“She actually has some of the most random, irrational fears. It’s the things that actually require bravery that make her serious and fearless. And it’s good she’s not always that way. The intensity of those moments…the pure, determined, fearless, selfless way she makes the impossible happen…those are the times she made all of you fall in love with her over and over and over again. If she was that way all the time, Hera would lose her title as the world’s best seductress, because Paca would be the only one considered irresistible.”
“Sounds like I need to be more serious on occasion then,” I say too quickly, trying too hard to lighten this moment, and finding it to fall flat because I can’t even pretend that I’m not terrified of where he’s going with this.
“How could she do all this?” Gage asks obliviously. “What do you mean over and over?”
“In all your mortal lives,” he says, smiling grimly. “I’m just realizing she would have taken that gift from you. It was a game to see if you could fall in love in every life, and you always did. All of you fell in love with her, and she fell in love with all of you. It should have been impossible.”
I swallow thickly.
“You’d just finished a mortal life—the five of you always died together.” He clears his throat, smiling tightly. “I’ll tell her more when she shows herself to me.”
“To go back and live mortal lives, you have to be royalty or blessed by royalty,” Jude argues.
Kai glances down at me, almost as though he’s searching my eyes for something.
“To create an obstacle course in hell’s belly just for her current favorite’s birthday would also imply royalty,” Lamar states, causing me to freeze.
“What did you just say?” Gage asks, looking at Lamar. “Her current favorite?”
“Her favorite constantly changed. It was a game you five played. It kept things from going stale. But you were always her favorite on your respective birthdays. After all, she was reasonable, as I said.”
Kai’s lips tug in a grin.
“This is not a grinning time. You have terrible timing for humor,” I tell him, looking back at Lamar.
“She could send you back for mortal lives because she gave you each a piece of her balance and broke every law when she did it. But as I said, she never cared much for rules. In doing so, she made all of you stronger. And she saved your lives back then. Dragged you all from imbalance’s insanity and did what had never been done before in accomplishing it. She saved your lives the first time she met you, and you all saved each other over and over. But this last time, she truly died. Or so we all thought. I’m wondering if it was just the bond that managed to pull her together and allow her to defy the impossible once again.”
They all just stare at him until they look right at me like they finally understand what’s going on.
“He’s trying to say I’m the Devil’s daughter, isn’t he?” I ask them, shaking my head. “But there are only six,” I remind them. “Only two of them are girls.”
“Yeah, but the twins could count as one,” Kai says, as though he’s considering it.
“I know they can count as one, but they don’t because five would be an imbalance so they have to count as two,” I argue, then frown at knowing that since I don’t know how I know it, and since it sort of confuses me. Shaking my head, I go on. “Four boys and three girls would still be an imbalance, because there would be seven heirs instead of six, and the gender would then have to be the balance.”
“She’s right. That would be four boys and three girls even if the twins did count as one,” Ezekiel agrees.
Good job.
Though now I’m simply more confused.
“He’s my favorite now just because he’s got my back,” I whisper almost silently. “Like baby got back kind of back.”
He just shakes his head, cursing as he leans up.
“Did I use it wrong?”
My question goes unanswered as Jude once again huffs. “No one has ever considered the sexes to be a part of the balance before. It’s been four boys and two girls for a very long time. Pretty sure they’re men and women by now,” Jude says in his overly sarcastic tone.
“The sexes and numbers are even. Three females and three males,” Lamar says conversationally, as though he’s simply reminding us of something. “When all heirs are in hell, the twins count as one person—one male—with their yin and yang balance. They only count as two when influencing, since they have two separate dark influences. All the heirs have their own dark influence—hence the seven deadly sins.”
“What?” Jude asks on a breath.
Lamar’s eyes widen, and he tightens his lips. “Only the royal family and closest lovers are to know some of that. There’s a vow of death. You make a deal with the Devil to be allowed so close to the royals and inner knowledge of their balances.”
It’s like he’s reminding us of an oath we took that still binds today, even though we don’t remember taking it.
“He’s all gibberish and nonsense,” I argue, shaking my head emphatically. “I want to go.”
“We can’t go until we find out if he’s lying or not,” Ezekiel states quietly.
“You’re having to convince her she’s Lucifer’s youngest daughter, aren’t you?” Lamar asks, grinning like he’s amused. “I can’t help but wonder what she was thinking when she did all of this. Clearly she planned for a true death to have made this happen. The bond alone couldn’t have accomplished quite this much. You’re the only ones who can see or hear her.”
“Can’t he see I’m trying to talk myself off a ledge here?” I ask them incredulously. “I can’t be Lucifer’s daughter. That would make me way older than the nineties, first off, and the nineties is the main source of my ingrained information. Not hell politics. You guys are centuries old, which means we would have had to die long before the nineties. He’s wrong.”
“Why would she be rambling about the nineties if what you’re saying is true?” Kai finally asks him.
Lamar’s eyes water as though Kai’s just asked him something very personal that has made him emotional.
“We can see a lot of the future. The human future, that is. We spent centuries perfecting our nineties slang,” the watery-eyed man says very quietly.
“Not quite perfected even after all that,” Jude says as he looks back at me, smirking. Then gives his serious face back to Lamar.
“She and I made a pact that we’d go mortal in the nineties. She wanted to be a dancing pop singer, and knew you four would end up her backup dancers or a boy band.”
I’m so stunned that I can even recycle my One Erection joke.
Lamar continues speaking when no one says anything, and the guys just stare at him like he’s lost his damn mind for suggesting such a horrible thing. They’d be an adorable boy band.
“She wanted to read about the scandal later when she had all her memories and her body back, and like always, you’d all sit around basking in how you fell in love again, even though you had no idea who you were in that time. I was going to become a politician, because we both knew Manella would go if I went, and we’d fall in love there. He’d never gone mortal before, but promised me he would in the nineties. It would have been a helluva scandal for us to enjoy upon our return.”
“Did he go?” I ask, feeling my heart hurt a little for no really good reason.
“Why would she—”
“Did he go?” I ask louder, talking over Jude, who looks at me like I’m going crazy.