Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
TENNESSEE
I exhaled and ran my hand through my hair. “The fuck did I just watch?”
Tegan snort-laughed right behind me. She pressed her face to my back and wrapped her arms around my waist. ‘I love you,’ she whispered into my mind.
“Sir,” Savannah drawled, then broke into a fit of giggles.
I glanced over my shoulder. Hunter and Devon were chuckling. Mona had pursed her lips
“In front of the angels, Haven?” Uncle Tim asked with a sigh and a look of utter defeat. “All of the angels, Haven?”
I shrugged. “Whatever, I’m related to at least two of them.”
Thiago arched one eyebrow. “At least?”
“I’ve lost track.” I waved my hand in the air. “You’re focusing on the wrong part. Let’s circle back to the what did I just watch part?”
“I do believe you said, the fuck did I just watch,” a deep voice said from my side.
I gasped. My jaw dropped so hard I heard it pop.
Archangel Michael stood directly in front of me.
He hadn’t just been there, of that I was absolutely certain.
While I was six-foot-five now, he still towered over me.
It was weird to have to look up at someone at my height.
The power radiating out of him made me want to take several steps back.
He arched one eyebrow. “It’s important to be consistent, Grandson.”
And then his words clicked. “Wait, did you just say fuck?”
He cocked his head to the side. “Didn’t you?”
“Yeah, but I’m . . . not an archangel?”
“And you thought you inherited that foul mouth from Uriel?” Michael chuckled. He actually chuckled. “Edward inherited many things from Uriel that he passed to his family, but I assure you he cringes every time he says the word fuck.”
“I do not!” Uriel shouted from where Riah and Pippa were still tending to Everest. He sighed and flipped his long black hair over his shoulder, then stormed over to stand beside Michael. “Stop telling people that.”
“It is the truth—”
“No, it’s not—”
“Lancaster?” Michael snapped his fingers in Jackson’s direction.
Jackson cursed several times, then stuttered. “Uh, yeah, he’s telling the truth as far as he knows it—”
“That doesn’t mean it’s true!” Uriel groaned. “First you steal my bloodline and then you tell them rumors about me?”
Michael looked him straight in the eye. “Say it.”
Uriel scowled. “Say what?”
“Say fuck.” Michael waved his hand. “Without cringing.”
“Fine. Fuck.” But his eyes narrowed ever so slightly on the word in question.
“Oh fuck. Look at that,” I said before I could stop myself.
Tegan snort-laughed against my back. Again.
“You saw it. Right, Grandson?”
“I did.” I frowned. “You stole his bloodline?”
“Hardly—”
“He was my grandson first, Michael,” Uriel said through clenched teeth with narrowed silver eyes.
Michael rolled his green and gold eyes. “When there’s six hundred years between, we call that an ancestor, not a grandparent.”
“You could’ve picked another line.” Uriel threw his hands up. “What’s the point in stacking a single bloodline?”
“This is going to be the angle Lilith takes with you. You understand that, right?”
Uriel’s eyes flashed. He pointed a finger at Michael. “Edward was my son, then you went and gave him your sword, stealing my thunder—”
“I do believe it was Lilith’s thunder I stole with that.”
Tegan was absolutely cackling against my back now. I was trying not to laugh.
“You’re rather butthurt about this still. It wasn’t about me.” Michael sighed. “And I am the one who pointed Edward Proctor’s mother out to you—”
“Oh, so you’re jealous?”
Michael scowled, then glanced over his shoulder to where his soulmate Jophiel stood watching over Everest. “Of what?”
“If you wanted to use her line so badly, why didn’t you?”
“Because I suspected The Coven of that time was not strong enough to defeat Lilith and my creating a line would’ve been a waste of catastrophic measures.” He looked back at me and nodded. “I think I chose well.”
“Um, thanks?” My whole face warmed.
Uriel put his hands on his hips. “Yeah, thanks to my bloodline. All that fire and passion comes from me, not you.”
Michael pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed.
“Which is probably why Lucifer chose a Proctor to be my non-Proctor daughter’s soulmate.
Shall I remind you, again, that I did not choose the Proctor line.
Ruth married and procreated with a Proctor.
She was not born one. Unless you forgot that soul assignment is not part of my job description? ”
Gabriel appeared between the two angels, looking as he always did with the soulmate marks covering him from bald head down to bare toes.
The gold and white eyes looked pointedly back and forth between them.
“Shall I actually deliver the message I was just given or do you two think you can guess what was said?”
Uriel snarled in Michael’s direction, then stormed off toward the Old Lands. “I have better things to do anyways!” he shouted over his shoulder.
Michael chuckled.
Gabriel’s face fell. “Must you, Michael? Every time?”
