Authors: Colleen Gleason
Lucifer leaned against the doorframe, folded his arms across his chest, and studied her, the world around them falling away as he sought answers to the questions that refused to leave his mind.
What had happened to her?
What was it about her that fascinated him?
He had never really taken the time to study mortal nuances, not in all the years he had walked among her kind. They had never interested him before, and they shouldn’t interest him now.
Yet she fascinated him.
She carefully brought her tea cup to her lips, took a sip, and then lowered it again as she walked around the room. A drop of liquid remained on her lower lip, trembling there, luring his gaze to her mouth. He stared at it for long seconds, losing track of time, before he noticed something else.
A tiny streak of a pale silvery scar on her chin, close to the left corner of her lower lip.
The longer he stared at that little mark, the stronger his hunger to kiss that spot grew inside him, obliterating his awareness of anything but that scar and her lips. Fuck, he wanted to press a lingering kiss to that scar and breathe her in. He wanted to feel her tremble beneath his lips and sense the anticipation in her, the stirrings of desire and need, a hunger that only he could satisfy.
He wanted to take the bold and dangerous leap to kissing her.
He wanted her taste on his tongue, craved the feel of her under his hands as he clutched her to him, and hungered for the exquisite feel of her hands on him. He ached with a fierce need to feel her gripping him, her fingertips pressing into his bare flesh as she moaned his name and begged for more.
The feel of her gaze landing directly on him shattered his fantasy, dragging him back to the room.
He stared across the narrow distance to her, his heart pounding against his chest, his blood thundering with a need to surrender to his desire and act out that fantasy with her right now.
Because there was desire blazing hot in those peridot eyes that held his.
Hunger that matched the one raging out of control inside him.
A need that had broken his focus and had caused his mask to slip, revealing him to her as he had watched her, lost in a vivid fantasy about kissing her.
Fuck, he wanted her.
She wanted him too.
A dangerous proposition.
As much as he wanted to satisfy the raging hard-on pressing against his tailored black suit trousers, he couldn’t allow it. He couldn’t let her sway him.
He had to remember that she had been brought to him by one of his enemies and she was only here until either that enemy returned or he discovered the reason Mihail had left her in his courtyard.
Lucifer shut down his emotions one by one, roughly shoving them back down deep inside of him and locking them away. Her expression altered with each one he crushed and brought back under control, the desire in her eyes fading in time with his.
He wouldn’t allow himself to feel anything around her.
He had to fight it, because for the first time in what felt like forever, he was feeling fear.
Fear that she would hurt him when he had vowed no one would ever hurt him again.
“What was that?” Nina’s soft voice broke through the hold his rising anger at himself had on him and he lifted his gaze back to meet hers.
“A quake. They happen sometimes.” They happened a lot, but she wouldn’t be around long enough to realise that.
“An earthquake in London?” Her auburn eyebrows rose and an incredulous look filled her soft yellow-green eyes.
Lucifer smiled grimly. He had forgotten that the part of the mortal world she was from rarely had such natural disasters.
“We are not in London, and it was only a quake of sorts. They mine near here.” It sounded like a reasonable explanation to him but Nina didn’t look convinced.
He searched for another way of covering what had really happened. It was imperative that he kept her true location from her, as he did with all his mortal guests. He had learned long ago that the human mind was fragile and often had difficulty comprehending that Hell existed. Even those who did believe it ended up in a bad way. It seemed mortals were all coded to panic and go insane when faced with the fact they were in Hell.
Lucifer looked towards the wall between him and the world beyond his fortress. His world.
Personally, he couldn’t see why mortals he brought here had minor coronaries on discovering they were in Hell. It wasn’t as if he placed his guests in the prison near the pit with the other souls awaiting justice.
“How far from London are we… and when can I go home?” Nina set her cup down on the saucer on the table and didn’t flinch away when he brought his gaze back to her.
She stood tall, her spine straight and chin tipped up. He was coming to admire that streak of courage in her, and that only made her more dangerous. The sooner he discovered what Mihail had done to her, the better. He needed her gone.
“A long way. Arranging for your return is proving difficult, but it is in progress. I am sure you can return home soon.” He stepped into the room and her eyes narrowed.
She folded her arms across her chest. “How soon? I’m sure the man who took me is gone now and I’ll be safe at home.”
She didn’t believe that. He could see it in her eyes and hear it in her heart as it picked up pace. The scent of her fear swirled around him and he was on the verge of asking who scared her when he caught himself and forced his mind to remain on his business instead.
Eliminating Mihail, and possibly her if she was indeed bait and in on the plan.
He focused on her, holding her gaze and using a sliver of his power to keep her under his spell. Her gaze softened, her peridot eyes turning glassy as she stared across the short distance to him. Her arms unfurled, falling to rest limp at her sides, and her lips parted.
Mihail’s power over her had faded completely.
Satisfied that he would be able to delve into her thoughts, Lucifer took another step into the room and closed the door behind him, careful to keep his eyes locked on hers the entire time, keeping her held in his thrall.
“Have you remembered anything about the man who abducted you?” He let the words slip slowly from his lips, infusing them with his power to turn mortals compliant and keep her calm.
A little frown flickered on her brow, briefly narrowing her eyes. Pain danced in them but he held it at a distance for her, keeping it at bay so she would only feel a mild discomfort as she fought to remember.
A shadow formed in her mind, gradually taking shape. One that he recognised. Mihail. Lucifer exerted a little more of his power, controlling her to a degree and making her latch onto that memory even though it hurt her. The shadow of Mihail grew clearer, but not enough to reveal his appearance to Nina. The angel had masked himself well. Never mind. Whether or not Nina could remember Mihail was unimportant. All that mattered was whether she could remember being given orders.
