He shook his head. "No, but I remember Raphael cursing me as plain as if it had happened yesterday."
"Did he use theLignumCrucis?" Gabriel asked. He leaned forward, eager to hear Lucifer's explanation.
"Yeah, I think so. I couldn't see anything, but I heard him. And you know everyone's magic tastes and feels different." I nodded my head. Lucifer, Gabriel, and Michael would be able to pick my magic out of a lineup, and I theirs.
"He had something that had the power of God. The True Cross would make sense." Lucifer stood. "We have to do something."
He strode to the sink and grabbed a knife. Pressing it to his skin, he sliced, but the knife fell out of his hand and clattered into the sink, leaving only a thin red line behind. Lucifer hissed in a breath. "Damn, that stings."
He slammed his hand down on the counter, then picked the knife up out of the sink. Turning the point toward him, he grunted then pulled it toward his neck in a fast, hard motion. I stood with my mouth open as the knife slid past his neck and flew across the kitchen. It landed in the opposite wall, the handle bobbing back and forth.
"Of all the bullshit," Lucifer said.
"Luc." I tried a gentle voice. "Honey, we need to talk. You'll get someone hurt trying to kill yourself. You can't just die."
"Why?" he roared, upset and frustrated.
I shrugged. "Curse."
He looked me over for the first time. "Lilith." His face fell, and he held open his arms. "The baby. Oh, no."
A sob bubbled up his throat and broke free as I wrapped my arms around him. "I know."
"Is she safe?" he asked into my hair. Michael and Gabriel came and stood close, providing comfort as Lucifer realized his daughter was lost to him.
"She is. And very well cared for."
"I always wanted a daughter." He growled and punched the nearest wall before grabbing me and pulling my body into his tight embrace... "I wanted your daughter."
My tears fell unchecked as my heart, barely holding together, cracked into pieces. "Me, too, Lucifer. Me, too."
28
Constance-Lilith
It took us several minutes to calm down. "Let's go sit down and see if we can piece things together." Gabriel put a little pressure on my back to get me to move in the direction of the living room. "We need to compare notes."
Relief at finally having everything out in the open washed over me. I hadn't realized how much guilt I'd been carrying that Lucifer didn't know that I had Michael and Gabriel back.
"I have no notes," I said as I sat up against Lucifer. He needed comfort right now. Hell, so did I. Jellybean settled at my feet. "For my part of it, Gabriel woke me up a few weeks ago. I was pregnant. I didn't want him to kill you until the baby was born. We managed to make it until Ariel was born, I found her a good family and..." I ran through the past few weeks to see if I was forgetting anything vital. "Then we tried to kill you, which didn't work."
Gabe nodded. "Brief, but that's about it. You two were here on Earth with Michael, and I was waiting for you guys to come back at some point, but then the years stretched and stretched. When you hit thirty-five, I started searching for you. Took me a while to find you, but once I did, I watched for a couple of days, then woke up Lilith's memories."
Lucifer looked at Michael. "And you?"
He shrugged. "I've had my memories since we were kids. I knew who Connie was, and you. I hoped that Connie would fall in love with me, not you, you big lug." He laughed and pushed at Lucifer, who grinned, but his heart wasn't in it.
"The baby?"
"Sandalphon," Michael said darkly. "He has been following Lilith's lack of children for eons, apparently." He rolled his eyes. "Thought he'd be helping by giving her a child."
Lucifer grinned. "I'm glad he did. I know it’s bad timing and coincides with the curse and what the fuck we're going to do to solve it, but hot damn. I'm a father!"
His words shot straight to my heart. I hadn't been looking at it that way.
"You know it was Raphael, but why?"
We stared at each other, all four of us at a loss. "Any ideas?"
