Sweet Temptation (The Sweet Trilogy #4)(92)

I take her by the shoulders. “I don’t want you dead, Gin.”

Her eyes fill with tears. My strong Ginger, who, like me, never cries. “I’ve nothing to live for now, don’t you see? She’ll be gone. My sister is dying! And Blake will be married off to that cow. I’d rather be dead.”

Oh, Gin. I swallow hard and take her into my arms, where she breaks down and lets me hold her up. Marna, sobbing, comes forward, and I open the embrace to include her. I want to fix this for them. It’s all so wrong. Why should mothers of Neph have to die? It’s all shite. Nothing about the life of a Neph makes any sense.

Soon the twins are moving from my arms to embrace each other, their heads buried in each other’s shoulders as they grieve. I rub their backs and swallow again. I know they need this moment, but I turn my head and look around, wondering how long it will take for the whisperers to find us. We can’t stay here. We could ruin everything.

When the twins pull themselves together and wipe their eyes, we all sit together in the sitting room. It’s an awkward, sad, guilty sort of silence.

And then my mobile rings and I stare at Father’s name on the screen, feeling ill. I hold it out for the others to see and their eyes go wide.

“Hallo,” I say.

“I assume you took care of the girl, then?”

“Of course, Father. She wasn’t a virgin anyhow.”

“Interesting.” He pauses and I raise the phone to hide the deep breath I’m taking to calm my pulse. “The spirit I sent to oversee the operation has been sent back to the pit of hell, never to return to earth. Do you know why?”

My eyes meet Anna’s worried ones. “No, Father.”

“Because he admitted he did not stay to see your mission through to the end. He says the two of you persuaded him to leave.”

“Bollocks!” I jump to my feet, my heart in my throat. “That disgusting wanker was distracting. It’s hard enough to try and bang a Neph without a spirit interfering.”

“A whisperer should hardly distract you from your task, son.”

I go still, my mind racing. I must make him believe me. “You’re right, Father. But the deed was done, and the whisperer left on his own. Obviously I couldn’t force him.”

“Hm. I think I’ll pay the girl a visit myself. A lot’s riding on her lack of purity.”

Over my dead body will I let him near her. I clench my jaw and force polite words out. “Do what you must, Father, but I hate to see your valuable time wasted.”

“Good of you to care,” the bastard says before hanging up on me.

Will it never end? Will we never get a bloody break? I yell through my teeth and kick the coffee table, flipping it with a crash.

I feel Anna’s tentative hand on my shoulder as I pant through the rage.

“Everything’s going to be okay,” she soothes. “We all need to get back to work. At this rate the prophecy’s bound to go down soon, and we can’t afford to lose anyone.”

“What about you?” Marna asks her. “Where will you go?”

Anna looks at me. “I don’t know.”

“Well, I don’t think you should be alone,” I tell her. Not after that phone call.

“We’re all gonna have to be alone if we want to convince them we’re working,” Blake says.

Screw that. I’m not concerned with pretending to work anymore. Father obviously doesn’t trust me, and Anna’s in immediate danger. The others should still pretend, but I need to take Anna with me, make a run for it. We are arguing about the best plan of action when the room suddenly darkens. Sunlight from the arched windows is shadowed by an enormous dark angel pushing through the window and walls, into the room, its wings outstretched wide enough to engulf the lot of us.

Shite! It’s too late to run. I lean back hard into the chair as I take in the whole sight, its ramlike horns curling wickedly upward and its massive body like a humanesque beast. Then I nearly swallow my tongue as it advances on Anna.

A dreadful sense of powerlessness overcomes me and I want to throw myself between them and yell for Anna to take out the sword. And then she whispers a single word.

“Daddy?”

My eyes bug out. Belial? Holy shit! I’ve never seen a Duke outside of its body. Whisperers have nothing on him. And why has he left his body? Things must be getting dire.

“Thank God it’s you,” Anna says, talking fast. “So much is happening. Pharzuph is hounding me, and I don’t know where to go.”

“That’s why I’m here.” Belial’s low rumble of a voice fills my mind, so he must be projecting it to all of us. We gather to listen.

Belial turns his huge celestial horned head to me expectantly.

“What do you suggest?” I ask him.

“You have only one safe option,” he says. “Get married.”

Wait . . . what . . . ? There’s no f*cking way he just said that. Everyone is staring back and forth between me and Anna, and Anna is looking at her father as if he’s spoken an alien language. She’s shaking her head in disbelief.

“We can’t,” she says. “I have to stay a virgin. The sword—”

“No.” Belial lowers himself so he’s eye to eye with his daughter but projects his thoughts on me, as well. “You have to stay pure of heart, Anna. What’s more pure than committing yourselves in love?”