at the rim of her glasses. She was terrified, as she should be in the presence of evil personified.
“Look at me. Just me,” Bex said, staring down into Allison’s eyes.
Eden looked over her shoulder, barely acknowledging the dragon breathing on her neck. “Leave. I’m busy,” she said, taking a step.
Admittedly, my attraction to her in that moment reached an all-time high. The absence of fear in her eyes while she stood next to my father—a being who made the entire universe quake—was oddly arousing.
I relaxed, knowing she was in control.
Lucifer wasn’t convinced. He tried to whisper in her ear, but she swatted at him.
Jared breathed out a laugh.
Lucifer grabbed her arm, barely able to make it budge.
“What’s this?” he said, jerking at her once more without result. He looked around, then screamed into the air. “I demand to know the meaning of this!” Many voices circulated throughout the room, crowding us, passing through us, rattling the windows and walls of the house.
Allison’s shoulders shot up to her ears, but she remained relatively calm in Bex’s arms.