Chapter 19 Galilee #2
Celestial had told her to get big, and if Gali could burn the Devil himself, she was more than willing to take a chance on incinerating this annoying soldier
of his, who looked down his nose at Gali like she was an insect he couldn’t wait to exterminate. Like all of Lucifer’s princes,
he was painfully exquisite, sure, but Leviathan’s beauty sang of numb temperatures and barely tempered cruelty. Gali wanted
to test her power against it, see who would incinerate first.
“What do you need?” Lucifer was saying to his prince.
Leviathan set his jaw, a taunting light filling his eyes. “Your brother is here,” he replied.
Galilee felt Lucifer tense up beside her, every fine muscle of his face freezing into place. With a harsh breath, he moved away, his flesh jerking awkwardly, like his form was having a hard time remembering how to function.
“Keep her away from him,” he said to Levi, his voice hoarse.
“Wait, what?” Gali stared at him, but Lucifer’s face was a rigid mask with black eyes cut out of it. “You’re leaving me here
with him?”
Levi looked just as displeased as she felt. “This is babysitting duty,” he protested.
“Then sit!” Lucifer roared, his voice redoubling and his eyes flaring. For a brief moment, Gali could swear she saw wheels of fire
burning in them. “She doesn’t come near the house until he’s gone!”
Levi didn’t seem to care about Lucifer’s rage. “Why?” he taunted some more, his voice silken. “Worried he’ll kill her?”
It was like lancing an abscess, the slash of Levi’s words: the wound it broke open in Lucifer’s face, shattering his mask,
and the gush of feeling that flooded his eyes as he looked at Gali.
“Yes, Levi.” His voice was suddenly old and heavy with loneliness and a sorrow Gali didn’t quite understand. “I am afraid
he’ll kill her.”
Levi fell silent, stricken by Lucifer’s answer. Before he could speak again, Lucifer turned away from them, black wings bursting
out of his back. He took flight in a smooth, soundless rise, and then he was gone, and Gali was alone in the garden with the
prince who wanted her dead.
She kept her eyes fiery white. “So,” she said, “who’s his brother?”
Levi sighed and threw himself on a garden bench, his long legs sprawling out in front of him as he lifted his scabbard over
his thighs. His body was lazy and elegant, suddenly loose-limbed, much to Gali’s surprise. He’d been so coiled with menace
since she met him in the parlor, seeing him relax seemed unnatural. Maybe he was doing it to unsettle her.
“The Archangel Michael,” Levi said, and Gali blinked in amazement that he’d actually answered without insulting her first.
“His brother’s the Archangel Michael,” she echoed slowly, as the words sank in. “That’s who showed up to the house?”
Levi hung his head back, and his bone-white locs pooled on the bench. “Yes,” he answered. “They don’t quite get along.”
Memories of holy books were springing up in Gali’s head. “Isn’t Michael, like, a cop?”
Levi barked out a laugh, and the sound was rich and ethereal, bubbling in the air around them. Gali almost froze in shock.
She hadn’t even known he could laugh.
“You know what, Michael is absolutely a cop.” Leviathan grinned wickedly at her. “You should pop up there and tell him that.”
Gali gave him a dripping sweet smile. “Aw, don’t pass it off to someone else. You know you’d be devastated if you didn’t get
to kill me yourself.”
To her surprise, Leviathan dragged his yellow eyes all over her, from her tangled hair to her body under Lucifer’s tunic,
all the way down to her bare feet coated in dark ash. It was uncomfortably reminiscent of how Lucifer had looked at her the
first time they met in the mansion, and Gali tried not to squirm. The tip of Levi’s tongue flicked out, red and forked, caressing
the pink corner of his mouth.
“You know, I think I would be devastated,” he said, his voice sliding into a harsh breath. “Isn’t that something, Galilee Kincaid?”
He’d never used her name before, and he made it sound . . . filthy. Something dark stirred in Gali’s belly, and her blood
slammed a little harder against the walls of her veins. Leviathan was dangerous in a way that Lucifer, oddly enough, was not.
Leviathan wanted her dead. He wanted the edge of his sword to kiss her throat, and he wanted to stand there as her blood pumped away over him. Even
now, he was stroking the leather of his scabbard as he watched her face.
Gali fought the urge to take a step back. She wouldn’t show weakness, not now. Not when she knew a little more about who she
was, and certainly not as a Kincaid with power burning through her corneas.
“What’s your sword’s name?” she asked instead, and Levi tilted his head to one side, very slowly, his eyes smooth as a snake’s.
“What makes you think it has one?”
Gali shrugged. “Doesn’t every sword?”
