ground. He hadn’t even made a sound as Remy and Luke carried him back to the Sanctuary. Her gaze flickered over her unblemished knuckles.
He had to be young. Maybe late twenties. Kind of hot, too. All of the male Nephilim were attractive. They got good looks courtesy of their fathers.
This one had dark auburn hair and it was cropped short, a style favored by most police officers. At rest, his face held the youthful, innocent quality that alone proved he had no idea what he was. All Nephilim had a hardness about them, even her. The curve of his jaw was strong, and his cheeks chiseled. Thick lashes fanned those cheeks. He had the face of an angel.
Remy folded his arms across his broad chest as he inspected their newly acquired Nephilim. “Damn, can’t say I’m not surprised you knocked out another police officer.”
She winced.
Luke stood beside Remy. Immediately, she shifted to the other side of the bed. She hated when they towered over her. The boys’ height was a characteristic of their kind that Lily had missed out on. All male Nephilim were well over six feet and counting, practically giants, while she was small enough to be thrown on their backs like a backpack.
“Do you really think he’s Nephilim?” Luke directed toward Remy.
Lily sighed. “Touch him and find out.”
“How could a Nephilim make it this long and not know what he is?” Luke asked. “Better yet, not get swayed by the Fallen?”
“How would I know? Go ahead and touch him,” she urged. “You’ll know.” Both Luke and Remy appeared doubtful. “Just touch him and get it over with.”
Remy sneered. “God, not when you say it like that.”
Lily flipped him off.
Muttering under his breath, Luke leaned over the man and slowly placed his hand against the guy’s forehead. Luke shot back as if jolted—a fine zap of electricity that fired when coming into contact with another Nephilim. “Damn it.”
She rocked back on her heels, grinning. “I told you he’s Nephilim.”
Remy shook his head in wonder. “Wow, he is one lucky SOB, then, that you knocked his lights out.”
Her smile grew to ridiculous proportions. She loved to be complimented. It was so few and far between these—
“Lillian Marks! Get your ass in here right now!”
Lily jumped, eyes widening. Two floors separating them and Nathaniel was that loud. Luke snickered, and she shot him a dirty look. “Thanks,” she muttered.
Remy at least had the decency to give her warning. “Nathaniel is pissed. You have no idea how many favors he had to call in tonight.”
Her shoulders slumped as she moved around the bed slowly. Luke patted her on top of the head when she passed. She swung at him, but he darted out of the way, laughing. “I hate you both.”
Remy shuffled closer to the bed as she headed to the door. “Do you know how hard it will be to train him at this age?”
She stopped in the doorway. It would be damn near impossible. They couldn’t train him. It was too late. The best thing they could do is put him back in the cruiser and wish for the best. Cruel, but there was no way Officer Prettypants could do his job and live through the night.
But it was not her problem.
Lily walked down the dimly lit corridor of level five, a housing unit five floors underground the Sanctuary office building. Buried so deep under the third tallest building in DC, no one made it to this level uninvited. Taking the elevator, she descended to level seven where Nathaniel kept his real office and living quarters.
Nathaniel sat behind a large oval desk finished in a cherry stain that was polished to the point she could see her reflection in it. Lily was well familiar with that. She spent a lot of time staring at her own face in his desk as she was lectured over the latest stunt she’d pulled—or Julian, especially over him. He’d become quite the main theme of her most recent lectures.
She stumbled. She never stumbled. Unless it was about her not-so-angelic stalker Julian, and when it was, everything went to Hell.
Nathaniel set his phone down quietly, motioning her into his office. “Sit.”
It was like she was thirteen again, and she sat awkwardly, folding her hands in her lap like some misbehaving child. She was a full-grown woman who could take down an entire room of minions without breaking a single nail, but none of that mattered when she sat in front of Nathaniel.
He had this look when he was upset with her. It usually started with him absently brushing back his brown hair, then tucking the longer strands behind his ears. His lips would turn down, and he would pierce her with those pale blue eyes. Then fine lines would form around them, marring his otherwise youthful face.
She had no idea how old he was. No one she knew did.
He had to be at least several hundred years old, though he looked about thirty. The same as he had the night he’d pulled her, shrieking and crying, away from her mother’s corpse. She had been five.
“Lily.”
She squirmed. “Nathaniel.”
“First off, what the hell are you wearing?”
Surprised, she glanced down at herself. She was wearing the same thing she’d had on earlier. “Huh?”
“You’re out hunting in a skirt that barely covers your ass,” he remarked.
She bristled even though her cheeks flamed. “Excuse me, fashion police, I didn’t realize I needed your permission on what I could wear.”
He sighed wearily. “I’m only looking out for you.”
“I don’t need anyone looking out for me.”
“That may be, but we’ve got a mess here.” He leaned back in his chair, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Lily, you know things are heating up. The Fallen are corrupting more and more of the Nephilim. We are losing an increasing number of souls to them, and that means countless innocent people.”
Boy did she know. The Fallen were snatching up the young Nephilim before the Sanctuary could get them safely tucked away. Once the Fallen had them, they were lost. Corrupt as the angels that had fathered them. Those Nephilim turned minion and became the very thing their kind was supposed to hunt.
“The last thing we need is to be exposed.”
Lily shifted, the leather creaking under her slight weight. “I know.”
“Do you even know how many favors I had to call in? Danyal put his neck on the line so no one would question why that young man didn’t come off his shift.”
She fidgeted in the seat. Danyal had enmeshed himself deep within the police department just in case they needed someone in times like these. But favors were always few and hard to cover up.
“I taught you to strike and get the hell out. It’s as simple as that.”
Her lips pursed. That had been the plan, but her temper had gotten the best of her.
“You need to be more careful,” he said quietly.
What he hadn’t said hung in the air between them. She knew he was remembering Anna and what had happened to her. Damn it, she missed her friend fiercely. Anna and Lily had had a tight relationship. She’d been older than Lily, accepting the Contract decades ago. But Anna had first lost her heart and then her head to one of the Fallen.
Foolish, beautiful Anna.
There were so few female Nephilim. Most children were born male, but every few decades a female half- breed would surface. Besides Michelle, who’d been reassigned to New York, Anna had been the only other female hunter in the DC section.
The pain of her loss still reverberated through the halls of the Sanctuary, and no two people were more affected by it than Nathaniel and Luke. They had seen her death as their own personal failure. Lily knew Nathaniel took full blame, believing he hadn’t trained her well enough. Part of her knew Luke agreed with him. The last six weeks had been tough, and the tension between the two males had only grown.
Nathaniel unfolded his arms, letting out a world-weary sigh. “The good thing about this is that we got him
