Dark Fates (A Paranormal Anthology)(122)

Fox held his breath.

“I choose Fox.” The complete lack of hesitation filled Fox with joy.

“Yes, we’re aware of that.” Sage smiled and touched Enoch’s arm before he could respond. “We meant your side in the coming war.”

“I thought you were trying to keep the war from happening.” Exhaustion punctuated the confusion in Jubilee’s tone. Tugging her back to him, Fox wrapped his arm around her middle. Her wings were like silk where they touched him, and she flared one. As she tucked in closer to his side, the wing brushed along his back.

It was the single most erotic thing he’d ever felt, and his cock hardened like steel. Mentally disciplining his libido, he focused on his mate. She needed his strength, not his lust.

Jubilee canted her head and looked at him, and he caught the humor in her silvery-gray eyes. Apparently, she was interested in his lust, and Fox dipped his head to brush a kiss across her lips. For a split-second, the world around them faded, and it took Sage clearing her throat to remind him they weren’t alone. His forehead resting against Jubilee’s, he spared the witch a look. She looked more amused than annoyed.

“Our task is to prevent the war, but that war is always looming. Whether it’s next year or ten thousand years from now. You are one of the host, and your presence here means hell must respond, even if it hasn’t already. So which will you choose?”

Sage had a troubling point. In a war marked by action and reaction, Hell had to respond. Or maybe they had already, and somehow the Watchers had been as blind to Hell's reaction as they had been to Jubilee’s presence.

“I don’t understand,” Jubilee said and she glanced first at Fox, then the others. “You keep saying Heaven sent me. If I’m one of the ‘host,’ then I’m on their side, right? How do I choose?” Despite the evidence of her wings, she still sounded skeptical.

“You’re here,” Fox said, answering her before they could. “It doesn’t matter where you were born or who sent you, you’re here and you have free will.” That was it, the host didn’t possess free will, not in the sense that he and his kin did or the nephilim for that matter. The host executed one will. They’d awakened her angelic side, but the same sass and temper that had characterized her as a human being continued to mark the divine being at his side.

Or had they been blinded? Maybe, somehow, she’d chosen the same day as he to be in that hotel. Hadn’t she ended up on his floor and at his room?

“Divine providence, Fox?” Enoch looked skeptical.

“A gift,” he replied. She was a gift. His gift and he intended to treasure her as such.

“I choose whatever side Fox wants to fight for,” Jubilee stated and tightened her grip on his arm. Pride filled him.

“Do you understand that my choice is neither heaven nor hell?” He asked the question rather than let the others leap on her declaration. “I want our world to stay our own instead of their battleground.”

“For what it’s worth, I don’t feel like an angel or that I belong to whoever sent me here. If they did send me, they abandoned me to a woman who cared more about where she could get her next drink than she did about me or my brother. I’ve spent the last twenty years scraping out a living, always hungry for my next meal and fighting to keep my brother from following in our mother’s alcoholic footsteps. I don’t owe heaven a damn thing.”

Kincaid’s dark countenance lit with a smile. “Then she has my vote.” He motioned to the demons, and they left.

Sage nodded slowly. “And she has mine. Come and see me soon, after you two have gotten over the cloying honeymoon aspect of mating. For those of us not getting laid, it’s a bit much.” She winked, twirled on the balls of her feet, and shooed the other shifters out ahead of her.

“Vote for what?” Jubilee straightened. They’d been left alone with Enoch and the nephilim.

“To be admitted to the Watchers.” It was a guess, but Fox could see only two possible outcomes. There were only ever two outcomes.

Enoch nodded once. “She will still have to take the oath, but not right away. We cannot blood bind an angel, not as we do the humans. But she has bonded to you through mating, and you have ever been loyal, my friend.”

Relief spread through Fox like a forest fire. He’d have left them for her, and only for her. That he didn’t have to, that he wouldn’t be forced to play out that choice, satisfied him. He nodded. “She is mine.”

“And he is mine.” Jubilee echoed the sentiment.

“Ours,” Enoch corrected with a faint grin. The other nephilim winked out, vanishing to wherever they went, and it was only the three of them.

Jubilee scowled. “I don’t share.”

The nephilim threw his head back and laughed. “I wasn’t asking you to. But he is ours, and he is yours. Through him, we belong to you and you to us. It is that simple, Pet. However, you will need instruction. I suspect you have no idea how to use your gifts yet.”

“Gifts?”

Enoch flared his wings, and Jubilee stared. “Flying, for one.”

“Oh.”

Fox could feel the excitement vibrating through her. “I don’t think that occurred to her. And we will discuss her lessons another time.” He ached for her, and if they were done here…