by Rae Foxx
I nodded. "Thank you."
"Lilith, is this important right now?" Lucifer asked testily. "We need to rest."
I was pretty tired from the ordeal we'd been through. Normally, going from our Earth cycle back home was exhausting. We'd battled demons and traveled the world since then, all without a moment's rest. But something told me I needed to read more about these Cambions.
"Just give me a few, okay?"
He looked disgruntled, but he nodded. "Fine."
I walked back to the armchair and dug in. Time to see what the Nephilim could teach me about Cambions. It should’ve been a lot since I’d never even heard of them.
4
Lucifer tried to talk to me several times after that, but I became so engrossed in reading the book he finally gave up.
Several hours later, I finished it. Somewhere in the middle, I'd asked for a pen and paper and made several notes.
"Luc," I called as I looked through the apartment. I found him with Michael in Mary's kitchen. He had a plate of pasta in front of him and a speck of sauce on his chin. I couldn't help but chuckle. Michael turned from his spot across from Lucifer and grinned. "Hungry?"
"Now that you mention it, I'm starving," I said. "But the information I got from that book is very interesting." I pulled out a chair beside Michael. "Has Mary gotten in touch with the Brujo?"
"She's still trying to contact him," Luc said as he wiped his face. "He doesn't have any modern methods of communication, and she said the supernatural ones are difficult because of his wards."
"Well, check this out." I shoved my notes toward him. "Did you know about this?"
He peered down at my scratches and nodded. "Cambions? Yeah, why?"
"How did I not know about it?" I asked. "Do they still exist? Is it true that the Nephilim wiped them out?"
"I'd imagine with all the demons on Earth right now, we'll see quite a few born soon," Michael said. "But previously yes, the Nephilim saw it as their sacred charge to rid the world of the demon-human hybrids."
Luc took another big bite while Michael spoke, then added his two cents. "Nephilim don't differentiate between Angels or Fallen as sires. But they do when it comes to demons procreating."
"According to that book, Cambion aren't capable of human emotions or thoughts, and are nothing more than demons themselves."
Lucifer shook his head. "I've always doubted that. But if we'd gotten involved with the Nephilim wars, then the angels would've had to as well," he said.
Michael grunted his agreement. "True. And our experiences with the Cambion indicate it's true that they're pretty mindless."
I stared at them in complete shock. "How is this possible? How did I not know about an entire species that has been eradicated?"
Lucifer and Michael exchanged a look, but neither volunteered any information. "I have no idea, Lil," Michael said. "We didn't keep it from you. It just isn't one of those things we talked about widely."
Lucifer nodded. I trickled a bit of magic to probe their auras and found them both with an open and honest mood about them. "Okay." I accepted what they said and moved on. "Well, look here. The book mentions a school. Do you know about it?"
Lucifer looked lost, but Michael sighed. "Yeah, I know about it."
Luc's face went from curious confusion to irritation in a flash. "How is it I don't?"
I was wondering the same thing. How had I never heard of the Cambion or a school for Nephilim?
"They're pretty secretive, you know that," Michael said. "I'm not sure I could even get to it." He ducked his head and focused on the last of his dinner. "Again."
Something was off about his voice and demeanor. "Again? What aren't you telling me?" I asked.
The fork clanked against the plate as he sat it down and sighed. "You know we don't spend much time on Earth as Angels."
I nodded.
"Before you and I married, before we were even flirting..." He cleared his throat and tugged at his shirt collar. "I had a fling on Earth."
My jaw dropped, and I understood immediately. "You have a child?" Emotions washed over me. Shock, betrayal, and anger warred to be the one to display on my face. "What?"
He held up his hands. "I didn't know. Not until a little while before our last Earth cycle. I was trying to come to terms with it and figure out how to tell you when we were pulled into our cycle. Then it wasn't at the top of the conversation list once things went crazy."
I sat at the table and reeled. He had a child. "How? When?"
