Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 66383 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 332(@200wpm)___ 266(@250wpm)___ 221(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66383 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 332(@200wpm)___ 266(@250wpm)___ 221(@300wpm)
I can’t.
So I do the only thing I can do.
I turn and go back inside, locking myself in a room.
Chapter Twenty-Four
GRIM
“You love her.” Lucifer stands behind me. “Yet, you left her,” he adds. “Don’t think I’m not aware that you left after getting free of Viper, just to what? Leave her there and die?” he yells from behind me.
I spin around to face him. “Since when do you care for anyone but yourself?” I ask angrily. I’ve known Lucifer for an incredibly long time before he became the King of Hell. We were once great friends—funny how times change.
“Things change, we change. As you are well aware,” he says with narrowed eyes. “Why did you leave her?”
I turn away once more as we stand in the in-between. I come here often because of her. I tried to let her go because it was the right thing to do, even if it killed a part of me to see her happy with another.
Despite my hate for him, Maxilliam loved her with everything he was.
Gave her a love I was never able to.
“I was being called,” I tell him truthfully. As soon as I was free from that room, I was pulled in every direction possible. I am Death, and souls were screaming for me everywhere. I couldn’t stay there any longer. No matter what I wanted, I had no choice.
“See, that’s where you are lying. You were called. Yes, we understand who you are, old friend. You forget I’ve been there. And I get you may have the hardest job of any of us, but sometimes you don’t have to listen. You can make your own choice.”
“No, you cannot.”
“I’m proof you can.”
“And look where that got you.”
“He would never rid you of your role, and you know it. You have proved to be a loyal servant for years. You don’t think he would know of her? We all know, old friend. So start putting her first.” He is gone before I have a chance to say anything back.
The first time I saw Talia, she was nothing but a child. I didn’t come to her because of any reason other than whispers of a great power. No one knew it was her, but I had already been searching for the person who it was foretold would rule this world and everyone in it.
I protected her without really understanding the reason why, visiting her as she got older, and she would tell me things about herself. And I remember thinking she deserves to be queen, this one. But first, she has to live.
And then, into her adulthood, I could see she started to look at me differently, and I didn’t quite understand it at first. I had never dealt with anyone other than Angels, and they never experienced lust, love, or anything of the sort. It wasn’t until she kissed me that I experienced it in full force. It was a mistake. I knew the moment it happened, and yet I did absolutely nothing to stop it. I had warned her that we could not work, and when she got lost in that portal, I went mad looking for her. Until one day, she reappeared. But she was not alone.
She had grown in her time away, and it was obvious by the single look that she gave me, and the man standing behind her, that things were different. I realized those green eyes that held so many secrets of mine didn’t look at me the same.
It’s unusual and extremely rare for an Angel to fall in love, but that’s what I have done.
And now she is pregnant.
It would be easier if the baby wasn’t mine. But I knew the moment I heard the heartbeat whose baby it was. It’s one of the joys of being who I am. I know everyone’s death and when they will die. I even know my own son’s death.
And I know when that day comes, his mother won’t be far behind.
Chapter Twenty-Five
TALIA
My sisters come into my room separately, both trying to work out what happened the other day. But I still can’t wrap my own mind around it, so I’m not sure how I’m supposed to explain it to them.
I lie in a bed that’s foreign to me but that I welcome all the same. It’s a big difference from the bed I had growing up in this house. This mattress has springs, it’s not on the floor, and it even has a headboard and sheets, plus a blanket and pillows.
My mind has been reeling. How was this even possible? That I didn’t know.
Correction, I should have known that this could happen.
When Grim whispered the words that I was pregnant, I didn’t automatically think the baby was his. Instead, my mind drifted straight to Max, and for a moment, just a slight moment, I wanted to smile, thinking that I still had a piece of him with me. But the world doesn’t work that way. It gives you what you deserve and what you can handle.