Lincoln was silent a moment, staring at the table salt like it might sprout wings and fly.

“Come on, please? I want them to pass, and they can’t do that by sparing with each other. They need to fight the real thing,” I pressed him. Overprotective didn’t cover what Lincoln was; he was the next-level shit, and I knew this was asking a lot of him. Even a lower-level demon being in my presence would set him on edge. The fact that I could kill them with one hand tied behind my back, wouldn’t matter to him in the slightest.

“I’ll clear it with Michael,” Lincoln answered, sighing resignedly.

I squealed, leaning forward and placing a kiss on his cheek.

“But.” He stopped and caught my gaze. “I want you to speak to someone about the panic attacks.”

Dammit. He’d trapped me. The panic attacks were random, and I didn’t think they were a big deal, but I also trusted Lincoln and that he wanted what was best for me.

“Fine,” I growled. I wasn’t really sure there was a shrink on Earth who would know what the hell I was dealing with, but it was worth a shot.

“Tell me about the war.” I continued to heal his shoulder, letting the golden light wrap around his arm, bringing healing where it was most needed. I felt so helpless here inside the safety of Angel City, while my friends were doing shifts in the war zones, pushing the demons back to keep us all safe.

Lincoln sighed, pushing his fingers through his hair, which had started to grow back out. Instead of speaking, he pulled me into his lap and rested his face on my back. I shifted my position so I could still heal his shoulder.

“Come on, Linc, I’m not fragile. Tell me what’s going on out there, or Luke and Chloe will.” Luke and Chloe had been assigned to Lincoln’s team, and Shea was working directly with Archangel Michael—when she wasn’t helping me train my summer class. My friends would spill the beans eventually.

“It’s bad,” he spoke against my back, his breath tickling my spine. “Every week there seems to be a hundred more demons. I don’t know how he’s making them so fast, but we won’t last at this rate.”

My heart hammered inside my chest at his words. Had things really become so dire in the past month? I’d heard they closed the border to and from Demon City. You now needed special security clearance to get through, and even then, it was only at certain times of the day that they opened it. How the hell was Lucy creating a hundred new demons a week? Probably with magic, that bastard. He was trying to overtake Angel City, weaken our defenses, and then what? Would we fall? Would we flee? Would we—

I shook my head against the defeating thoughts. “What do the archangels say? What are we going to do about it?” Perk of being married to a captain was that I got all the good high-level clearance gossip.

Lincoln shifted me to face him, wincing when he tried to use his bad arm. “They’re thinking of putting out a call to the sister schools, pulling in everyone who’s willing and able to fight.” His eyes held worry, but there was also something else darkening there, something I couldn’t quite put my finger on right then.

Wow. Putting out a call to the sister schools meant things were bad. Or on the verge of being bad, at least. A realization hit me then. Los Angeles was the only large city left standing. If we fell, the demons would rule the world.

“Linc, we have to stop them. Stop him.” Lucifer was cranking out demons on a factory line, and it took us four years to train a hundred Fallen Army soldiers. The math would never add up in our favor.

Lincoln peppered my shoulder with kisses. “No one knows what to do. We’re all surviving day to day out there. The archangels are having a meeting tomorrow with all the captains. I’ll try to help come up with—”

“I want to be there!” The words flew from my mouth before he even finished.

Lincoln gave me a look that said, ‘You are not a captain in the Fallen Army.’

“I’m going,” I declared. “I saw Lucifer create those things. I know his process. I can be of value,” I urged.

With a resigned sigh, he nodded. I could sense that he was torn between my safety and the safety of this city, but in reality, if one fell, the other wouldn’t survive.

I needed to kill Lucifer. Like yesterday. It was my destiny.

I knew that now. There was no other way around it.

The night passed torturously slow, with each toss and turn, leaving me restless, and then I had to leave early the next morning for my training with Emberly. I’d had to move our session to eight, in order to be able to make the nine o’clock archangel meeting with Lincoln and the captains after, which didn’t make me any happier about what I was about to endure.

“Hey, girl. It’s early as hell. I should up your price,” Emberly called out as I walked into our training gym.

A grin tugged at the corners of my mouth. I loved this chick, and she’d fast become like a little sister to me. “No way, you’ll bankrupt me. What does a fifteen-year-old need with four hundred a month, anyway?”

The teenager cocked a hand on her hip, giving me a playful scowl. Her hair was in a messy top knot, and she wore baggy sweats and a loose T-shirt. She’d literally rolled out of bed and come here.

“I’ll be sixteen in a month, and I’m saving for an old Mustang. My dad’s going to help me restore it.”

A pang of jealousy pinched my heart for the slightest moment, before it turned into happiness for Emberly. I missed my dad, missed working on projects with him. I’d never have that again.

“Won’t he buy one for you?” The archangels were rich. The heavy taxes the Angel City citizens paid all went into their banks to use for the war, of course, but I was sure they took some type of salary.

“Hah!” she barked. “Any extra money we have goes to buying slaves from San Francisco. If I want a car, I need to buy it myself.”

The situation with San Francisco wasn’t right. It made me sick to think about it. And of course, Michael put all his extra money there; he was an angel, after all, not tempted by mortal materialism, I guessed. I should have known.

“Well, I’m glad my hard-earned money is going into getting you a car. Just promise me a ride when it’s up and running.”

Emberly grinned. “You got it.”

I was about to get into my training stance when she spoke again.

“Oh, and your mom is so cool. Man, that apple crumble thingy she cooks is yum.”

The color drained from my face as I processed her words. “What? When did you meet my mom?”

Emberly hesitated, the look on her face said maybe she wasn’t sure she should have told me anything.

“Emberly.”

“Raph has been bringing her to weekly dinners to our house.” She chewed a nail. “I thought you knew.”

What the hell did she just say?

“Like, as friends?” Why wouldn’t my mom tell me about that? Or Raphael? Oh my God, are they… dating? A warm feeling spread throughout my limbs at the thought. I loved Raph, so that might be kind of awesome, but also very weird.

“Umm, I dunno. They look friendly… when they’re holding hands and stuff.”

“Holding hands!” I jumped into the air to release the energy building in my body. “For how long?”