Marcus' Prey

Chapter Three

"You'd think that once she'd accepted the king she would mellow out-"

"You're the only one who thought that," I interrupted with a snort, "nothing will ever 'mellow' that hellion out."

Benjamin's eyes narrowed, but he let my rudeness slide.

"I realize that now, and I wouldn't have it any other way. But to your question, no, this isn't about Ammi."

He took a deep breath, and my eyebrows hit my hairline. It was a surprising show of emotion from the battle-hardened General.

"Megara made contact. She's found another one." His voice was solemn and grave, like he expected this revelation to be devastating.

After the nuclear bomb God had dropped, this was nothing. In fact, I didn't understand why he'd bothered me with such a mundane development. There were literally thousands of Nephilim still at large. If Benjamin informed me of every single grunt we captured, I'd never get any peace.

I stared at him for a moment, blinking slowly, before replying, "And this concerns me...how? Meg is more than capable of taking care of a rogue Nephilim."

But Ben was already shaking his head.

"Meg says this one is...different. Powerful. She believes this one was Michael's right hand."

I froze, dark glee filling my being at the words.

After the death of Michael, his army of Cursed Nephilim scattered across the countryside, causing mayhem and destruction in their wake. They spread their decay and death throughout the globe, and Lucifer had tasked me with taking care of them. By "any means necessary". The King of Hell would allow no threats to his mate to remain uncontested. So, over the past year, I'd been hunting down Nephilim after Nephilim, often times eliminating them immediately. They were usually too much of a hassle to deal with otherwise. But some I barely managed to capture and bring down to Hell with me.

With my stunted powers, everything about this assignment was a royal pain in my pale ass.

The scum that I did drag down with me tended to be lower on the totem pole. Ugly, belly-to-the-ground pieces of shit who were more than happy to spill their guts when I, well, spilled their guts.

They all spoke of a "Golden child", a Nephilim that Michael kept close to his side. An assassin of incredible power and grit. Michael's favorite. The one he had to pick off his enemies. The general feeling about this Nephilim was that of jealousy and hatred. No one liked a goody-two-shoes, and they were more than happy to throw him under the bus when I applied some pressure.

I'd been hunting for that sonofabitch ever since.

"Where?" I stalked forward, now giving Lacedaemon my full attention, "what evidence does she have? And where the hell is she?"

"She was held up by a very possessive and very neglected archangel and holy shit why are you naked?"

I closed my eyes, slowly counting to ten in my head. It seemed everything these days was designed to try my limited patience.

"I was just finished with a shower and I haven't had a moments peace since!" I grumbled in irritation, crossing my arms and narrowing my eyes at the small woman now standing next to Ben. "And Raphael needs to keep it in his fuckin' pants."

"The only one I can see who needs to keep it in his pants is the arrogant daemon who doesn't have any on!" Meg snapped, peeking from between fingers, "don't you go insulting my mate!"

"This assignment concerns the safety of both you and Amirykal. You'd think he'd understand." I was well aware that I sounded like a petulant child.