Above me, chandeliers twisted mid-collapse. Red light caught on the fractured glass like dying stars. Portraits of saints and sinners were torn beyond recognition, but one cracked mural still clung to the ceiling like a memory trapped in time; Lucifer's fall.
My boots hit the marble with a rhythmic thud and echoed with every step, fishnet-clad legs pacing like I was stalking prey. My skirt was stained with my enemy’s blood. My crop top bore the shredded remains of a vintage Mötley Crüe tee and enough spite to earn me a lifetime ban from anywhere holy. Mascara bled down one cheek like war paint. My knuckles were bruised, and my soul…
Well, that was the whole fucking point, wasn’t it?
And he was going to see it. All of it.
His posture was all elegance. One leg crossed over the other, an elbow braced on the armrest. But I saw the tension in his grip. The sharpness in his gaze.
It was the stillness that gave him away. The kind that said a storm was coiled between his ribs and waiting for a reason to be unleashed.
I didn’t slow down.
I walked straight through the river of ash and across the veined black marble until I stood on the exact spot where the heaven above collapsed into this hell below.
Right where he’d fallen for me.
I thought about all those times I had wondered about his presence in my life. If he spent as much time with other demons as he did with me. If he teased them, made them crawl for him…
Now I know. He didn’t.
“Why me?” My voice rang through the silence, carried on a phantom wind toward the angel of hell. His answering silence made my throat tighten. “You could’ve had anything. Anyone. But when you jumped, it wasn’t for power. It was for pride; ambition.” I looked at him, really looked and, with as much confidence as I could muster, spoke the truth lingering between us. “It was for me.”
Still, he didn’t answer. Those mismatched eyes shone like beacons in the abyss. I wanted nothing more than to answer their call, but kept my feet planted instead.
“Nice place you got here,” I said, voice echoing up toward the cracked cathedral ceiling. “Little more murder-y than I remembered. Did you redecorate, or is this the mood lighting for doomed romances?”
No real reaction. He just watched me with those predator eyes, and I felt them like claws down my spine.
I huffed a breath that was more tired than pissed. “You got your payment,” I went on, chin lifting. “Callen’s screaming for you on repeat. Joe’s… handled. My end of the bargain is paid in full.” My throat tightened around the words, grief and justice tangled in one ugly knot. “We both know there’s no more blood left to spill that matters.”
His shoulders pulled a fraction tighter. That was all.
My lips pressed together as I swallowed the last bitter edge of rage. The fury I’d carried for thirty years had burned itself out on Callen’s dining room floor. What lingered now was something quieter. Rawer.
I turned to leave, beyond over whateverthiswas; leaving me in this state of limbo with the question of us always lingering on my tongue.
I hoped he would call after me; ask me to stop, make his big ‘Dany, wait!’ grand gesture, but…
Still… nothing.
And devil damn him if that didn’t piss me off even more.
“You know what pisses me off the most?” I murmured, pivoting back toward him with a humorless puff of sound slipping out. “You let me think that you owned me; that our stupid deal meant I was yours.”
The heat rose in waves, sweat sticking my shirt to my spine.
Lucifer’s only reaction was a blink.
I let the silence stretch until it became too much to bear. Then I laughed, the clipped sound short and brittle.
“You never took it,” I said with confidence. “My soul.”
The air around him rippled. Something in his jaw ticked and the throne creaked beneath his grip.
“Was it part of the game?” I asked. “Let the girl think she’s damned so she’ll keep fighting? Keep bleeding? Keep entertaining the lonely prince of Hell while he waits for a reason to give a shit again?”
Lucifer stood, his movements slow and deliberate as the world adjusted around him.
