Page 154 of Viper

“Even in the womb?”

“Oh, yeah. My mother once told me a story of how I didn’t like people touching her swollen belly all the time, so I put a containment field around us that lasted quite a few hours.”

Whoa. “Peanut’s power display won’t have caused it any harm, will it?”

“No,” he instantly swore. “Peanut will sleep awhile but be fine.”

She let out a relieved breath. “We’ll soon have to tell everyone about the pregnancy. More celestials could come.” Her demon’s eyes narrowed at the thought.

“Or they’ll listen to the point I made to the archangels earlier and leave Peanut alone to avoid a war.”

“One can but hope.” She idly doodled patterns along his collarbone. “I know the archangels helped you, but do you think their words were genuine?”

“Yes. I think they came to realize that, since I’d fallen anyway, their actions toward you were pointless. All they’d done wasdelay my fall, and in the process they’d betrayed me. They don’t feel good about it.”

“So you don’t think they’d come for the baby? Even if the Uppers requested it of them?”

“If the Uppers had trusted that any of the six would harm me or mine, they would have sent them after us. They didn’t.”

True enough. “I noticed that Ophaniel and the six archangels have wings. Did you ever have any?”

“Who says I don’t anymore?”

She blinked. “Well, I would think they were visible, and I don’t see any.”

“An archangel’s wings can be ‘tucked away’, as we call it.”

“So you can still call on them?”

He smoothed his hand up her back. “Yes.”

“Can I see them?”

He twisted his mouth and then teleported to the side of the bed, his back to her.

Propping herself up on one elbow, Ella watched as a set of glowing-white wingsappearedout of nowhere. He fanned them out and,damn, he had one hell of a wingspan. “Oh, wow. Do you ever fly?”

Tucking them away again, he teleported back to the bed and was once more lying on his side next to her. “Can’t.”

“You can’t?”

“It’s part of the curse. You get to keep your wings, but they won’t work.”

Grimacing, she leaned into him, resting a hand on his chest. “That sucks. I hate that curse so much.”

He trailed a fingertip down the side of her face. “I’d rather have you than a pair of damn wings.”

Maybe, but it didn’t alter the fact that … “You gave up a lot for me.”

“I was drowning, Ella. Drowning in darkness. You pulled me out of it. There’s nothing I wouldn’t have given up to be with you.”

Oh, there he went hitting her in the feels again. “I love you.”

His face went all soft and warm. “I love you, too, baby. More than you’ll ever know.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Five months later

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