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She dragged in a preparatory breath. “The prophecy isn’t actually inaccurate, the clerics just didn’t properly translate it. It doesn’t state that I’ll birth the child of the devil. It says that I am the child of the devil. Which is true.”

He went completely still. “You’re Lucifer’s daughter?”

“Yes.” A whisper.

“ The Lucifer’s daughter?”

“Yes,” she repeated, her voice a little stronger this time.

“I thought that all his offspring lived in hell.”

“I’m the exception.” She worried her bottom lip again. “And as you saw for yourself, I inherited his curse.”

Luka frowned. “Curse?”

“I don’t know if this applies to all fallen angels or just him, but he was cursed when he fell. Cursed to need blood as much as he needs food and water to survive. And when passing his DNA onto me, he also passed on that.”

“So you drink from people?” he asked, an edge to his voice that was jagged with possessiveness.

“Normally, no. My bite is venomous. It doesn’t kill, but it causes a lot of pain. Tobe has vampiric connections who make bottled drinks that contain blood and vitamins and stuff. They sell him batches of them every so often, and he gives them to me.”

Realization visibly dawned on Luka. “Your smoothies.”

“My smoothies,” she confirmed.

A pensive glint entered his eyes. “You bit me the other night.”

“I didn’t draw blood, but it was a close call.” A little too close. “I think you can understand why I’ve kept all this quiet from most people.”

“Who does know about it?”

“Only the people who are also fully aware of the cleric situation—which includes Lou. He thought he’d killed Kushiel during his recent spree of murdering dark practitioners, but that clearly isn’t the case.” He was gonna be furious when he learned that.

Luka was silent for long moments, his expression still unreadable. “Acceptance. You said that your demon needed me to accept something. This is what you meant.”

“Yes. You can’t tell anyone about it, Luka.”

An affronted anger rippled across his face. “Do you honestly think I’d do that?”

“I don’t know, because I can’t tell what’s going through your head right now.

It’s not as if this stuff is light or cheery.

Look, you have a right to be upset that I kept the information about the clerics from you.

If there were Eliouds on some dumbass holy mission to end your life and you’d kept it from me, I would’ve been pissed as all hell at you.

I just . . . I didn’t want to lie to you.

Keeping things from you is one thing. Lying is another.

I couldn’t have told you everything, so I decided to say nothing. ”

“Wrong, Naomi, you could have told me everything.”

Exasperated, she challenged, “Would you have, in my position? Would you have spilled to me that Lucifer was your dad and that you needed to drink blood to survive? Would you have risked that I’d look upon you with sheer disgust?”

His brow pinched. “You thought I’d be disgusted?”

“Aren’t you?”

“No. It isn’t as if drinking blood is a fetish for you.

You have no choice. What I am is angry on your behalf.

This was Lou’s curse. It should never have been yours.

” His gaze arrowed into hers, stripping her of her cool facade, seeing everything.

“You expected me to walk away if I knew the full truth.”

She gave a weak shrug and lowered her gaze to his chest. “I won’t blame you if you do.” Her demon would, though.

A long moment of silence passed. “You warned me that I wouldn’t like what I heard if your secrets came to light.

I was clear that you’d still matter to me regardless.

And you do.” He cupped her chin and tipped her head upwards, his dark eyes boring into hers, not letting her look away, giving her no room to hide.

“I’m not going anywhere. And I’ve got news for you, Naomi—neither are you. ”

It took a few seconds for his words to penetrate. “Uh . . . sorry?”

“I didn’t anticipate that you’d become this important to me.

I never saw it coming. Feels like it crept up on me somehow.

We might not have admitted it to ourselves or to each other, but what we now have is as far from shallow as it can get.

I have zero intention of changing that, or of letting you go. ”

“Since when?”

“Since a few minutes ago, when you looked up at me wearing a defeated, wary expression. I knew you expected me to leave you, and I realized that it isn’t something I ever plan to do.

” He shook his head in mystification. “I have no idea how you did it, how you circumvented every defense I have, but you did. So here we are. It’s done.

All that’s left for me to do is officially claim you as my mate, and I will.

