I shrugged out of his touch and crossed my arms, facing the wall for a moment to compose myself.
“So what? Her own mother is a Necromancer. Half this school has some form of demon power in them. Why do they want her?” Lincoln was trying to downplay it, which made me fall for him even harder in that moment.
Raphael cleared his throat. “Because of the prophecy. Because of whose powers she has.”
My whole body went rigid as I tried to remind myself to breathe. I slowly turned around, my eyes snapping to the archangel’s face. “What did you just say?”
Prophecies were never good. I’d never heard of a prophecy where someone forecasted peace on Earth, or that starting in a certain year, everyone would be happy.
Raphael sighed again, seemingly resigned. “Right after the war, when we’d realized what it had cost the humans, we found our first Sighted. She was an older woman, about sixty years in age, and she told of a prophecy that each Sighted after her has repeated verbatim, despite never being told about it.”
No.
My thoughts immediately went to James and those few minutes before the Awakening ceremony. He’d told me to be careful, and what else? I couldn’t remember, and we’d been interrupted before he could tell me more. I hadn’t seen or spoken to him since. Now that I thought of it, I hadn’t even heard about him. What happened to him after the Awakening? I’d have to ask Shea if she saw him at Tainted Academy. The Sighted received the rarest of the powers; I didn’t think I’d even met one at this school.
“What’s the prophecy?” I asked, wishing I had Teddy, my stuffed bear with one eye and a split neck from when Mikey tried to kill him with a bow and arrow. He was somewhere in a landfill right now, but I desperately wanted him back.
Raphael looked to Lincoln, who was just glaring at him with barely contained anger.
“Prophecies are fickle. If I tell you that you’ll trip and break your leg, and you do, then did you break your leg because you were meant to, or because I planted the seed in your mind?” Raphael asked.
“Sir.” Lincoln bit out that one word, and it was enough to set the tone.
Tell us or we’ll unleash the full rage of two people who don’t like being kept in the dark.
Raphael nodded. “The prophecy states that a young girl with black wings will go into the underworld, and kill Lucifer, ending the war.”
This isn’t happening. I’m still sleeping.
I laughed then. A maniacal, “I’m losing my mind” laugh. Lincoln was staring at me with worry, eyebrows furrowed, mouth dipping in a slight frown.
“That doesn’t mean it’s you, or that the prophecy will come to pass. The future is always changing—”
“Why do I have black wings? What am I?” I’d asked many times, and he’d always danced around it, conveniently leaving that part out.
Raphael took on the face of a father then, one who was about to tell a child their cat had been run over. “You’re a beautiful soul who was empowered with gifts from me, Michael, Uriel, Gabriel and…”
He paused and I leaned forward, though I wasn’t sure I really wanted to know.
“Lucifer.”
He actually said it, spoke my worst nightmare out loud. Not that I could conceive of such an awful thing, but pretty much the worst thing that could ever happen to a human—being endowed with powers from Lucifer himself—had happened to me. Hooray….
I shook my head vigorously. “No. No, you’re mistaken.” Bile rose in my throat.
Denial. I would fly and live there forever, because there was no way I was accepting that as truth.
My eyes flicked over to Lincoln, who stood there slack-jawed, staring at me like I’d sprouted an extra head.
Raphael moved closer to me, and I took a step back. “I don’t want comfort. I want the truth!” I shouted at him.
He frowned. “Of course.” Then he walked over to the desk, and produced the box and knife from my blood ceremony. “Lucifer’s emblem, the snake, lit up when I tested you.”
Shock ripped through me at such concrete proof, my eyes filling with tears as denial turned to shame.
“That’s not fair!” I yelled as the tears overflowed, and trailed down my cheek. “I didn’t ask for this. You love talking about free will, well I didn’t will any of this. I was an innocent five-year-old girl when you”—I jabbed my finger at him as the rage built within me—“and the rest of the angels started a war, infecting my people. Innocent humans were turned to freaks because of you!” I shouted.
Hurt crossed Raphael’s face. “I know. I’m so sorry.”
Lincoln winced. “Brielle.”
“No. Leave me alone.” I turned and burst out of the door, blasting past Noah, Blake and Darren, who were stationed on either side.
I was dark. Shea had made me promise I wouldn’t let her go dark, and I was the one who did. Not just any dark magic ran through my veins—his did. Lucifer’s. The Devil. Freaking evil incarnate. I felt sick to my stomach thinking about it.
I ran harder, pumping my legs to take me to the open field where I knew I could be alone. Everyone was still sleeping, the sun just starting to rise. I wanted to fly far away from there, to another country, and never speak of it again. Live an entirely new life.
If I was Lucifer’s weird little stepchild, would the demons ever stop coming for me? Especially if they believed in some prophecy, where I was going to kill him?
Really? Me, an almost nineteen-year-old girl, go into the depths of Hell and kill the Devil? I laughed as more tears streamed down my face.
Footsteps sounded behind me, and I whirled around to Lincoln. I just stood there, chest heaving from running, tears covering my cheeks. I was a hot mess, and I was still wearing my dress from the ball.
“I’m evil,” I whimpered. I had to voice my fears out loud to someone—why not him? He was probably there to lock me in my own area of the school, where they could keep an eye on me.
His face contorted in agony. “No. Never.”
He pulled me by the shoulders, and crushed me into his chest for a bear hug. As those strong arms wrapped around me, his scent washed over me, mixing with the warmth of his tight muscles, I felt so safe, so at home.
Lincoln Grey was hugging me. Hard. Like he didn’t want to let go.
Maybe I am still sleeping.
“We’ll figure this out together,” he promised.
What?
I looked up into his eyes as he looked down at me, our lips a mere agonizing inch apart. “Together?”
He nodded. “Yeah. You’ve grown on me. You’re mine now.”
“You’re mine now.”
My brain barely had time to process those delicious words, when his lips claimed mine in a tender kiss. It wasn’t heated like the one on the beach; it was soft, exploring, and over all too soon.
When he pulled back, he brushed his fingers through my hair. “When I met you, I was in a dark place, fresh from the loss of my family, but something about you lit me up again, made me care again. I tried to fight it, to look for reasons why this wouldn’t work, but I can’t anymore.” His thumb stroked my jaw, and a pulse of heat shot straight to my gut.
Whoa. I had no words for that announcement.
“Tell no one of this news. Except for Shea.” Then he switched to battle mode. “I’m going to double your training. I want you to become a lethal demon-killing machine by the end of the year. Pass the gauntlet, and get accepted into year two. It’s the only way to keep you safe,” he declared.
My mind was still on that kiss, that declaration that I, Brielle Atwater, lit him up inside. But then reality came crashing down—I was Lucifer’s daughter, for all intents and purposes.
“What if I go dark?” Black throat-choking magic flung from my mouth, after all. We certainly couldn’t ignore that.
He shook his head. “Not possible.”
Denial. I used to live there.
“Lincoln, I appreciate your faith in me, but if I go dark—”
Grasping both sides of my face, he cupped my cheeks. “Brielle, you annoy the shit out of me sometimes, you’re stubborn as hell, you don’t listen, and I’m pretty sure the black magic you choked the Abrus demon with is super-dark stuff, but you are not evil. I know your soul.”