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This was my father. There was no doubt.
The woman to his left was a slight thing, having a head full of pin-straight dark hair that framed her dainty nose and puckered lips. I didn’t look like her at all. Instead, I was a perfect combination of the two, with my mother’s hair and my father’s gray eyes.
When they saw me, they froze. Literally.
My father’s red-rimmed eyes narrowed. He was the first to react, his head whirling in Michael’s direction. “What the fuck is this?”
I flinched at his tone. Sariel sat forward with a soft growl.
“Terrell,” the woman said quietly, patting him on the arm. Her eyes hadn’t left me since she appeared. “It’s her.”
Terrell shook his head harshly. “That’s not possible. She’s too young.” His voice broke on the last word. “Right? She has to be too young….”
“Aria,” the woman called reverently. “Are you… Are you really here?”
My throat had swollen shut. Emotion flooded me, and I could only nod jerkily.
“Why are you with… them? Are you? Did you…” Terrell trailed off, his eyes closing on a deep, shuddering sigh. “Are you dead?”
I shook my head, and they both blinked in surprise.
“How are you here, then?” the woman asked.
“That would behisdoing,” Lucifer chirped. The woman squealed in surprise. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. But Michael over there is doing little Aria a favor.”
“I’m doing hermothera favor,” Michael said, eyeing the woman coldly. “Consider this a debt repaid, Arianna. Don’t think that because you’re my descendant, you can pull this shit again.”
Sariel and I gaped.
His descendant?
That would explain why you’re so damn powerful compared to other wolves. You’re not a freak of nature—you’re descended from Michael the Archangel. Imagine if Azazel found out about this…
Sariel cursed up a storm in his head.
“Understood,” Arianna said shakily. She was crying, her fingers twisting in her lap, and Terrell’s arms wrapped around her.
I glanced at Lucifer’s gleeful expression before turning back to them.
It’s possible he already knows,I pointed out.
Silence stretched between us for a handful of seconds. Lucifer broke it with a groan.
“Seriously? You finally meet your parents, and you’re just going to stare at them?”
“Can I hug you?” Arianna blurted, and I moved before Sariel could stop me.
I launched myself into their arms. The emotions I’d been trying to hide exploded out of me in a ragged sob. Their scents enveloped me, and I felt whole. I felt loved.
“My sweet girl,” Terrell crooned, running his hand down my hair. He pulled away to cup my cheeks. “Look how much you’ve grown.”
It was only when he mentioned this that I realized that they didn’t look much older than Sariel and I. It was like death had frozen them in time.
We held each other and cried until we couldn’t anymore. I felt Sariel’s agitation down the bond and pulled away, but Terrell didn’t let me go far. He squeezed me in between him and his wife, then turned his familiar gray eyes onto Sariel.
He opened his mouth to say something, but I beat him to it. “I’ve always wanted to know how you two met,” I said.
“I met Arianna before we were old enough to understand what the pull between us really was,” Terrell started. He glanced at Arianna with such unbridled love that I couldn’t help but be uncomfortable. “Our meeting was insignificant. We were at a park; my father was making a scene because her father didn’t speak to him about some company picnic they were hosting on Bastille lands. She snuck off and found me in a tree hiding. I wasn’t supposed to follow him, but I couldn’t help it; I was drawn to her. At the time, I didn’t realize it was her I was drawn to, but we spent hours playing in the trees until her father sent out a search party for her.”
