Turns out even God can be wrong.
And it took me eight hundred years to fully realize that. When I finally did, Lilith was stolen away from me.
Now, after centuries of searching, I’d finally found her.
My Lilith. My ferocious, fiery demoness.
She’s so soft now. So different. She has blonde hair the color of wheat. It was black back then. Her face has changed, too, except for her eyes. They haven’t changed. They’re still gray like a sea-storm ready to break. She’s thinner now, with bags under her eyes which makes me angry at Paradise all over again for not blessing this beautiful woman with all the things she deserves.
But they don’t give a fuck about her. To them, she’s nobody. They don’t know that she’s mine.
I have to get her to the Underworld, where it’s safe.
For all I know, Michael’s already caught wind of this, and he’s just waiting to tear her away from me for the second time.
I won’t let that happen.
I’d have her heart regardless of what paperwork she signs. I was supposed to get her to sign the magical document so that it would be easier to compel her to the Underworld. But plans had changed.
Abaddon was no doubt furious with me for veering from the plan. But if she remembered who I was, I wouldn’t have to use magic tricks to get her to come with me.
And I wanted her to remember me.
As she’d requested, I was trying my damnest to stay out of her head, but that was a tall order when my mate was imagining me on top of her, tearing that dress I’d bought her from that perfect, tight little body and burying myself between her perfect thighs.
How I burned to bend her over the table and take what was rightfully mine, what I’d been deprived of for centuries.
It had been an absurd amount of time since I had her beneath me, screaming the devil’s name loud enough for the whole of Paradise to hear. I lost count of how many years had passed since I’d been inside her.
Despite coining the most recent nickname of “playboy,” I hadn’t been with another woman since Lilith. Centuries ago. Fuckingcenturies.
I was so hard for her that it was soul-screaming agony.
But I wanted her to know exactly who I was and that in her past life, she’d given me her everything. Her body, her mind, her heart, even her soul.
I had owned everything she was, and she’d owned everything I was.
I wanted that again. I would own everything again.
All the cryptic clues Cerberus had prepared into the meals hadn’t been enough to jog her memory. I had to break the kiss and tell her, but that was a shit storm waiting to happen.
I wasn’t sure how she was going to respond to being told she’ was once the literal Queen of Hell and a terrifyingly sexy demon shifter. On top of that, Abaddon’s ex-wife. And it was highly unlikely she was going to take that as well as she was taking my tongue right now.
Damn God and all his bleeding angels to the Pit because fuck, did she taste good.
I knew I couldn’t take this any further, but I wouldn’t be the devil if I didn’t consider holding off on telling her who she really was until I’d probably fucked her. But no, that would make for a bitter reunion started on deception and lies, and I always tried to keep that to a minimum between us. But each second this kiss went on, it became all the more difficult to let her go.
The slide of her tongue against mine, the little breathy sounds she was making in my mouth, the fevered pound of her heart in her chest as I knotted my fingers in her hair and pulled her tighter against me…
I might have lost my wings long ago, losing the ability to let my beast loose in my true form, but sometimes he had a surprising grip over my human form. He snarled at me, a deep rumbling growl sounding from my chest as a result.
He was resonating with her, calling for his mate. It was her. It wasreallyher.
Jessica froze in my arms and jerked herself out of my embrace, her eyes wide with fear.
“I’m sorry…” My breath hitched. I swept a nervous hand through my hair, rubbing the back of my skull with idle embarrassment. Fuck. I’d messed that one up.
“What was that? I thought you were the devil, not some damn, growly bear shifter.”
