1
The feather falls from Lucas’s fingers. He snaps his head to the side and holds out his arm, blocking me from the door.
“What?” I whisper, heart racing. “Do you hear something?”
“Shhh,” he tells me and motions for me to move back. My heels softly click on the dusty hardwood floor as I take a step away from the door. Lucas speeds forward, twisting the lock, and then moves back to me, taking me protectively in his arms. We both know a simple lock isn’t going to keep an angel out.
I close my eyes and hold out my hand, calling the glowing blue energy ball that was floating above us back into my hand. I absorb the magic and the foyer goes dark. I can’t see a thing, but Lucas can.
“I think we’re alone,” he tells me, and the floor creaks beneath his feet. His cool fingers wrap around my arm as he holds me closer. I smash myself against his chest, scared that if I conjure another energy ball, light will fill the room and reveal the faces of a dozen angels, eyes narrowed with anger, looking at me like I’m an abomination that needs to be eliminated.
“I never thought I’d be scared of angels.” I splay my trembling fingers on Lucas’s broad chest. There’s no heart beating beneath my palm. It used to unnerve me. Now it comforts me.
“I won’t let anything happen to you.”
“I know,” I say softly, but that thought scares me almost as much. Lucas would die before he let anyone get to me, and I’m not losing him.
A familiar energy tugs me forward, and I pull out of Lucas’s embrace, holding my hand out toward the door.
“What is it?” he asks.
“My familiars.” I look at him. “I’m going to open the door.”
Lucas sidesteps closer to the doors, ready to attack anything that tries to get into the house who isn’t my familiar. I conjure another string of blue magic and let it go into the air. It hovers about a foot above my head, twisting and shimmering in the dark.
Binx, Pandora, and Freya are closing in on the porch. I can feel when they slip past the warding I’ve placed on the house. Waving my hand at the door, I undo the locks and open one of the double doors. My familiars shadow in and Lucas speeds forward, slamming the door shut behind them.
“Did you sense anything out there?” I ask as Pandora and Freya shift back into cat form. Binx, ancient, powerful and apparently guided to me by my angel father, stays in his shadow form, looking like the black shadow creature from your worst nightmare.
“Not in the woods,” he says, deep voice echoing all around us. Pandora and Freya sniff the feather, and Binx shifts into his form as a black cat and investigates the feather too.
“He says it feels familiar,” I tell Lucas, picking up the feather once my familiars are done with it. “Does it smell like the other one I had?”
Lucas brings the feather to his face and inhales. “It’s strange…I can’t tell.”
“What do you mean?”
“It doesn’t smell like a bird. It doesn’t smell human. But I can’t discern anything further from there, which I suppose makes sense given that we know it’s angelic.”
“Well,” I start and wrap my fingers around the vane of the feather, careful not to crush it. “We can’t stay here forever, and I’m hungry. Tacos and margaritas sound so fucking good right now.”
Lucas and my familiars stare at me like I’m crazy.
“What?”
“Maybe we should go back to your house and order food,” Lucas suggests.
“Nothing delivers all the way out here.”
“Then I’ll pick it up.”
“You can’t order a margarita to go. Michael told me to keep living my life and that’s what I want do. Besides.” I hold up my hand, heart skipping a beat for a different reason. “We have a lot to celebrate.” Blue light reflects off the large engagement ring. “I am not going to let anything ruin tonight. We’re going out, we’re celebrating, and I’m going to take stereotypical photos of my ring to post on social media like a normal fucking person.”
“My love,” Lucas says gently, still looking at me like I’m on the verge of walking into a salon, grabbing clippers, and shaving my hair off. “The Grand Coven has forbidden us to be together. You know how I feel about them—and my offer still stands to rip their throats out—but posting on social media is a terrible idea.”
“Dammit, you’re right.” I let out a sigh. So much has happened over the last few days. I’m half angel. Half witch. Demons want to kill me. Angels want to kill me. The Grand Coven has ruled against my relationship with Lucas, and if I’m found guilty of associating with vampires, then my very own High Priestess is the one who’s supposed to punish me.
“Let’s get away.” Lucas strides forward and envelops me in his arms. “Let’s go somewhere we can celebrate our engagement. Paris. London. Ibiza. We can stay at my vineyard in Italy or my estate in California. Hell, I’ll take you to Disney World. Bring Kristy and Evander and you can go out together during the day.”
He gathers my hair to one side and presses his lips to my neck. A shiver runs through me and I want nothing more than to surrender to him, feeling nothing but pleasure for the next hour or so as he makes love to me.
“You’d really go to Disney?”
He chuckles. “Out of every place I listed that’s where you want to go?”
“It’s a little nostalgic for me.” I snap my head up. “Wait, you own a vineyard in Italy and I’m just now learning about it?”
“I own a lot of properties. I own one in Naples, California too. You’ll own them too, once we’re married.”
“You want to put everything in both our names?”
He cups my face with his large hands. “Yes. When I asked you to marry me, Callie, it was because I want to be with you in every way. As husband as wife. Witch—or Nephilim—and vampire,” he adds with a cheeky grin. “You are the first and only person I’ve ever
wanted to share everything with. What I was. What I am. What I will be. I want it all with you.”
Tears fill my eyes and I step closer to my undead lover.
“You will be mine in every single way,” he growls, lowering his hands to my waist. He pulls me in and bends down. “And I will be yours.”
“I love you,” I whisper right before he kisses me, tongue plunging into my mouth. His fangs, still drawn, poke against my lips. They don’t break the skin, and the slight pain they cause feels good. He breaks away, resting his forehead against mine.
“I suppose we should go out for dinner now. You should eat so I can.”
I hook my arms around his shoulders and smile. “You just ate me not that long ago.”
The cheeky grin is back on his face, and blue light dances over his handsome face. “Are you referring to your pussy or your blood?”
I wiggle my eyebrows. “I like when they go hand in hand.”
He sweeps one hand down and squeezes my butt. “I do too.”
“I’ll have them go out first,” I tell Lucas, and turn my head to look at my familiars. Freya is on the stairs batting at a large spider. Pandora has gone into the basement, hunting mice, and Binx is sitting in the windowsill, looking out at the dark yard. Sometimes they look and act like so much like normal house cats it’s humorous. I don’t think they’ll ever admit it, but they’ve gotten quite used to their cushy lifestyle with me.
Though that’s not to say there’s not a certain amount of danger that comes from being my familiar.
“Are you sure you don’t want to christen one of the bedrooms first?”
I laugh. “I told you, once the mold and dust has been cleared, I’m game for having sex in every single room of this house. And there are a lot of rooms.”
“Well, in that case, I should bring on another construction crew and speed things up.”
“Can we actually do that? I cannot wait to move in here with you.”
“There are certain things you can rush and certain thing you can’t. As much as I want to strip you down, spread your legs, and drink from your thighs, I want this house to be perfect even more. It will be worth it.”
“You’re such a perfectionist,” I tease.
“Only for you.” Lucas pulls me close and I look at the ring once more. I’m not good at guessing carat size or anything like that, but this thing is huge. It’s going to take some getting used to wearing it, and I can totally see myself scratching my face with that thing.
Hah, it’s big enough to double as a weapon if it came down to it.
“I do at least have to text Kristy. Like right now.”
“Very well,” he says with a smile and takes his arms from me. I pull my phone from my purse and take a few pictures of my hand, and then make Lucas stand with me for a selfie.