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A man stepped out of the shadows. And another. And another. Very soon, Naomi was surrounded by seven bald, clean-shaven, sword-wielding men. They all wore black clothes that were plain aside from the emblem on the breast pocket. A silver shield over which a red crucifix was embroidered.

Crucifix?

Angry at its home being invaded, her entity slunk forward to study them. Though they seemed human, there was a certain air to them. It was preternatural. Light. Spiritual.

Clerics, she concluded.

Descendants of the Nephilim.

Born with the innate ability to channel divine power, clerics—also referred to as Eliouds—regularly embarked on holy quests.

One idly angled his sword in a way that allowed the light to dance along the blade. The steel gleamed as if it had been given an infusion of magick. A glance at the other swords confirmed that they too weren’t simple weapons.

While clerics somewhat loathed demons, they generally didn’t target them without very good reason. Why a holy quest could bring them here , Naomi had no clue.

She did know that she wouldn’t be letting any of them come near her with those bespelled blades. Nor would she be engaging in any fencing—she was quite frankly shit at it.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” she asked as the molten power that lived inside her naturally rose, gathering beneath her skin. The room temperature would steadily rise along with it.

The cleric directly in front of her tilted his head slightly, his green gaze narrowing. “You seem surprised to see us here, yet not afraid. I suppose you believe that he will crawl out of the depths of hell to save you.”

Naomi could only stare at him, dumbfounded. “I’m sorry, what?”

“God will permit no interference from him or anyone else,” he added, ignoring her question. “Tonight can only go one way.”

“The dark one’s plans must be thwarted,” another cleric threw in.

The dark one? Naomi sighed. “You guys escaped from the funny farm, didn’t you?” Really, it made perfect sense. “Drop your weapons,” she ordered, injecting compulsive power into her voice. But, uh, they didn’t.

Green Eyes flicked up a brow. “We are aware that you are a siren. Did you think we would not magickly shield our minds from compulsion before coming here?”

Well, she’d hoped that they hadn’t. “You appear to know plenty about me. It seems only fair for that to be a two-way thing. You’re not going to introduce yourselves?”

He tightened his hand around the hilt of his sword. “You do not need to know who we are. All that matters is what brought us here.”

“The need to thwart the dark one’s plans, right?” Eye-roll . “And who is he, exactly?”

“Oh, he has been given many monikers. The Great Pretender. The Bringer of Light. The Morning Star. The Father of Lies.”

Naomi blinked slowly. “Wait, you’re talking about the devil?” Unreal. Lucifer wasn’t actually some pure evil, all-powerful beast of a being. More of a mercurial, childlike, asocial stoner.

“If it were possible, we would kill him to prevent what is to come. But he is out of our reach, and so it is you we must end. We cannot allow the prophecy to come to fruition.” The cleric spoke in a very old language before adding, “That translates to: ‘For she who bears the mark will birth the child of the devil.’ ”

Oh, dear Lord, these guys were ridiculous.

“The air is becoming hot,” a younger cleric noted, his cheeks flushing. “What are you doing?”

“Inwardly laughing at how pathetic you all are, if I’m honest,” replied Naomi. “You can’t truly believe that I’m going to squeeze out the devil’s kid.”

“We know that you will.” The cleric to her left lifted his sword. “We cannot allow the Antichrist to walk this earth, and so you must die.”

“Or”—the burning force within her bubbled, hissed, and snapped—“we have a little fun instead.” And then her power burst out of her in red-violet flames that engulfed her from head to toe.

The clerics squinted, flinching back at the sheer brightness of the flames, shock rippling over their faces—all of which she saw clearly, the fire no obstruction to her vision.

They recovered fast, their lips rattling as they chanted low, the words coming quickly as glowing streams of pure-white magick arrowed at her.

Some hits landed, but the flames surrounding her dulled their impact, so they were more like stinging pokes than blazing-hot stabs. Still, they carried enough of a burn that she hissed.

“Not nice.” She slashed out her arm, tossing a rope of red-violet fire that quickly morphed into the shape of a snake. It looped around Green Eyes’ neck and bit into his face. He screamed as the roasting-hot lethal venom entered his system.

Another cleric came at her from the left, swinging his sword.

Hot pain blazed along her side as the steel sliced into her flesh.

