Wait a minute.
“Purple wings,” I blurt out in a hurried whisper.
Flint and Alder frown. “What?”
Purple wings was their damn secret password for my parents. I thought it had to do with my biological mother, but now that I’m staring at Delta’s purple wings, I’m second guessing my assumption. Jealousy burns inside me at the idea of them choosin’ Delta’s wings as their chosen security phrase. I mean, she is beautiful, but how many demons can that girl really handle? It’s downright gluttonous if you ask me.
A voice cuts through the room. “Everyone stop,” the woman with the amethyst wings shouts as she steps between my demons and everyone else.
“Don’t tell us to stop. You stop,” the blond demon with matchin’ blond wings inserts. He throws his arms up in clear aggravation. “You’ve been keeping things from us, Nefta, and it stops now,” he thunders. “By the powers of Hell, if I have to force every last truth out of you myself, I will!”
“I’d like to see you try, Tazreel,” Nefta growls right back.
“Okay, that’s enough,” Probably-Delta announces, cuttin’ in between them. “You both get a time out until you can remember that the world doesn’t revolve around you and there are bigger issues that need to be addressed.”
Her scythe suddenly pops into her hand, and she squeaks in surprise and then groans. She looks over at me. “See? A complete mind of her own,” she repeats.
Tazreel, the blond winged demon, opens his mouth to say somethin’, but Probably-Delta turns to him. “I don’t want to hear it, Taz. You can fight with each other later, but right now, we need to figure shit out,” she scolds him, and surprisingly, he backs down.
“Delta, you’re a pain in my ass,” he mutters.
Ha! I was right. She is Delta.
She ignores his comment. “And you,” Delta barks as she points her scythe at Nefta. “Tazreel is right. You need to start telling us the whole truth, and you need to start now. No more leaving vital information out. Maybe you had your reasons to give us up back then, but the cat’s out of the bag now, and you keeping secrets is cutting our legs out from under us.”
“Don’t you point your scythe at me, young lady,” Nefta snaps at her, amethyst wings flarin’.
“Don’t you give me a reason to, Mother Dearest,” Delta snarks back, and then my world suddenly starts to spin.
Purple wings.
My flare of jealousy before blinded me from a very important fact. Nefta has purple wings too. Nefta, who Delta just called Mother Dearest.
Delta’s words swirl in my mind. Maybe you had your reasons to give us up. I shake my head to clear it as the words go round and round. Then my mama’s voice sounds off in my head, tellin’ me the story of how she and Daddy found me.
“A flash of purple caught my eye, and I looked to see what it could be. That’s when I saw her. The most beautiful thing I’d ever seen, an angel with purple wings.” She holds her necklace up for me to see the amethyst stone glinting in the sunlight. “She was kissin’ you on the head. Then she up and disappeared, and there you were, just sittin on our stoop, a gift from the Heavens above.”
I suck a breath in through my teeth as my heart pounds in my chest. I hear Flint and Alder tryin’ to talk to me, but I can’t grab onto what they’re sayin’ amidst the storm brewin’ in my head.
I look up, my questionin’ eyes landin’ on Nefta, and I can tell by the guilty look on her face that I’m right. It’s her. She’s the angel that left me on my mama and daddy’s porch steps. And if she’s also Delta’s mother, then that means…
My bewildered gaze snaps to Delta. She looks concerned, probably because I’m makin’ some kind of funny noise as I try and fail to pull air into my lungs. I can’t breathe. Can’t. Breathe.
I grip my scythe like it’s a lifeline as my demons jump closer, grabbin’ my arms as I feel myself teeter, but my eyes are locked on Delta’s. Because hers are gray. The same exact shade as mine.
My head swoons. The last thing I think before I pass out is, well, shit.
I didn’t see this comin’.
22
“Set her here,” a deep voice instructs, and I feel myself bein’ carried and set down on somethin’ soft.
“Is she okay?” Delta asks, and I hear Alder tellin’ everyone to give me some room and to get a cold cloth for my head.
“You tell the girl she’s a demon and she doesn’t even so much as flinch, but five minutes with this group, and she goes down like a sack of potatoes,” Flint growls out, his tone accusatory.
“Make sure she’s actually out. If it runs in the family, she might be faking it,” another deep voice states dryly.
“That was one time,” Delta defends hotly. “And I just needed a fucking pause.”
Someone snickers.
“That’s my progeny. I demand that every last one of you move so I can tend to her,” Tazreel orders regally, and I hear a bunch of snorts sound off around me.
Progeny?
My mind plays with that word, battin’ it around until the meanin’ floats up. I snap up from wherever I’m lyin’, sittin’ up so fast that my head spins. Flint rears back in surprise, his eyes wide.
“Wait. You’re my father?” I demand of Tazreel, completely dumbstruck.
“See? Called the faking it,” the normal lookin’ blond demon announces, and the pale one with movin’ tattoos chuckles.
“Shut it, Crux,” Delta says, smackin’ him lightly with the edge of her wing. Instead of bein’ annoyed, his grin widens, and he grabs hold of the bottom of her wing and strokes it.
“Are you okay?”
My eyes drag over to Alder where he’s kneelin’ beside me. He’s holdin’ my scythe which has reverted back to its fancy broom handle state. I’m in