There’s no going back now. Not for me, and not for you. ”

Luka had meant for his words to come out reassuring, but they sounded more like a threat.

He had no gentleness in him right now. Hot rage coursed through his blood, fueling that of his demons.

Their need for vengeance tore at all four of them, demanding satiation.

Killing that cleric hadn’t been enough. Not even close.

The clerics and their angel had marked Naomi for death. They’d targeted her multiple times. They’d attempted to take her from this world—from him —on four separate fucking occasions . . . and he’d known nothing of it until tonight.

Only one need overrode the urge to hunt the fuckers. The need to tuck Naomi away somewhere safe. His protective instincts were on fucking fire, and the flames weren’t going to die down any time soon.

He felt his skin stretch; knew his demons were again pushing at it as they writhed in fury. Could he blame Naomi for keeping them in the dark, though? Intellectually, no. Not when he understood exactly how important it was that she preserve her secrets.

On hearing that Lou was her father, shock had reverberated through his very bones. Many times he had contemplated what she could be keeping from him. He’d internally chewed on many theories. But not once, for even a single fleeting moment, had he considered this.

It explained a lot, though. Such as why she hesitated to get close to people, why she spoke so little of her biological father, and why said father wasn’t around much. It was safer for her that way.

As for her need to drink blood . . . yeah, that had been another shock. And again, it was only natural that she wouldn’t easily share that with others. Still, a part of him was pissed at her for keeping it from him. Because this woman had some-the-fuck-how come to mean everything to him.

He’d been well aware when they first started their fling that burning off the sexual chemistry would be no quick or easy feat. But he hadn’t even suspected that he might come to care for her, or just how fucking encompassing the feeling would be.

He’d known he was in trouble when he felt driven to come inside her. He’d willfully ignored it, not wanting to examine all he felt for her too closely; not wanting to see that other emotions were interwoven in the carnal need and primal possessiveness that gripped him tightly.

Bonding didn’t come naturally to Luka. He wasn’t good at letting people close. And the slight disconnect between him and his deeper emotions—which was no doubt a by-product of his upbringing—made it even more difficult.

He had always known that there was a high chance he’d spend his life alone.

He’d just never imagined he would claim a woman, and he’d been unable to envision a scenario in which all three of his entities would be on board with it.

So he’d prepared himself for a life of relative solitude.

He hadn’t prepared himself to be someone’s partner.

Hadn’t thought there’d be a woman who’d put up with the ways in which his father’s lessons had shaped him.

What he felt sure of was that he wouldn’t make an easy mate.

He knew how proprietary he could be of anything he formed an attachment to—his father had never been able to quash that tendency, despite his best efforts.

When Luka became that firmly attached to something, he would hog and obsess over it . . . much as he did with Naomi.

“You’re serious,” she marveled, cutting right through his thoughts.

“Utterly,” he confirmed.

She continued to stare at him in disbelief. “Luka, I just tossed some heavy shit at you. I fed from someone in front of you. ”

“You did. And I can’t lie, it all came as a fuck of a shock. But none of it changes what I want or feel.”

She spluttered. “Maybe not right now. But what about later? What about when the full impact of it hits you?”

“It already hit me. Even if it hadn’t, my response would be the same when it did.

I’ve never once struggled to walk away from a woman.

Maybe that makes me an asshole, but it’s how it is.

Leave you, though? It isn’t going to happen, Naomi, it’s just not.

Would you walk away from me if it was the other way around and I’d landed all that stuff on you? ”

Her brow creased. “No.”

“Then why do you find it so hard to believe that it doesn’t change anything for me?”

She clenched and unclenched her hands, her breathing speeding up.

“I thought maybe you could accept it, but I would never have expected that at the same time you’d declare that you wanted to claim me as your mate.

I wasn’t sure you’d ever do the latter. I figured the best I could hope for would be that you’d be prepared to try a relationship. ”

“Well, you were wrong. And it’s a relief to hear that you were hoping I’d want a relationship, because it means we’re on the same page. I know you generally avoid them, though I didn’t know why exactly until now.”