“You can’t know that,” Raphael said.
“I do know that.” Lucifer’s jaw clenched making that sexy muscle tic in his jaw. “And who are you to sit there and speak about what is prohibited?”
Raphael frowned. “Eh?”
“Indeed.” Lucifer’s eyes gleamed as he went on the attack.
Master table turner move he’d just pulled.
“Are we going to continue to pretend that one of your lot did not sire a Nephilim?” Lucifer drawled.
Oh shiiit! This was getting juicy.
“That has absolutely nothing to do with this current conversation.” Raphael looked aghast.
Point to Raphael for holding the line.
“Only because you say it doesn’t,” Lucifer countered.
Classic Lucifer move, obfuscation.
“You compressed when you had a human with you, on the earth plane,” Raphael yelled. “That is forbidden.”
“One of you fucked a human,” Lucifer yelled back. “And when last I checked, that was also forbidden.”
“The two are not related.”
“Only because you’d rather not talk about one.”
“I…you…” Raphael growled. “Pull this car over. I need to kick your ass.”
Bianca abhorred violence, but these two would be evenly matched.
“No,” Lucifer said. “We don’t have time for what we both know would end in a draw.”
She’d called it.
Raphael opened his mouth. Then shut it again. “True.”
“And my point is this.” Lucifer simmered down with him and adopted a reasonable tone. “The circumstances we all find ourselves in are unprecedented, and we are all stepping over the line. We might not succeed if we don’t.”
“You try explaining that to Gabriel,” Raphael grumbled.
Lucifer shrugged. “Don’t tell her.”
Raphael gaped at him. “I can’t not tell her.”
“Why not?”
Bianca would like to hear the answer to that too.
“Because…well…it’s not done.” Raphael had stopped glowing, which Bianca took as a good thing for her Corolla. “And Gabriel will find out. That angel has a way of knowing everything.”
Bianca used to have a kindergarten teacher like that. She would know, just by looking at you, what you’d done and how many cookies you had in your pocket.
Lucifer snorted. “Only because you tell her everything.”
“I do not.” Raphael folded his arms.
Lucifer glanced at him and smirked.
“Okay.” Raphael stared out the window. “Maybe I tell her a lot of things. Most things.” He spread his hands, palms up. “I can’t help it. It’s in my nature.”
“Fair enough.” Lucifer nodded. “Just like rule bending is in mine.”
They drove in silence while Bianca burned to ask a slew of questions.
Lucifer broke the silence. “So who do you think it was?”
Yes! What Bianca had been dying to know.
“Hmm?” Raphael kept his gaze averted, but he wasn’t fooling anyone.
“Sophia’s the world’s oldest virgin,” Lucifer said. “So that rules her out.”
Raphael whipped his head around and stared. “Really?”
“You didn’t know?” Lucifer chuckled. “How did you not know?”
In Raphael’s defense, that had floored Bianca. Sophia was so gorgeous it wouldn’t have occurred to her that she hadn’t gotten her a little something-something.
Raphael looked indignant. “I didn’t ask.”
It wasn’t the sort of thing anyone had the right to ask. Good job, Raphael.
“She’s been in love with Shade pretty much since they came into being,” Lucifer said.
That was sad, and Sophia was so sweet. It sucked for her that Shade was in love with Eddie.
“I did not know that either.” Raphael shook his head. “Does everybody know this?”
Lucifer chuckled and stared at him. “Now they do.”
“Huh?”
After a short pause, Raphael said, “I doubt it would be Gabriel.”
“Why?” Lucifer smirked. “It’s always the most publicly law abiding that are the biggest rule breakers.”