“Can you remember for me, Nina?” he whispered and her eyes widened, her body beginning to sway as she stared straight through him as if he wasn’t there, caught in her memories.
She nodded.
Lucifer saw it unfurl in her mind, a thousand fragmented memories that streamed past him like ribbons on a breeze. He took in all that he could, seeing her leaving her place of work in the centre of London, her reach the Underground station, and then her bumping into the shadow Mihail. She stiffened as he captured that memory, a stifled cry leaving her lips.
“Shh,” Lucifer murmured to her, easing her fear as her heart rate doubled.
When it had settled back to a regular rhythm and she was breathing easier, he pushed a little, forcing her to focus on Mihail in that moment.
The angel pressed his palm to her forehead and the memory cut out. The next one was of himself in the room where he had taken her after his men had brought her in from the courtyard.
Lucifer frowned.
Mihail hadn’t implanted any order in her.
Lucifer had placed orders into enough mortal minds to know that it had to be done before manipulating their mind to render them unconscious and scrub the memory of him from them. It didn’t work any other way.
So if she hadn’t been sent to him with orders unknown to her, why was she here?
He carefully released his hold on her as he pondered that.
Nina began trembling, running her hands up and down her arms as if she was freezing, her teeth chattering as her eyes darted around her.
“I hate this place,” she muttered and shook her head, causing the tangled strands of her fiery hair to sweep across her slender shoulders. “It’s like a prison cell. No light. No windows. It’s horrible.”
She ran both hands up her arms and clutched her temples, clawing her hair back from her face as she stared at the floor by his feet, still shaking her head.
Perhaps he had been a little hard on her, pushing her too much in order to sift through her memories.
“I need to get out. I need air. I need to breathe.” Her gaze leaped up to his face. “I have to get away from him.”
Him
.
Lucifer canted his head and studied her. The same him that he had detected in her memories before when she had lied to him? A male who wanted to harm her and who she believed was behind her abduction?
He needed to know.
He couldn’t deny that need any longer.
“Does someone want to hurt you?” He practically growled the words and she froze, her skin paling and her eyes growing enormous.
Her reaction gave him the answer he desired, but it didn’t prepare him for the wave of emotions that hit him when she spoke.
“He’ll stop at nothing… I said no… but it won’t stop him. He sent that man… I know it. He sent that man to take me back… but I won’t go back. I won’t go through that hell again.” She narrowed her eyes on him and bared her teeth as she almost snarled. “He won’t hurt me again.”
Lucifer stared at her, empathy rocking him back on his heels as the strength of her words struck him, her obvious desire to protect herself from suffering at the hands of this male again striking a chord in him.
Deep in his heart.
“I need air,” she whispered and clawed at her hair. “God, I need air.”
Lucifer growled at her, his fangs flashing as he bared them and his eyes burned red briefly before he regained command of himself. She didn’t seem to notice his reaction to the word she had so callously used in his presence and for the first time in a very long time he was thankful for something.
The last thing he needed was her seeing him as he truly was.
A monster in the guise of a man.
She would never understand.
No one did.
“Please… I need air… I can’t stay in here. It’s too confined… too dark…” Her eyes unfocused and he was by her side in an instant, catching her arm to keep her upright and steadying her as she wobbled on her feet.
He had been wrong. He hadn’t pushed too hard. He had come close to breaking her. If he had realised the pain she held in her memories, the fear she had locked in her heart, the darkness that now consumed and terrified her, he would never have forced her to recall Mihail.
Lucifer paused and stared down at the delicate female he held by the arm.
What the fuck was she doing to him?
He wanted to cast her away, to let her fall in a heap on the floor and suffer, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it, not when every fibre of his being said he had the power to end her pain.
He had the power to give her the air she needed, the light she craved, and the freedom she desired.
But it meant taking her to a place he hadn’t ventured in a long time.
A place that only brought him pain.
Nina gradually became aware of Lucifer where he stood right in front of her, so close that she could feel his breath on her face as she stared up at him, her hands still clutching the sides of her head. A head that felt foggy again and ached so fiercely that she was on the verge of asking him for some painkillers when he silenced her by slowly raising his hands towards hers.
He didn’t hesitate or show any sign of emotion as he placed his hands over hers and carefully brought them away from her temples. His golden eyes remained impassive, unreadable even when she longed to decipher the feelings they were hiding from her, feelings she felt sure were there, locked deep inside him.
Her pain faded as she lost herself in those beautiful and striking eyes, her fear and her thoughts flittering away as she recalled how they had looked when she had caught him staring at her.
How fiercely they had burned with passion and need.
Desire that had filled her with an ache to feel his lips capturing hers and the firm press of his hands against her overheating flesh.
His pupils expanded a touch, a brief flash of hunger surfacing in his eyes before it disappeared again and he cast his gaze away from her. He released one of her hands but kept hold of the other as he stepped past her.
Nina frowned and turned with him, following him across the room. He paused in front of the massive worn tapestry that covered a large section of the wall opposite the one with the door and held his free hand out as if to touch the cloth and the dark threads that had been woven beautifully to depict a scene of war that included dragons and creatures straight out of a fantasy novel.
His hand hovered above the tapestry though, a bare inch from touching it.
What was he doing?
His eyes closed, his long black lashes coming to rest on his cheeks as he dipped his head and frowned. His mouth tightened.
Just as she was about to ask whether something was wrong, his eyes flicked open and he casually shifted the tall sash of material aside, revealing the black wall beneath.
And an arched door.
Nina raised an eyebrow at it and stepped forwards. Lucifer held his free arm out, blocking her path to the heavy-looking dark metal door. Several thick padlocks each larger than her fist secured the side of it closest to him. What was through the door?
The sensible part of her brain supplied that it was probably the route to a torture chamber or something infinitely worse than the room behind her that felt too much like a cell.