Like she’s readin’ my mind, Delta gestures to it. “It’s the fainting couch. It actually comes in handy a lot, huh, Taz?”
Taz scowls at her before bringin’ his gaze back to me. His chest puffs up under my scrutiny. Watchin’ him carefully, I swing my legs over so my feet are planted on the floor. I need to sit up for this conversation.
I look between Nefta and Taz, takin’ in every damn detail of them. The shapes of their faces, the size of their noses, heck, I even take note of their earlobes and hairlines. It’s the weirdest damn thing to look at two people and be able to pick out your own features.
“You’re my...birth parents?” I ask, and Nefta gives a terse nod while Taz glares at her.
With a hard swallow, I shift my sights over to Delta, and the truth is plain as day on her face. I don’t know how I didn’t see it right away. We have the same lips. The same color eyes, the same face shape. I see her pickin’ apart my own features too, as the two of us catalog everythin’.
“We’re sisters.”
It’s not a question, because the truth is right in front of us.
“It appears so,” she answers, movin’ her attention to Nefta. “How could you not tell us?” she asks with anger. “And just as important, how many damn times did you sleep with this asshole?”
“Hey!” Taz snaps, offended.
“Just the once,” Nefta replies, givin’ Taz a scathin’ look. “That’s all I could stomach.”
He scoffs. “Oh, please. I’m the best fuck you’ve ever had.”
Delta and I both make a grimace and groan at the same time, our expressions and noises matchin’. Our six collective demons watch us with wary awe.
“Stop,” Delta snaps, effectively cuttin’ Nefta and Taz off before they can start to bicker about how good or bad their...relations were. “No one wants to hear about the two of you hooking up. I haven’t eaten yet.”
Despite this messed up situation, the corner of my lip twitches.
“Shit. If your hair was purple like Delta’s, you two would look just the same,” the dark-skinned demon says.
Delta lets out a deep breath and then focuses on me again and holds out her scythe-free hand. “Let’s start over. I’m Delta Gates. And apparently...your twin sister.”
She snaps another glare over at Nefta before returnin’ much softer gray eyes back to me. I look at her hand before slippin’ my palm against it and shakin’. It’s weird shakin’ the hand of a sister I never knew I had.
We drop our hold, and Delta gestures beside her to the pale demon with the movin’ shadow tattoos. “This is Echo,” she tells me. “The blue dude is my Iceman—Rafferty. The guy who looks like he’s always ready to go surfing is Crux. And the one with the fire hair is Jerif. Don’t worry, he’s not mad. His face always looks like that,” she says with a smirk.
He rolls his smolderin’ eyes at her. “I’d watch that mouth if I were you,” he says with a pointed look.
Delta’s eyes light up with excitement.
I feel Flint take a seat, his weight settlin’ beside me. I press in closer to him without even thinkin’ about it, groundin’ myself with the comfort of his presence.
“The last time we saw you, we got shifted into Nihil for about thirty seconds,” Alder says, takin’ charge of the conversation. “Then you called us a few days after that, letting us know that you four weren’t dead and that you ran into trouble in the Vestibule. But that was over two months ago and that was the only info we got. Every time we’ve tried to contact you since then, we’ve gotten nothing.”
I don’t miss the look of contrition that crosses their faces, but it’s the blue demon—Rafferty—who speaks. “I apologize. You’re right. We should’ve kept you informed. We’ve just been busy.”
“We need to know what’s going on.”
“How come y’all have wings?” I interrupt, lookin’ between Tazreel, Nefta, and Delta.
Taz puffs up proudly. “I’m an Abdicated.”
“He’s a proud ass,” Delta cuts in.
“I am Pride. There’s a difference,” he clarifies. She just rolls her eyes.
“And you’re a Nihil Abdicated too?” I ask Nefta. It’s strange to think of her as my birth mother. She doesn’t look much older than Delta and me.
“No. I’m Legion,” she answers.
“An angel,” Delta clarifies, and my brows nearly jump all the way into my hairline.
“So we’re...half demon, half angel?” I ask, my voice higher than usual.
“Yup.”
I suppose that means Mama was only half wrong.
Beside me, I feel Flint tense and let out a low whistle as he and Alder exchange a look.
“I think you need to start at the beginning and tell us everything you know,” Alder tells them.
So...they do.
Two hours. That’s how long it takes for us to hear the whole story, from the moment Delta got hired as a “security guard” here at their graveyard, to right up when I heard Nefta say my name and we walked in here.
It’s a hell of a lot to take in. Pun intended.
Now that we have the full story, everyone is talkin’ at once. Alder and Flint are arguin’ with all of Delta’s demons, who are arguin’ right back, while Nefta and Taz are goin’ at it, shoutin’ in each other’s faces with barely restrained hate.
“She needs to come to Nihil to get her wings and so that the fucking wards you put on her can come off,” Taz bellows.
Nefta pokes him aggressively in the chest, but she looks like she wants to grab the sword strapped to her back and poke him with that instead. “Absolutely not. Hell is the last place she should be! I tried to hide them from all this.”
“Yeah, and look what good that did!” he yells, lookin’ like some avengin’ winged demon ready to rain down fiery flames.
“Please. Like you could’ve done any better. You and your army can’t even find Morax,” she
