Page 24 of Serendipity

I let out a disgusted noise. “As much as I wanna do her family tree for her, I assume she’s been kicking around a lot longer than us. What’s the fucking drama now?”

Judas gave me one of his disapproving looks that was meant to make me piss my pants but no longer had any affect on me whatsoever. “The fucking drama is that the her stalker, abducter, baby daddy is the goddamn Archangel Uriel. Is that dramatic enough for you, Goliath?”

Holy fucking shit. Not much stunned me anymore, but getting knocked up by an Archangel would do it. Her story of being tortured, which I knew in my soul was true because you can’t fake those kinds of mental scars, seemed a whole lot more ominous. How much punishment could a Nephilim body take? I found myself wanting to find out personally.

Cain paced around, the room too small to hold his energy. “Do we tell her? What we are, I mean?”

I slammed my fist back on the filing cabinet, denting the door a little. “Fuck no. We tell no one.

Just because she’s a similar type of freak to us, doesn’t mean she needs to know. What if Uriel gets her again? Pretty sure he’d pet her little head for giving up Lucifer’s fucking Horsemen, don’t you?”

Solomon opened his mouth, probably to give me a serve, or suck Cain’s dick, but Judas lifted his hand. “I agree with G,” I grinned smugly at my Brothers, but my smile fell at his next words. “I don’t think we tell her yet. We’ll see how it plays out. Maybe she’ll have the kid and run off, no harm, no foul. If shit goes fucking sideways, then we can tell her. But she knows we aren’t human, so she’ll be watching. Keep your damn shit together.” He eyed me then and I scowled at him.

Cain stepped forward. “So she stays?” He looked like a damn little kid asking Daddy if they could keep the stray cat he found in a junkyard. Judas nodded and I punched the filing cabinet again.

I could hear Trigger coming down the stairs, cooing shit to the woman. She walked through the door, and looking at her was like a punch in the balls. She looked all sleepy, her eyes hooded, her hair mussed and poking up at odd angles. Her belly looked even bigger than it had this morning, which was impossible. Fuck, maybe it wasn’t impossible for a Nephilim fucking Archangel bastard.

Maybe they came in litters. Who the hell knew?

“Thanks, Trig. Shit is starting to get rowdy out there, go tell them the beer is on the house. But if they smash up the place again, I’m taking it out on their fucking flesh, got it?”

Trigger was young enough to still be scared shitless by Judas. He just nodded and fucked off out of the room faster than I could see. Probably off to get his dick wet with one of the dancers. They all loved him and that stupid cowboy hat.

When the door closed again, the woman looked more alert, like she realized that she was surrounded by fucking killers.

Her face turned down, and she swallowed hard. “You’re kicking me out, right? It’s okay, I don’t blame you. I don’t want to put you in a position to have to fight a battle you can’t win.”

My inner Horseman growled at the idea we would lose any battle we started. I was fucking Conquest. If Damnation wanted the girl, we would fucking take her no matter who else wanted her.

Judas gave me a pointed look that said “Control your fucking self” and turned back to the woman.

“No. We aren’t kicking you out. We think we can still protect you if we have to and we aren’t going to send someone to their fucking death because we are too chickenshit to try. You stay until you want to leave.”

I stubbornly ignored the flash of relief in her eyes and focused on Judas’ words. “But there's rules.

One, we aren’t going to tell you what we are. Deal with it. Two, if you sense trouble, you tell us immediately.” She nodded warily. “Three. No using your powers on anyone in the Club.”

She laughed flatly. “I spent fucking years being tortured in Purgatory. Other than my near immortality making me the perfect fucking canvas for sick angels, I have no damn powers.” The bitterness in her voice, the darkness dripping from her tongue, made my own stir. I wanted to carve up the people who hurt her, which had less to do with her and more to do with the fact I wanted to make someone bleed. I made a low humming noise in my throat, pleasure at the thought, and the woman gave me the side-eye. “Is that it?”

Judas nodded. “For now.” He seemed to hesitate. “Let the guys help you. It would help assuage some of our past sins.”

My eyes snapped to the Pres. I’d atoned for our sins. I’d bathed in the blood of that atonement. I didn’t need some bitch soothing my hurt feelings. I curled my lip menacingly, and was happy at the fear that made her shoulders tense. Good. She might be part-angel, but we were the damn harbingers of the End of Days. She should be scared.

She nodded and turned toward the door, but hesitated. “What will you tell everyone else?”

Cain stepped toward her, his hand alighting softly on her spine. “We’ll hold Church. Put it to the members. But it's in our code that we offer sanctuary to women. We'll tell them we expect trouble, and if they want to send away any of their Old Ladies, they can. We’ll put a ban on the sweetbutts for a while too, though they can still go to the strip club. Then we’ll vote. It’ll be fine. The four of us, and Trigger will vote for letting you stay. No one will go against all five of us like that.”

He grinned at her, an expression I hadn’t seen in decades. Maybe the Pres was right, maybe she was helping them overcome their past sins.

Not me though. I was steeped in sin. Blackness flooded from my pores and spewed past my lips. I was beyond saving, and I wallowed in my filth happily.

Judas clapped his hands together, the sound overly loud in the tiny room. “Good. Let’s fucking party.”

Solomon hefted the woman in his arms and whooped, and her stunned squeak made my lips twitch. “Let’s go. I’ll drink your share, Dippy.”

He skipped out of the room, Cain’s snarl to watch her head trailing them and the woman’s light laughs bouncing off the walls.

Judas turned toward me, his face not showing any of the lightness that the other two had. I understood. His grief was an endless well that he filled with anger and tyranny. He seemed fair, but underneath that reasonable exterior hid a monster that could bring nothing but death and destruction.

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