"The human got pregnant. Obviously, I never knew." He held out his hands, palm up. I nodded, recognizing that if he'd known, he would've said something, claimed the child, etcetera. He was a loving, caring person. He never would've been able to ignore a child of his own.
I glanced at Lucifer, who chewed thoughtfully. "How did you find out?"
Michael shook his head. “I was sent on assignment, by Raphael, to find the Nephilim Academy. There are few Nephilim created now, as you know, but it happens occasionally. When they're considered grown by their human parent's standards, usually a human mother, the child is brought to the academy and told about their real heritage and parentage."
"Who teaches them?" I asked. I was becoming more shocked that the Nephilim were this advanced and organized after all these years. I knew they existed. I knew that many angels had created them once upon a time, including my own brother.
I didn't ever suspect my husband might have or that they were still a force on this Earth. I'd thought they were retired, hiding in the shadows, occasionally visiting their descendants, the Voodoo and other magical beings on the Earth.
"They do," Michael said. "They live pretty much forever, with our long life. They're easier to kill than we are, but they're insanely powerful. It's argued that they're more powerful than the angels and Fallen, but nobody wants to put it to the test."
Luc snorted. "No joke." He grumbled as he kept eating.
"Hang on." I had to stop him. How did he not already see the link? "Raphael had you go find the Nephilim Academy right before our Earth cycle, and we know that since then he's created at least one new Nephilim?" I raised my eyebrows at him.
"Yes, I see the link." He shrugged. "But what good does it do us?"
"What happened when you found it?" Luc asked.
"The headmaster looked exactly like me," Michael said in an incredulous voice. "Freaked me the hell out. We sat down and talked and figured out that he's my son."
I sat back and processed the information. "It seems to me that Raphael may be building up the Nephilim for a selfish reason. That's the only explanation I can think of. He's in a long game. He's planned all this for who knows how many years?"
Lucifer finished his food and pushed the bowl away. Michael took the dishes to the sink and began washing them. I smiled, loving him for being so considerate even as I still tried to process the fact that I was a stepmom to an ancient Nephilim Academy Headmaster I'd never met.
Eventually, irritation and anger won out. I knew Michael hadn't kept the information from me intentionally, but he should've told me at the first opportunity—before our Earth cycle. "Why didn't you come to me before? Before we came to Earth? When you were processing your emotions and figuring out how you felt about having a son."
He froze with his hands in the dishwater. "I don't know. Even though it happened before we were a couple, I felt guilty, like I'd betrayed you."
Lucifer rolled his eyes. "Oh, please. You were afraid she'd get pissed."
Water slung as Michael whirled. "That's not true, and this isn't strictly any of your business, is it?"
Oh, geez. Not this again. They got along most of the time, but sometimes they butted heads in the worst way. "Stop it," I said as firmly as I could. "We need to focus on Ariel now. This other stuff is important but can wait, okay?"
They nodded, but both looked pissed. I was pissed myself, but shit, Luc didn't have to make it worse.
Mary walked into the kitchen as Michael finished wiping t
he counters. "Thank you," she said.
I jumped up to see if she was ready to tell us how to find her friend.
She shook her head and held up a hand. Then, I noticed how tired she looked. "No, it was no good. He's really hard to get ahold of."
Lucifer sighed and rubbed his fingers across his eyes. As if Mary's tired demeanor reminded us of our own, suddenly I felt the weight of the exhaustion that came along with rebirth. It always took us days of rest to acclimate back into our Elysium bodies, but this time we'd had zero time.
"Maybe we should go home for a while," I suggested. "Until you get in touch with him. We won't be any good to anyone if we're utterly exhausted. We might make dangerous mistakes."
Mary nodded. "I think that's wise," she said. "I'll contact you as soon as I have any information." She yawned. "I have to take a break myself. This sort of contact is difficult and fiddly and drains me."
I exchanged a look with Michael, but Lucifer was still pissed and staunchly not looking at us. "Thank you, Mary." Standing, I took her hand and squeezed it, hopefully sending her my intense appreciation for her efforts. "We'll talk soon.”
