Chapter 5 Galilee #2
Gali dropped her face into her hand. No, her grandmother would never let any of them fight alone.
She’d bring the full force of the Kincaids into the city, a pack of hunters, and she would not give a singular fuck about what that did to the life Gali was trying to build here, as long as Gali was safe by the end of it.
Her friendships would go up in smoke, and in the end, she’d be forced back to the big house because their world couldn’t exist alongside this other “normal” one.
“I need her to stay out of it,” Gali said, raising her head to glare at her cousin. “Don’t you run telling.”
Celestial raised her palms. “I don’t gotta say shit for her to find out something’s wrong, Gali. You setting off hella alarms
with whatever you’re doing.” Curiosity crept into her voice. “What are you doing, by the way? Who you cutting deals with?”
Gali sighed. She had to tell someone, and Celestial was really her best choice. It wasn’t like she could say this to Bonbon
or Oriak? without them thinking she’d lost her damn mind. Zélie would probably run and tell Nana Darling immediately, and
Leah would just stare with those large eyes of hers until Gali felt too guilty to breathe. But Celestial would actually listen.
“The Devil.” Gali rubbed her forehead and dragged her hand down her face. “I made a deal with the Devil.”
Celestial’s face didn’t move. “What.”
“I didn’t know he was the Devil when I made it, if that helps.”
Her cousin blinked. “You talking, like, some bad boy you ran into?”
“Uh . . . I’m talking Lucifer.”
Celestial’s eyes widened. “Now I know you fucking with me, cuz.”
Gali winced. How could she get her cousin to understand when Celestial hadn’t been there, hadn’t seen the way the light was
trapped inside him? He’d touched her, and the things roaring inside her had been touched too, for the first time.
“He’s . . . he’s beautiful, Celestial. Like, I know Nana Darling told us the stories, but . . . it’s not the same.”
In the Kincaid family, no one could really hide anything from Celestial.
If it wasn’t the wind that was telling her things, it was that Celestial could read them like children’s books.
Gali felt her cousin’s gaze brushing against her skin in a dry rasp, and so she tried to bury her secrets, the dreams, and the loud clanging of her want.
“Gali?” Celestial’s voice was suspicious. “What did you do?”
Blood rushed into Gali’s face, staining her cheekbones dark, and Celestial gasped. “It’s not what you think!” Gali blurted
out. “We . . . we kissed.” It wasn’t the entire truth, but the horror in Celestial’s face was enough for Gali to swallow the
rest of it down.
“You kissed the Devil?” Celestial moved her fingers in a quick warding gesture. “He entrance you? Did he trick you?”
Gali’s heart sank and her mouth turned sour. Of course she’d think that. So much for her listening. Lucifer was the Great
Deceiver, after all, the lying trickster of their childhoods, a sleek and convincing snake curled around a forbidden fruit.
In this story, Gali was nothing but prey, someone to be glamoured and manipulated. She doubted if anyone in her family could
imagine her as she had been the night before, the woman who had stepped into the Devil’s personal space and bargained for
his touch, who had pulled up her dress and screamed for him, coming apart against his tongue.
“He didn’t trick me,” she said woodenly, but Celestial was barely listening.
“If he’s got you in his sights, then we gotta rally,” she was saying. “He won’t be satisfied with just a taste. He’s gonna
keep hunting you.”
Gali’s skin thrilled at the idea. What if it was true? What if he came back after he’d left, possibly driven by a hunger that
matched the one inside her?
“Why would he come after me?” she said, trying to dampen her hope. “I’m nobody.”
Celestial paused for a moment too long, then inhaled sharply. “One day they gon’ have to tell you the truth,” she said. “Soon,
by the smell of it.”
Warning clung like sweat on the back of Gali’s neck.
Celestial had mentioned this before, hinted about a Kincaid secret that had to do with Gali, but she’d also said she couldn’t tell Gali anything.
“Ask your mother,” she’d said. “Shit, ask Nana Darling.” So Gali had tried to ask her mother, but Collette had laid a hand over her daughter’s mouth.
“You are a Kincaid,” she’d hissed with the thunder of an oath behind her trembling voice. “Whatever secrets we keep are to
keep you alive, Gali. Don’t ask me again.”
Now, Gali glared at Celestial. “Kincaids don’t lie,” she snapped.
“Don’t mean they telling the truth,” Celestial shot back.
Whatever. Gali changed the subject. “Lucifer won’t come for me.”
There was a slipping disappointment inside her as she said it, but that didn’t make it less true. She probably wouldn’t see
him again unless she got Oriak? to take her back to the mansion, and Gali was already too proud for that, to go looking for him like a lost dog missing its master. This was just two worlds brushing against each other for a moment, then spinning
apart.
Her cousin’s nostrils flared at the Devil’s name. “I’ma kill him if he does,” she said flatly.
“Celestial . . .”
“You think I’m playing? He doesn’t get to have you, Gali.”
But what if I want him to? Gali bit back the words. There was no faster way to convince her cousin that she had indeed been entranced by the Devil than
to speak her wanting for him out loud. Celestial would never believe that the desire belonged to Gali, because what would
Gali be doing with something so powerful burning in her veins? Frustration and a slow anger rose up the back of her throat.
She had tempted him. She had brought the Devil to his fucking knees, and yet her family would always see her only as little strange
Gali who needed their protection.
Someone started banging at the door, and Gali looked up. “I gotta go, Celestial. Don’t do anything.”
“You don’t do anything,” her cousin snapped. “Stay away from him. Otherwise I’ma have to tell Nana Darling.”
Gali went cold even as her anger heated up. “You wouldn’t dare tattle. You better than Zélie.”
“Sorry, Gali. If he tries to get to you, not even all the princes of hell could stop me and every Kincaid on earth from burning
this shit down to protect you.” Celestial shrugged. “We family, cuz. It’s what we do.”
The call cut out and Gali’s phone went to black. Her nails bit into her palm as she clenched her fist, trying to control the
tide of rage inside her. They would never let her go. Her family would swarm around her just like she’d feared, no matter
how far out of the house she moved. Her life wasn’t hers to live, not really. At the end of the day, she was a Kincaid before
she was anything else, even herself.
A small voice in the back of her head reminded her that this was what love was, that her cousin was only offering protection
because they were up against the Devil himself and that was logically a danger worth the forces Celestial was threatening
to raise up, but Gali did not care. She wanted him, and it was an ocean storming inside her, washing away any fear.
The banging continued, and Gali growled, throwing off her covers and stalking to her apartment door, throwing it open. “What?” she snarled.
Bonbon and Oriak? stood there, identical murderous glares on their faces.
“Where,” Oriak? bit out, “the fuck have you been?”