“You’ve been reading too many books, little human.”
She bared her teeth, and light rolled off her tongue, making her voice electric. “Don’t call me that,” she warned him.
Levi brought his hands together in gentle mocking applause. “Oh, look. The Devil’s pet learned a new trick.”
Wow, he was annoying. Gali tried a different tack. “I’m pretty sure Lucifer told you not to kill me—”
“Yet,” Levi interjected, his fingers long and repetitive on the scabbard across his thighs. “I’m not allowed to kill you yet. Lucifer’s trying to convince us of scenarios in which your power might not be a threat. He’s full of schemes and pretty
pictures, that one.”
Levi’s words were heavy with suggestion, but Gali barely paid him any mind. She didn’t need Lucifer to protect her anymore, not with the cold power raging so close to her surface now, just a call away.
“My point is, he didn’t say nothing about me killing you.” Gali smiled widely. “I mean, you’d probably just scurry off back to Hell, and he could come find what’s left of you later.
I don’t think he’d be too mad at me, do you?”
Leviathan leaned forward, his locs falling over his dappled face as his bones sharpened with a feral eagerness. “Why don’t
you come and try, little one? We can see if your head grows back after I rip it off.”
They stared at each other for a stretched moment, then Gali rolled her eyes and folded her arms. “Whatever. It’s getting cold.”
She didn’t actually want to fight. There was a part of her that had curled up in on itself after the showdown with her family,
like it was curving to protect a great wound.
Levi gave her a look and gestured to the burned garden around them. “Make heat if you need it.”
Gali shrugged, not bothering to respond.
The light in her didn’t actually warm her up.
Even as the garden had burned, she’d felt none of that heat, but she sure as hell wasn’t going to tell Leviathan any of that.
All around them, cicadas had started shrieking, and the moon was already in the sky, bloated and almost full.
Fatigue was heavy on her shoulders, and Gali just wanted to be back in her apartment, taking a scorching-hot shower before crawling into bed.
Leviathan wasn’t going to let her leave, though.
At some point, she’d have to have it out with him and the rest of the princes, but right now, she was just so tired.
“Look, if you’re not going to kill me, how about I go back to the house and take a shower?” she said. “We don’t have to interrupt
Luci and his brother.” Who was an archangel, her mind noted for good measure.
Levi leaned back on the bench and shook his head. “Can’t let you near the house, little one. Luci’s orders.”
At least he’s stopped calling her “human.” “Do you always do what Luci says, like a good little bitch?” she asked, thoroughly
irritated now.
Levi raised an amused eyebrow. “He’s the King of Hell, so yes. I follow orders.”
A mosquito bit Gali on her calf, and she cursed out loud, slapping at it and missing. “This is ridiculous! Y’all can’t make
me stand out here in the garden indefinitely.”
“Do you?” Levi was stroking the scabbard again—he was so fucking obsessed with that sword there was no way it didn’t have a name. Gali found herself annoyed at how decadent his voice was, as if temptation had been spun fine and
shoved down his throat, only to sing back up again.
“Do I what?” Gali asked, distracted. Her calf was already itching like a motherfucker.
“Do you follow orders?” Leviathan asked. “Like a good little bitch?”
He made the last few words sound like a caress, albeit an indecent one. Gali stopped in place as that darkness sang low again,
twisting in her belly. A breeze wandered through the garden, and she shivered in the tunic. Leviathan sighed and stood up,
shrugging off his jacket.
“Put this on,” he said.
Gali took the jacket and draped it over her shoulders. It was a heavy denim and smelled of bitter cacao. “Thanks.”
Levi was about to answer, but then he jerked his head sharply to the side, his nostrils flaring.
“What is it?” Gali asked.
Levi cursed in a language she didn’t recognize and grabbed her arm over the jacket, pulling her into the willow trees.
“Get down,” he ordered, and Gali dropped obediently into a crouch, pressing her palm against a trunk for balance. A childhood
brushing against the darkest parts of the Kincaids’ forests had long since taught her when not to argue with a bodyguard.
There was a soft hiss above her, and she looked up to see that Leviathan had curved over her and snapped his wings out. Unlike
Lucifer’s, they were membranous rather than feathers. The undersides were a deep scarlet on all four of them, like venous
blood. As she watched in awe, the outside of his wings mimicked the willow branches, sprouting leaves that dripped over, concealing
both of them from view.
“How the hell did you do that?” she whispered.
Levi shook his head. “Be silent.”
Gali nodded and remained in her crouch as long seconds passed. Past the smoke and musk of Lucifer’s tunic, she could smell