5
Mary looked deep into my eyes and nodded. She understood exactly how much I appreciated all she was doing for us. I let go of her hand to grab Lucifer's and blink us to the house we'd lived in as humans. Michael followed right behind.
We collapsed on the couch in silence, I was sandwiched between my mates, exactly where I needed to be after the intensity of the day. The events of the past twenty-four hours reeled in my mind. I wasn't sure how long we'd been sitting quietly when Gabriel appeared out of nowhere.
We all jumped as he sighed and plopped down on the coffee table in front of us. "You three look like your best friend just died," he said.
None of us felt like correcting him, so we just glared. "What is going on out there?" I asked.
"The world leaders know what it is. They're all talking back and forth. Joel sent a delegate of angels to put their minds at ease that our best people are on the case." He chuckled. "And they say angels can't lie."
"Is there anything we can do?" I asked.
"Did you figure out how to send the demons back to hell?" Gabe retorted.
I shook my head.
"Then, no."
"I'm going to bed," I mumbled and slowly stood. Even my Elysium body was achy. I was just that tired.
Gabe jumped up. "Ah, well, you better let Michael and I clean up a bit first." He winced as I turned a glare his way.
Michael's eyes widened and he jumped up. They both disappeared.
"Fucking great," Lucifer said. "Our dead bodies are upstairs in the bed we want to sleep in." He jumped up and pushed past me a bit too roughly.
I wasn't about to put up with that bullshit. I pushed his shoulder as he passed by. "Stop being such an asshole," I said in a near-yell. "We're all going through shit, you know?"
If looks could have killed. "You have your magic. You don't have what amounts to a limb missing," he snarled.
That was all I could take from him. I pushed him again and again until he was against the wall. My wings erupted from my back, filling the room as my anger filed my body. "I'm missing our child, Lucifer. Our child!"
He pushed back, his black wings appearing between him and the wall as he used them to help him push against me. With just physical strength, I was no match for Luc. But without his powers I could've squashed him like a bug.
Not literally. We weren't that easy to kill. But I wasn't in the mood to actually hurt him. Just to get him to stop being such a jerk. "I know you're frustrated; we all know! And we're doing what we can to fix it."
He pushed back at me again, driving me across the room. "You don't know. You're not doing enough. You should be burning the world to the ground. You've got more magic than anyone except me, why aren't you using it?"
By the time my back hit the wall, he was shouting, and his face was enraged.
"You know why!" I still didn't want to use my magic against him. I knew he wouldn't hurt me. He was pissed beyond anything I'd seen in a very long time, but I didn't worry about my safety for one second.
Neither did Gabriel or Michael, or they would've intervened. They were taking our bodies somewhere else. Probably next door. We could've just gotten rid of them, but that usually caused big drama with the humans. They needed a body and an investigation.
"Why don't you explain it to me?" Lucifer seethed.
He knew damn well why, but if he needed to hear it, I'd say it. "If I use the power it would take to solve this problem, not only would I probably kill myself, I'd expose everything to the humans."
He lost some of his fight and leaned against me, his great black wings moving slowly behind him. "Fix this," he said pitifully.
"Oh, Lucifer..." I wrapped my arms around him and pulled him close, tucking my hands into the warm spot between his wings and back. "I wish I could. I could light this world on fire, that doesn't take that much power, but it wouldn't fix the problem. Your powers are gone, and Ariel is missing."
Luc pulled back enough to look down into my eyes. "I'm still so angry with you. I know you didn't do it on purpose." He shook his head. "I love you, Lilith."
My emotions whirred inside me. He loved me. I knew he did. He always had. I wondered if he could ever get past my colossal mistake in giving Ariel to the humans.
Fuck all, I knew I couldn’t. "I'm angry too, Luc. But instead of focusing on what happened, you should channel your anger to something more productive."
The light in his eyes changed, and I knew what it meant. My words altered his anger into something more... productive.
