I arched into him, clinging to him. “Lucifer, please…”
For whatever reason, the plea on my lips had him prying me off of him. He backed away, his eyes frenzied and glazed with lust, his half bare chest heaving with his ragged pants. He scrambled away from me, the distance between us making me whimper.
“Lucifer. Fuck me. Please. I don’t care where we are. Just make this ache go away.Please.”
“I can’t,” he groaned. The celestial sagged against the stern of the skiff, holding his head in his hands, his dark tresses spilling over his splayed fingers. “You don’t understand, Lilith. I need to get back to Eve. If I don’t, I’ll never get my wings back. That was the deal. Make my fated one fall in love with me. Bring her back as proof. Get my wings back.”
Now I understood.
Even if he knew deep down that I was his true mate, his father was convinced that it was Eve, and from what I’d heard about Him, He was under the impression that He didn’t make mistakes. He would never believe a demon to be His son’s true partner.
Claiming me as his would mean Lucifer was choosing between me and his wings. Holding onto the hope that Eve was his meant he could have both.
My beast let out a pitiful cry in my ear, but I took a page from Lucifer’s own book and did my damnest to ignore her. Instead, I focused on a new sound. The ring from a bell announcing the approach of another’s boat.
The ferryman.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Jessica
Museum of Violence – Present
Like a broken flood gate, memories came rushing back to me.
My bitter life spent as Abaddon’s slave queen.
The moment I had met Lucifer, the unholy angel, cast off from God himself.
The memory of us trapped on the River Styx and the moment when I had gone into heat, and we’d resonated.
Maybe she had waited until that moment, knowing neither of us could run away from the inevitable. She was cunning like that. I almost missed my demon.
Ididmiss her.
I never really cared for her back then. I associated her with Abaddon. But what he had done to us wasn’t her fault. In fact, she had shielded me from the worst of his abuse. Guilt stabbed at my belly, and suddenly I was filled with a sense of emptiness. She was gone.
Forever.
Tears prickled in my eyes as we stepped out of the elevator onto the Seventh Circle. I couldn’t see any of it. My vision was blurred, and I realized I wasn’t ready to see more. I wasn’t ready to see the life that had been ripped away from me.
Lucifer’s strong arms wrapped around me and pulled me against the heat of his hard chest. I tucked my head into the juncture of his arm and shoulder and began to sob. I was so used to remaining strong. In my human life, I always had to. People depended on me. Weakness was not something I could ever afford.
But tucked safely in Lucifer’s arms, I felt at peace. For the first time in so, so long, I felt at peace, regardless of the dark memories that filled my mind. I welcomed them back. With them, I had the complete picture, no matter how bittersweet a picture it was.
“I remember my death… At least bits and pieces,” I murmured so softly that for a second, I thought he didn’t hear me. Then his body stiffened against me, and he exhaled on a sharp breath that feathered over my cold skin.
“Do you want to show me?”
I nodded, not having the strength to find the words. He placed a hand on my cheek, barely caressing it. Not that contact was needed for him to see into my mind, but I was happy for the comforting touch all the same.
I relieved that horrible moment in my mind when Lucifer had left me in Limbo to get the last box of my possessions.
Once construction was complete, we’d spent several human lifetimes in the Second Circle we’d built together. It had been paradise. But eventually, he’d grown restless. He wanted to leave. He wanted his wings. After much discussion on the subject, I had pointed out that his deal with his father had been for him to return with his fated mate. Which was not Eve.
Of course, God was under the impression that He did the choosing for all matters. I’d be floored if He was even aware of my nieces and their influence on the spirits that inhabited shifter kind. But a deal was a deal, and He’d said what He said.
Lucifer was to find his true mate and make her fall in love with him. And he had. Those wings were rightfully his. So we had pried ourselves away from our paradise to seek out the surface, and beyond that, The Silver City.
