“What do you see when you look at me?”
Later I would wonder if I imagined the small huff of laughter and the gruff answer that followed.
“Possibility.”
Warmth enveloped my body, and I nuzzled into the softness against my cheek.
“Sleep now, Dany.”
I was suffocating.
My face was covered and a crushing weight sat on my throat; not like the grip of a vice that squeezed until oxygen deprivation could drag me down. No, it was more of an unimaginable, immovable object that wanted to slowly watch my windpipe collapse on itself.
“What the– Oh Judas save me!” I gagged as the hot smell of sewage came rushing back in full force along with the cotton coating the entirety of my mouth.
No. Not cotton. My fingers swiped the inside of my cheeks and came out with…
Fur.
Black and white fur.
That. Little. Fucker.
“Jesus!” I didn’t have to look hard. Staring from the other side of the bed was the demon spawn himself. “You are such a, a– urgh! There are no words to describe how much I love-hate you sometimes! Was your asshole on my face?”
His level eyes were neutral. It was the twitch of his whiskers that gave him away.
“Jesus? Was it your asshole on my face?” I asked, voice half question and half pleading.
His deafening purr told me everything I needed to know.
“Don’t cry,” I sniffled to myself. “This is fine. I was forced to eat ass thismorning, but it’s fine. Everything is going to be okay.”
Did I believe it? No. But the Christians say manifesting is healthy for the soul.
My very, very dead soul.
As the world settled back onto its axis, the last fourty-eight hours fell back into place.
Joe; my overreaction, the hurt in his voice, and the confusion I felt when he inevitably walked away.
Decorating for Christmas with—
I inhaled sharply, shivering when the ghost ofhiswood fire scent tickled my memories.
Lucifer.
His name alone pulled the world back into focus. For a second it had felt like any human night in any human living room as we’d strung lights and decorations for Christmas.
What came after burned the wordnormalout of me.
He asked and waited, and even when it sounded like a command, I knew it for what it was: a plea.Then he took me apart like he planned to live with where each piece landed. The way he steadied my hips, the careful drag of his teeth…
I could feel him in the ache low in my belly and, worse, the absence of him sat heavily in the empty space beside me. The feeling hit me with the same clean terror as the first drop on a roller coaster: if he walked away now, he’d take something essential with him. I had spent thirty years pretending I didn’t need anything I couldn’t kill or cash in. One night with Lucifer and I knew better. I laid there afraid, not of him, but of the devastation he’d leave behind if I ever had to go on without that patient, ruinous worship.
I sat up and a splash of pink on my pillow caught my attention. It was folded once, the crease pressed to perfection with elegant cursive visible through the back. I scrambled to grab it and my heart rate doubled as I read:
Dearest Dany,