Lust.
My heartbeat rapidly increased until I panted under Lucifer's gaze. He pressed me back, our wings outstretched, mine pressed against the cool living room wall.
Luc grabbed at the button on my pants and yanked, then pulled the zipper down in one swoop. I pushed at him and unbuttoned his shirt as quickly as I could, sliding my hands under his arms and around his back, the base of his wings, as he pressed his body against me.
As he pressed his erection into my stomach, Luc buried his face in my neck, sucking my skin into his mouth. He growled and pushed my shoulders back.
I grabbed his wings at their base and squeezed. I knew the reaction I'd get.
And I did. He sucked in a sharp breath and bit down on my neck. Taking ownership of my ethereal form. Even without fangs it felt exquisite.
Not today, buddy. Today, I was in charge. I shoved him away, using my wings to launch away from the wall. He flew back, rising into the air in the living room until his head nearly hit the ceiling.
I kept going forward, wrapping my hands around his waistband and unbuttoning his pants as I lifted into the air and shimmied my pants, all the way down my legs. I kicked them and my shoes off and let them land on the floor.
Using my wings to keep me up, as Lucifer did the same, I grabbed his long, hard cock and pumped it a few times to make sure he was ready for me.
He was beyond ready. His breath hissed through his teeth as my hand closed on his dick, and he bumped his head on the ceiling.
I chuckled and launched myself a little higher so I could wrap my legs around his waist. He took his dick into his hands and held it tight so I could sink down onto it.
As soon as he was inside me, he flew forward until my back slammed into the wall again.
Then, he thrust forward with his wings, rising and falling rapidly to push his hard cock in and out of me with the sharp thrust of his hips. I had to lift my hands above my head and brace myself on the ceiling to keep Lucifer from slamming my head into it over and over.
Moaning, I threw my head back as far as I could and let the pleasure take me away from the worries and ache in my heart. For a few minutes, nothing mattered but the feel of Luc's cock hitting me in all the right places.
As my orgasm built, I remembered I was supposed to be in charge.
I pushed off of the wall with m
y wings again, driving us downward. We collapsed on the couch and Luc tucked his wings in just in time as I landed on top of him with his cock still inside me.
Long, purple wings spread, I lifted myself on and off of Lucifer, increasing my speed and strength until my orgasm returned.
When it was right on the cusp of breaking over me, I slammed down onto Luc and pressed my face into his neck.
Opening my mouth, I sank my fangs into Lucifer's neck.
His rich, strong blood poured into my mouth, enhancing my orgasm. As my venom spread through his body, he pulled me close and slammed himself up into me as fast and hard as he could.
Our orgasms waned together, completing as one. I pulled my teeth from Luc's neck, and it healed almost immediately. He didn't have access to his magic to actively use it, but his body was still ethereal. There was magic in that alone.
"I wonder if it's gone or if you're blocked," I whispered.
He had his head on the back of the sofa. "What?" He cracked one eye to look at me. "What are you talking about?"
"I mean, you healed." I climbed off of him and used magic to clean up the mess, so I didn't have to worry about it. With a wave of my hand, we were both dressed again.
He blinked with heavy eyelids and yawned. "Of course I healed."
"We've never dealt with an angel losing their powers, not personally. Why would you still be able to heal? Why would you still be able to produce and hide your wings the way you can?"
He rolled his shoulders as if just now realizing that his wings had disappeared. I tucked mine away as he did. "I don't know. Maybe some magic can't be taken?"
I held out my hand. Our anger seemed to have dissipated. "Come on. Let's lay down until Mary has some news for us."
He nodded and followed me to the bedroom. It looked as pristine as it had when Connie lived there and cleaned up every day, making the bed and wiping the surfaces in the morning before she began her day.
I wasn't nearly as fastidious as she was. But I had the advantage of magic for boring chores like that. Turning back the bed, I slid in and smiled when Luc tucked himself close behind me and wrapped an arm around my waist.