Michael grinned. “Hey, I was just trying to have a conversation with my grandson. Not my fault he picked a fight with the fight guy.”
“The fight guy,” I said with a laugh under my breath.
“Fuck’s sake, Michael.” Gabriel sighed and shook his head. “You know why—”
“You’re not reacting like he does—”
“This is why you were forbidden from the Bishop line.” Gabriel was still shaking his head. “What Lucifer was thinking putting our lines together is beyond me.”
Michael opened his mouth to speak but Gabriel vanished.
Savannah nodded. “So Gabriel also says fuck.”
He grinned. “You should hear Lucifer.”
“Don’t tempt me with a good time,” Savannah mumbled like she couldn’t stop herself. Then she hissed and covered her own mouth with her hands. “Sorry, ma’am—sir. I meant sir.”
Michael watched her with narrowed eyes for a moment. “Is that all, Savannah Grace?”
Her blue eyes bugged out of her head. “Uh, yeah. Yup. Definitely. Well—”
“There it is.” His eyebrows rose. “Let’s hear it.”
“Why do people keep callin’ him Little Michael and talkin’ ‘bout how identical y’all are when you’re not.” Savannah gestured to him. “He ain’t got white and gold eyes or tatts covering his face—”
“What?” I frowned and looked at my grandfather. Then back at Savannah, then back at him again. “He doesn’t have that . . .? His eyes are the same shade of green as mine, but his have gold speckles in them.”
“Sir, are you color-blind?” Savannah gestured wildly in my grandfather’s direction.
At that, Tegan slipped around my side to look back and forth between me and Michael. “You see green and gold? Fascinating.”
“Wait, you don’t?” I frowned and then glanced behind me to my crew. “Do you?”
They all shook their heads.
Thiago scratched the back of his. “Every one of these angels out here have white and gold eyes like Tegan’s when she goes all white witch and the soulmate marks covering their whole body.”
Several others nodded in agreement with him.
Tegan’s brows scrunched together. “Really? Very fascinating.”
“Have you figured out why yet, Tegan?” Michael cocked his head to the side, watching her.
Tegan pursed her lips for a moment. “Is it a glamour?”
Michael smirked. “The creepy gold and white eyes and face marks combo are an automatic sort of glamour that all Earth-born mortals see. The idea, back when no one on Earth looked as such, was to appear so different and terrifying that it made a point.”
“Ohhhhhh,” we all said in perfect unison.
“Wait.” I held my hand up. “But I don’t see that.”
“You see my true appearance, the one I was born in Heaven with, because you are my grandson. Your blood is my blood. You will see me as I am.”
Tegan snapped her fingers. “Babe, what color eyes does Uriel have?”
“Silver?”
A few people hissed behind me.
“So, let me guess . . .” Tegan rubbed her hands together.
“All angels will have that creepy glamour when seen by mortals, but if we’re genetically related to an angel, we see them as they truly are?
But wait, when I first met Gabriel, I saw the creepy look, but now I see his eyes are the same pale-green as mine and Cooper’s. ”
“Yeah, that’s right,” Cooper said softly. “That was bugging me too.”
“Tegan is correct. You are children of Gabriel, so you see Gabriel even if he is not trying—because we can intentionally change our appearance to make you see what we want you to see. Which is why Gabriel intentionally did not have Tegan’s eye color upon first meeting him to ensure she did not put the pieces together yet. ”
“Jophiel’s eyes are Lancaster blue, just like Chloe’s,” Jackson added.
“Chloe is a different story.” Michael nodded. “And the re-born angels such as Raphael, Raziel, Ananiel, and Celina were all born from an Earth-born mortal so the glamour will change to meet their given mortal forms. Give them a century or so and they will likely change.”
“Wicked.” Tegan cackled. “What about Valathame? What color eyes does she have when not the creepy combo?”
“Oh no, that’s just her look. She was born creepy—”
“Thank you,” Valathame purred from suddenly right behind Michael. “Was it arrogant of me to make you all look like me when coming to my Earth?”
“Yes.” Michael smirked. “But I like that.”
“Of course you do.” She stepped aside and swatted his arms. “Now, shoo, we have work to do.”
Michael reached up and cupped the back of my head. It was a very loving gesture that made my face flush with heat. “Hang in there, Grandson. You’re doing great.”
“Thank you—”
“But stay away from Asmodeus.” He pointed to me. “Flee from his view at all times. Understand?”
I swallowed roughly. “Understood, Grandfather. Thank you.”
He smiled when I referred to him as my grandfather. “Get your sister back. You’re going to need her.”
“Yes, sir.”
“When you do, call on me. The three of us need to talk.” And then Michael was gone.
Valathame let out a big, dramatic sigh. “Boys. What can ya do?”
All the women around me chuckled. The guys just frowned in confusion.