Page 182 of Wicked Believer

What could possibly go wrong?

I only started to realize over the past several days, when Lucifer began joining us in the training room, that he’s just as much of a trained celestial warrior as Azrael is.

But that still doesn’t make this a good idea.

“You don’t know who he might be working with,” Azrael counters. “He may not be acting as a free agent.”

The Righteous. Or worse, Michael.

That seems to go without saying.

Lucifer’s eyes narrow, like he’s two seconds away from throttling Azrael.

“Then I’ll go,” I say.

Lucifer and Azrael turn in unison and snarl at me.

Clearly neither of them would ever allow me to consider it.

“You have to be on the red carpet in an hour, diva,” Xzander chimes in as he passes by in a flurry. I don’t have time to break his fashion-loving heart and tell him how absolutely insignificant that is compared to the celestial magnitude of what we’re discussing.

I’m not sure he or any of the humans in the room have been able to follow any of this.

The humans in the room.

I’ve chosen a side, placed myself on the immortal end of the celestial divide.

There’s no going back now.

“Evenifthat were important, there’s no one better suited to this than me,” I argue. “I know Ian, or at least I thought I did, and I alsoknow Jax, and whateverothercelestial might possibly be up to this ...” I shoot a reprimanding glance toward Azrael. I may not be willing to out the role he played in all this—that reckoning is between him and Lucifer—but that doesn’t mean I’m going to let him stop me from protecting my friend. “You’ve trained me. I—”

“You can barely hold a sword with two hands,” he growls back.

My lips settle into a thin line, and I breathe through my nose as I try to find my patience. Is this our first fight?

And does that apply to only two or all three of us?

I don’t have the time to consider it at the moment.

For all that I love him, Lucifer has the audacity to look nearly as bored with this as his siblings were with my PR proposal. “We’re wasting valuable time entertaining this foolish line of thinking. Perhaps I can—”

“No,” Azrael and I say.

For a moment, Lucifer looks like he’s considering obeying it.

Mine and Azrael’s combined command.

Oh, that is a whole other can of worms I cannot begin to get into right now.

Do I like the idea of Lucifer submitting to Azrael and me?

Of our dynamic going both ways?

Am I actually aswitch?

Unpacking that will take a whole lot more therapy than even mine or Lucifer’s bank account can handle.

I sigh, already exasperated. “Look, we all go together or none of us goes at all.”