“Should I have killed him when I took his crown? When you’re kind is killed, they don’t come back here, yes?” he asked in a silken whisper.
I blinked at him, surprised by the tenderness of his tone. He was the ever avenging celestial. I knew that much because his primary mission was to get out of here and get his wings back from his father. Cleaning up the Underworld was just something to do on the way up. Not once had I seen his gaze burn with vengeance onmybehalf.
My parched lips curved with the ghost of a smile. “No. Only the souls of the mortal kind are brought here. And thanks for the offer, but death’s too good for him. I’d rather Abaddon stick around and watch you be the king he could never be.”
The celestial’s eyes glittered with mirth, and for a second, the dark bags under them seemed to disappear with his smirk.
“You’re not like any female I’ve ever met before.”
My heart beat like a drum in my chest. Oh, The Fates, he was gorgeous, even with his greasy hair that hung in strings, even with his dry and flaking lips, and gaunt cheeks beneath the thick scruff of his beard. He was beautiful, and no amount of filth could desecrate his God-given charisma.
“Well, if the celestial women are anything like you, I don’t believe that,” I grinned back at him.
His chest, half exposed with the ties of his shirt undone, shook with a grim chuckle. “Believe me, no one in Paradise is like me. Especially not the females. They are delicate and chaste. Not exactly my type. Except for the Valkyries. But no one dares touch them less they come equipped with cocks forged from the same stuff of Thor’s hammer.”
I gave a nervous laugh as I felt a tug in my lower belly. For some reason, his words sent a flame of heat through me. “So…maybe it was The Fates’s plan all along for you to end up here if there is no hope of finding a mate for you in Paradise.”
His smile slipped from his face in a blink, and immediately the scathing scowl resumed its post on his chiseled features. “It’s nothing but the cruelty of my father that landed me here. I have a mate. A human, my ward.”
I didn’t expect his words of how he’d been the first guardian tasked to guard a human and that he had bedded her and, in doing so, been made into an example as what would happen to all other celestials who broke the rules. But he’d never mentioned the fact that she was his mate. Certainly not his true mate. All shifters bound to another carried a scent upon them, and Lucifer had no such mark on his flesh.
“And you love her, this Eve?”
His brows pulled together in a troubled frown, and suddenly, he looked incredibly exhausted. “Yes,” he murmured after what felt like another eternity had come and gone on the River Styx.
He’s lying,my beast growled with that same accusation.
Shut up. It’s none of our business, I admonished my true nature, hating her for her perception. But I couldn’t deny the little hints my instincts were picking up. He was lying, the poor bastard. Because part of him seemed pretty damn intent on believing the lie he was telling both of us.
And like the nosey bitch she was, my beast decided that it was her duty to help pull him from his lie. Because at that moment, my body did something it never had before. Something that only happened to females when their true mate was near.
There in that little skiff with no more than a few feet of room between us, marooned out in the Styx’s open waters, I went into heat.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Jessica
The River Styx – Past
The atmosphere that hung over our skiff grew thick and heavy with a blistering tension that had both of us sweating.
Lucifer’s nostrils flared, scenting my need, and his pupils dilated, leaving only a thin ring of gold around their perimeter.
“What are you doing?” he seethed between clenched teeth.
My cheeks flushed with horror. “I’m not doing anything…”
“The fuck, you aren’t doing anything. You’re putting off some kind of pheromone.”
His jaw flexed, and every muscle in his body clenched tight. The cords in his neck tightened against the collar of his shirt, and oh, how I wanted to run my tongue over their taut ridges.
My gaze roamed, starting from the wayward pieces of his ink-black hair that fell against his moon-pale skin taking in every detail. His thick lashes and how they framed the molten gold of his eyes. His lush lips and how they seemed to soften whenever he caught me looking at them. And his nose with the arched bridge, slightly askew, probably from healing wrong in the wake of his fight with Abaddon. Somehow the imperfection made him even more handsome.
The celestial was masculine perfection. My mouth went bone dry, drinking up his heart-breaking beauty, and my pussy was suddenly a damn geyser as I started recognizing all these little details I hadn’t before. Which seemed impossible because he was all I’d had to look at in this damn tiny boat forages.
Of all the things to happen, why was this happening to menow?Whyhim?
“This has never happened before.” I winced, clamping my thighs together in hopes of smothering the scent. But it was all in vain. Every male in this layer would be able to scent it. But it would only resonate with my true mate.