She bared her teeth at him, not placated by how the flames engulfing her body had melted the tip of his weapon—especially when she felt something foreign trying to push its way into her: a pulsing barb of insidious magick.

The fire that lived inside her rushed upward, incinerating the barb, cauterizing her wound, and neatly knitting her skin back together.

He blinked, his lips parting.

“Well, that was stupid.” Naomi pyroported behind him, grabbed his head, and gave it a vicious twist. Crack. He and his weapon dropped to the floor with a thud.

Yelling out their rage, two others charged at her.

She slammed up her hands and released flickering blasts of red-violet fire, lighting up both clerics like they were Roman candles.

They screamed and staggered, their blades hitting the floor with a clang, their skin sizzling and blackening as her acidic power scorched them.

Magick crackled as ropes of it traveled through the air toward her again.

She flung out her arm once more, emitting a glimmering wave of red-violet fire that sliced through the streams, making the magick wink out of existence.

Glaring at her attacker, she tossed out another red-violet fiery serpent, watching as it wrapped around his head before burying its fangs into the top of his scalp. Yeah, that had to hurt.

A fifth cleric charged her with a battle cry. Naomi snatched a fallen weapon and hurled it at the bastard. The sword speared him, stabbing right through his heart. He stumbled to a stop and dropped to his knees, the life beginning to bleed from his gaze.

Twirling rivulets of magick hit her from the side, stabbing at her so hard so she almost jerked. Naomi locked onto her assailant and retaliated with a shimmering wave of fire that curled around him like a giant serpent; engulfing in flames that began to eat him alive.

She turned her focus back to the last cleric alive—Green Eyes. He was on his knees, his skin pale, his gaze cloudy, his face creased with pain from the snake venom.

She took a moment to toss a red-violet ball of incinerating flames at the other clerics, and watched as fire rushed over every inch of the bodies. It would go to work quickly and swallow its victims, consuming all trace of them until nothing was left—not even ash.

Leaving the flames to do their job, she moved toward Green Eyes.

Resentment briefly blazed in his gaze. “What are you?”

“To put it simply, I’m a person you should have left well alone.

” Taking his sword from the floor, Naomi squatted in front of him.

“You see, you mistranslated that little sentence of whatever prophecy you quoted.” Thanks to her gift, she had understood the language perfectly.

“It does say that I will bear a mark—and I do, yes. As for the rest? You’re off base.

I’m not going to birth the child of the devil.

” She inched her face closer to his. “I am the child of the devil.”

She deftly swung the sword and lopped off his head.

*

After she’d relayed the incident to a select few in her living room a short time later, Tobe set his hands on his hips.

“Unreal. This is fucking unreal. All your life you’ve hidden your connection to Lou .

. . and a bunch of clerics just went and unearthed it.

Yeah, they mistook its source, but still. ”

As far as the preternatural world was aware, Lou’s children lived in hell. Naomi was the exception, but hiding the truth of her parentage kept her safe. She might otherwise be used by demons or celestials to either gain Lou’s cooperation or punish him.

It wasn’t distrust that kept her from sharing the truth with the rest of her lair. She didn’t believe they were a threat to her. It was simply that the best way to keep something secret was to ensure a minimal amount of people were aware of it. And it wasn’t as if her lair needed to know, was it?

Her mom had entrusted Jolene with the information, and then later Alfie.

Naturally, Jolene had felt comfortable sharing it with her psi-mate, Beck.

Once Naomi formed the anchor bond with Tobe, she’d revealed her secret to him.

Jolene’s twin grandchildren, Ciaran and Khloe, only knew because they’d overheard Naomi talking to Tobe about it a year ago.

She wasn’t worried that they’d blab—the twins would never endanger anyone in their lair.

She gently nudged a sword with her foot—the weapons were the only evidence left of her intruders, since she’d burned every corpse. “The clerics clearly didn’t know the truth of Lou’s nature, or they wouldn’t have thought he could be responsible for the conception of the Antichrist.”

Most non-demons didn’t know the facts. Satan, a hell-dwelling monster of sorts, was the true anthesis of God; his offspring would be considered the Antichrist. Lou was a fallen celestial being—singular in some ways, but not as powerful as Satan.

“That tells us that these particular Eliouds aren’t in contact with celestials,” said Alfie from the sofa, his burly build stiff with angry tension. “They would otherwise have realized they’d mistranslated the prophecy.”