at me, unmoving. Its tall pointed black ears twitched and black smoke coiled around its body. A low growl rumbled from deep in its gut.
The incubus put his hand on the hellhound’s shoulder.
“Ohhhh, DUDE!” Peabo shouted as he sprinted towards us. “How did you do that?”
Atley was hot on his heels, his gaze narrowed on the incubus. “Are you a new Coven member? Did someone die or quit again?”
The incubus peeled his eyes off of me to glare at the boys. “No. You need to leave.”
“No? So how do you have magic like them then?” Atley put his hands on his hips. “Maybe I should call them—"
“Do that. Then explain to them why two children were on the beach at dusk by themselves…at a time like this.” He arched one eyebrow. The wind blew through the dark strands of his hair, pushing them into his face. He just kept glaring at them. “Leave. Now. Before they come back and you get yourselves killed.”
Atley scowled. Peabo opened his mouth—
“NOW,” the incubus growled.
The hellhound hopped forward and snarled.
The boys flinched and sprinted out of sight…leaving me alone with him. His gold eyes tracked their path but they must’ve fled fast because he turned that hot stare back to me. He patted the hellhound’s head and pushed his hair back with his other hand – without taking his eyes off of me.
Be courageous, Chloe. You’re not weak. You’re intelligent. Be strong.
I licked my lips, cringing at the thick taste of salt. “How are you alive?”
He arched one eyebrow and damn if it wasn’t the sexiest thing I’d ever seen— Chloe. STOP THAT. You have to FIGHT his magic! I shook myself and balled my hands into fists at my sides to hide their trembling. This attraction to him running rampant in my body wasn’t real. The heat in my veins and the flush in my cheeks were not real. The overwhelming desire to collapse in his arms like a romance novel cover from the nineties — not real.
“How did that thing not kill you?” I said through clenched teeth. “Wasn’t it a demon?”
He nodded. “Yes, these were all demons.”
“How. Did. It. Not. Kill. You?”
He shrugged. “I am a Prince of Hell. Demons cannot harm me.” His voice was deep and raspy like embers under a fire.
“Excuse me?” I narrowed my eyes at him. “You’re the Prince of Hell? So that makes you son of the devil?”
He rolled his gold eyes and it did weird things to the beat of my pulse. “My father’s name is Lucifer. He is an angel of Heaven given the dirty job no one else could handle. But yes, sure, the devil as you mortals call him – though you know nothing of him.”
Lucifer? An angel of Heaven? What am I hearing? “So…so…you’re not a demon?”
Those black wings popped out behind his back. He arched his eyebrow again and my stomach tightened into knots. “You think I’m a demon?”
“I thought you were an incubus,” I said in a rush before I could stop myself.
His eyes widened and he stared at me. But after a moment, his grin turned sideways into a devastating grin that did weird things to my insides. He ran his thumb over his bottom lip and strolled close. “You thought I was an incubus?”
I shrugged and nodded.
His smirk spread and a sexy little chuckle echoed in the ocean breeze. He stepped forward, close enough that I could smell his smoky scent. He stopped right beside me, then licked his lips and leaned forward to whisper in my ear, “I’m not an incubus.”
I looked up and our noses almost touched. “Then what are you?”
“I’m an angel.”
I gasped. “You don’t look like an angel.”
He stepped back and frowned. “Do you see angels often?”
I opened my mouth, then closed it and frowned. “Well, no but…my family said—"
“Your family hasn’t seen an angel in six hundred years, and I promise you, Michael didn’t look much different than I do now.”
This was too much. He was too blasé about it for it to be real. “Right, because you were there.”
He grinned. “I was.”
I gasped and stumbled backward. “So you’re not here to kill me?”
He shook his head. “I’m an angel.”
“But earlier…you…you were trying to…rape me?”
He arched one eyebrow and gestured around us. “Chloe, did you see what I just did here? Or on that train? If I wanted to rape you I would have.”
My stomach sank. I knew that. I’d known that. But still. Hearing it was different.
He sighed and the