Crown of Thorns (Legends and Lovers)

“Yes. I’m sure lying to a nun and taking her virtue was a hardship,” I snapped.

“I didn’t lie to her. She lied to me and said I had a son. You should thank me for my tenacity. The many times I had to bed her until I felt that spark of life in her womb.” He looked disgusted, but so was I.

“You created me. Why?” I asked.

“You know why—” Michael began, but I interrupted his monologue.

“For your own ambitions. Maybe with a little help from a demon, perhaps. Get Gabriel to break his vow. Leaving the top spot wide open.”

That had been niggling me from the beginning. What would Lilith have to gain by Duncan breaking his vow? I could come up with nothing. Yes, somehow she’d thought she’d get our son out of the bargain. I still hadn’t figured that out yet. But the biggest prize was Duncan being cast out of the order.

Michael narrowed his eyes on me. “To end the war of wars, of course.”

I could feel Duncan’s rage as he, too, put the pieces together.

“What is it worth to you to have me go willingly?” I asked Michael.

Their order was bound by laws. Human free will was the chief among those, and my mother had been human. That made me part human and I had that right of free will he couldn’t take away. Oh, he could physically remove me from this spot if Duncan weren’t here, but he couldn’t force me to comply with his plans.

“What is your bargain, daughter?”

I wanted to laugh. This man cared so little for me, he hadn’t bothered to find out my name. I didn’t doubt he had no idea I was a girl until he’d showed up here. There weren’t female angels so when Mom said I was a boy that was easy for him to take.

In my readings at the nunnery, I’d come across mentions of half angels, half humans. They were sometimes referred to as Nephilim. But Nephilim weren’t full angels. The human half had no such rules about what sex we were.

Through our bond, Duncan guessed what I was about to do. “Don’t, mo ghràidh.”

I didn’t know what exactly he’d said, but I felt how much he cared. I shifted to face him and took his other hand in mine. Then I stood on my toes and whispered the words, “Trust me,” across his lips as he had said to me not long ago before giving him a soul-bending kiss.

He didn’t want to. A surge of emotions warred inside him. I raised our joined hands, the flare of our mark bursting with colors.

“You marked her,” Michael thundered. I hadn’t really noticed until that moment that Michael sounded English. His clipped tone perfectly conveyed his disdain.

I begged Duncan for forgiveness with my eyes before dropping our hands. I had let Michael see the mark on purpose, hoping it would be the push for him to give in to my demand.

You can never truly understand how much you feel for another person until you determine what you are willing to sacrifice for them.

I turned and gave a sad smile to Cin. I promised myself there would be time for me to get to know him and all I’d missed, but time was up.

Facing Michael, I said, “I will go with you if you restore him,” as I pointed at Duncan.

Angels could sense one another. Nephilim could to some degree as well if a higher angel didn’t have the ability to disguise their nature. I couldn’t feel Cin’s angel side. I’d hoped to ask what Duncan had done to protect my son because along with the never-ending war between good and evil, archangels were given the task of eliminating the Nephilim problem created by angels who, for lack of a better term, liked to party on earth.

Uriel, Zadkiel, Raphael, and Michael were all aware Duncan had broken his vow and had been stripped of his heavenly powers to a point. But they didn’t know Cin was his son. My guess was they thought he felt obligated to the woman they thought was Cin’s mother because he’d broken his vow with her. Or so they assumed. When they sensed nothing angelic in Cin’s nature, that justified their conclusions.

That was the reason I didn’t ask for Cin to be restored. The others might want to destroy him. It was also true that when Duncan became Gabriel again, he might not continue to protect our son. But I had to trust something inside him would keep Cin’s identity secret, as it would cost him nothing more than his silence. It was a risk, either way. This one left only one immortal to decide his fate, not the entire order of angels.

I watched as a not-so-nice grin spread over Michael’s face in response to my demand.