She shook her head and released a shaking exhale.“I told him we wish to work together to restore him, and want for nothing more.”
Saer’s heart skipped.“You lied.”
“He let me come back.I’d do it again.”Ferocity glimmered once more in her gaze.
The lengths to which she’d gone…Saer knew he could deceive their maker, but also knew the consequences if caught.Thinking of Neyu doing the same terrified him.
But…as long as Lucifer remained trapped in the Hells, and Neyu had proven her ability to fool It, they were safe.
“We’ll bring back more large harvests,” Neyu said.“He won’t stop us.”
The expression on her face, the way she’d looked at him before bringing the mob of souls back to Lucifer replayed in his mind, and Saer’s heart twisted.“You ache for them.For the dead.”
“You don’t?”
“I—” Saer cut off his automatic refusal when Ruki’s wandering existence popped into his mind, and he frowned, gathering himself.“We do as we’re commanded.”Even to his own ears, it sounded hollow.
The corners of her eyes flinched.“We deserve more than we are given.”She looked out at the desert, to where the souls once stood.“So do they.”
He had no words to argue.
20
Throughdecades,SaerandNeyu won their reputation in the Hells as an unstoppable duo.They overcame a handful of battles during their rare encounters with theDraconic, winning more often than losing.Even when defeated, the setback proved temporary.The First and Second always found a way to return stronger, to harvest more souls and appease their maker—even if it was an imperfect solution to their burning desire to remain close.
Unstoppable together, just as she’d said.
Their latest conquest took Neyu and Saer to a land lush with endless green hills and rich earth.Mornings came blanketed with fog, but when the sun appeared, the aquamarine sky stretched forever.
The rainy season passed and the air warmed, breaths no longer seen in the early hours.The vast village stretched across multiple acres, larger than anyDaemoenicever attempted to harvest.Stone constructions set high on a rolling plain above a wild body of ocean water.Some of the fishermen’s cottages stood not far from the steep, stony cliffs which plummeted down to the white-crested waves of black and blue.A dirt road lined the edge of the treacherous ridges and followed it as the land angled downward to a rocky beach.The men of the village had cleared out a space and built docks for their rowboats, lined haphazardly down the ocean’s edge.
By Neyu’s words, Lucifer expressed contentment with all they’d accomplished, though Saer had yet to return to the Hells and hear it from the fallen angel’s lips.
Each time Neyu left, he counted the days with restless trepidation for her return.
Relief greeted him in a wash each time she reappeared in Hellsfire.He’d run to her.
The glossy look in Neyu’s gaze came with each of her returns.His hands would cup her face, his eyes searching for the cause.Sadness?Disorientation?Something else?There at first, then the daze would fade, like mist lifting to the warmth of a morning sun’s rise.
“It’s taking a toll on you,” he’d told her once he realized the pattern, voice low and urgent.“I’ll bring the souls back myself next time.”And he meant it.
But she’d gripped his hands so tightly, her already pale knuckles blanched.“What we’re doing is working.He lets me return to you.I can’t bear the idea of fretting whether he’ll allow the same in reverse—not with the way he speaks of you.”
“Speaks of me?”
But Neyu refused to elaborate, and pushing her brought a distress he couldn’t bear.
“Focus on here, Dearest.On now,” she’d say.
So he swallowed his questions.
He’d do anything she asked.
The longer Saer stayed away, the less he missed it.He’d found a new home.With Neyu.
The pair spent five years establishing themselves within their latest settlement and Pride desired the victory with fierce intensity.The more they proved themselves, the less likely his maker would separate him from Neyu.If she insisted he not return to the Hells, he’d give her all he could on the surface.
Neyu dressed herself in a simple brown dress with laces at the front of the bodice, a scooped neck showing off her pearly skin.Not even the dowdy hue of the fabric could subdue the beauty of her flesh, the way it screamed to both man and woman alike,touch me.She’d tamed her hair back into a long, artful braid.
