“What is this, Luci?” I said a touch more breathless than I would have liked. I looked around, but the devil was nowhere to be found.
“You tell me.” His voice wasn’t angry. More like… curious? If curiosity could be expressed in monotone.
I leaned on the banister, looking out over the yard as I waited for the devil to appear. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you found yourself a quiet house in suburbia. Do the Jones’ know you’re trying to keep up?”
“I have the same curiosity, Dany.”
“About?”
“Whether or not the mice know they’ve got a cat amongst them.”
The air shifting was my only warning before Lucifer was standing beside me.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Do you not recognize where you are?” My brows knit with the effort it took to keep staring forward rather than glance at his sinful beauty. Secretly, I tried and failed to recognize the landscape in front of me. I’d never admit it out loud to him, though. “I suppose I shouldn’t have expected you to,” he mused. “‘After all, you never made it past the bedroom.”
My head whirled to face him in break neck speed from the goddamn audacity. “Excuse me?” I spat. “I wasn’t aware I needed a full tour of the crash pad before getting railed against a dresser. Especially when I don’t intend to be there when he wakes up. And, your majesty, since when is it any of your goddamn business who I fuck? If I didn’t know any better,Luci,” I sneered his name, “I would say you were jealous it wasn’t your cock I sucked all night long.”
The words felt dirty as they passed my lips, an instant whirl of self-doubt and longing turning the acid in my stomach. If my words affected him, he didn’t show it. Lucifer, of course, missed nothing.
“Come now, Dany. You cannot lie to the devil. I am nothing if not the manifestation of your sins. I know them all.”
“Sex is a sin now?”
“Of course not. However,” his voice dropped low, an edge of something rare and dangerous lacing the edges. “I believe we both know that sex is not your transgression.” The very marrow in my bones froze as he reached toward the necklace hanging hidden around my neck. Lucifer pulled it free from my shirt, rubbing the bat symbol between his fingers before he said, “Greed for a coveted life lost. Lust for mediocrity when you’re anything but.” He dropped the pendent and grazed his fingers down my neck. “Envious of those living heaven’s fairytale.” The soft pad of his thumb circled the bruising on my jawline, and I couldn’t hold back my whimpering sigh as he erased the ache. “Those are not just sins, dearest Dany.” My breath caught when he took my chin between his fingers, inviting me to get lost in those mismatched eyes. “They’re tragedies.”
Lucifer left me speechless.
Maybe I did covet the life I lost. In the privacy of my own misery, perhaps I longed to close my eyes and pretend that I could have it back.
Joe made me feel like it was possible. In his presence, the raging tempest inside of me calmed to a soft summer rain. He took away the hurt and replaced it with something so foreign it was hard to trust.
Hope.
And that feeling of hope led to the rising anger for the fallen angel’s constant reminders that I was destined for damnation.
“Let me make one thing clear,Lucifer Morningstar,” I sneered, my tone mocking the name history slandered as God’s favorite son. “When we made the deal, the offer was my life.Mylife. Nowhere in the contract did it state that I had to live wallowing in self pity the way you do. I owe you four souls and nothing more. You do not own me, Luci.”
All traces of humanity flaked away from his face like ash crumbling in the wind. The dreamscape became a distant memory as the depth of his serpentine pupils swallowed me whole. My body shrunk backward of its own accord, becoming as small and insignificant as it could so as not to receive the full brunt of his wrath. Wrath that, no matter how much venom I spat, I didn’t have the belly to withstand and it made me shy away even further.
“It disappoints me,Niepozadany, that you would willingly exchange the immortality I tore from myself for a collar given to you by a mutt.” He ripped the chain from my neck and discarded it like it was nothing at our feet. “Do you feel so lost and powerless that you have to dampen your potential for the illusion of security?” Lucifer’s voice became more domineering with every question. He invaded my space, putting us nose to nose as his assault continued. “He patches your wounds with cotton and kisses your hurt away,” he mocked. “And you’re content to hide behind it. Does it make you feel human, Dany?”
Hurt rose like a tide inside of me, tears stinging my eyes as his insults struck their target. That the idea of me living a normal, happy life was so absurd that it called for his biting accusations.
“What do you want from me?” I screamed.
The Earth shook below my feet as Lucifer towered over me. Our harshbreaths mingled in the morning mist as we fought a silent, raging battle with nothing but our eyes and words. I braced for his wrath, refusing to back down from his onslaught.
An onslaught that never came.
Lucifer exhaled long and slow through his nose. Composure softened his shoulders, his tightened expression morphing back into that ever-present unreadable mask. “I will not coddle you because it is an insult to your strength. I am the god of the fallen, a creator of my own right, andIchose to bring you back.”
I flinched when he leaned forward, but melted into his palm like a faithful servant when it caressed my cheek. The heat of his breath coated my cheek and tickled my lashes as I closed my eyes. Luci pressed a gentle kiss on each lid before resting his lips on my forehead, lingering just long enough to steal the breath from my lungs. When he finished there, he lifted my wrists, gaze lingering on mine with intention as he kissed the bruises on each wrist. Under his touch, the color faded away like that belt had never held me prisoner.
Lucifer had healed my wounds. Tears rolled down my cheeks, betraying the strong exterior I worked so hard to keep in place.
The barest hint of intensity still lingered in his pointed gaze and sent a wave of shivers tingling across my skin. “I’m beginning to wonder, however, if I chose wrong.”
