Authors: Colleen Gleason
He couldn’t fail.
If he did, Nina could be injured.
Or worse.
He threw his head back and roared as he flew harder, each desperate beat of his wings draining his strength, making him shake from weakness, until he was struggling to breathe. Fear closed his throat. Despair and doubt filled his heart, mocking him. He was going to fail again.
He was going to fail her.
He was going to kill her.
He would protect Nina with his life if it came to it.
His hands began to melt into the black ball of energy and he cried out as it burned him again, destroying his fingers first before it ate away at his palms, gnawing up to his wrists. He shoved more desperately, his teeth gritted against the pain and his fangs cutting into his lower lip. It was no use. He couldn’t slow the blast enough, not even with his shadows countering it, attempting to consume the energy back into him.
He looked back at the castle.
There was only one thing he could do, but it would leave him vulnerable to Mihail. The angel would easily be able to kill him, and then he would take Nina.
Lucifer realised he was going to lose no matter what he did.
And he didn’t like it.
It brought memories back to the surface, pain that refused to die and haunted him every day of his life.
He had been filled with such cold certainty before in his long existence.
Back when he had realised that no matter what he did, he would not escape the pit and he would not be allowed to return to his beloved home in Heaven.
But this time he had a choice.
He could choose to save Nina.
He could sacrifice himself for her sake.
She was worthy of such an act.
He focused all of his power, digging his shadows into the orb to anchor it to him, and teleported.
He reappeared close the plateau, with his back to the wall of rock that supported it, facing the castle. It shimmered through the black orb, just visible to him. The last of his strength left him and his shadows faded, but he kept his eyes on the fortress and his thoughts with Nina as his grip on the orb disappeared.
The energy pulsed over him and he tossed his head back, arching violently forwards as he bellowed in agony, so loud the ground trembled and the air vibrated with his roar.
Pain devoured him.
It ate his awareness of anything but it, blazed so deep in his bones that he was sure they were burning to ashes just as his hands had, that he was going to be consumed by his own power and this was the end for him.
Numbness followed it.
And then voices.
He cracked his sore eyes open, trying to seek the source of those voices, sure that it was Mihail and his men come to kill him.
A broadly-built male with familiar black hair and golden eyes towered over him, his obsidian armour as glossy as the raven wings furled against his back. Beside him, a petite hazel-eyed female lingered, her hand clasping his and the softness in her gaze making Lucifer want to end his own life.
The male nudged him with the toe of his black leather boot.
Lucifer bared his fangs at the angel of his own creation and shoved onto his knees, and paused when he saw he had hands again. He stared at them, and then slowly shifted his focus to the woman. Liora. A powerful witch.
She tucked her long chestnut hair behind her ear and smiled, and it was enough to make Lucifer want to vomit.
The witch had restored his hands for him.
The perfect end to a shitty fucking day.
He owed her and she knew it.
It was bad enough that Asmodeus had witnessed everything, and Lucifer knew from the smug look on the maggot’s face that he had witnessed
everything
. The fight against Mihail and what had followed as he had attempted to protect his castle from his own energy blast. Not only that, but Mihail was gone.
Meaning Asmodeus had fought him and driven him away.
And now Lucifer owed Asmodeus too.
The black-haired male held his hand out to him and Lucifer growled at it. He had already humiliated himself enough. He wasn’t going to add to it.
He carefully rose onto his feet and locked his knees when they tried to betray him and buckle beneath his weight. His shadow wings streamed from his bare back, shifting to counter each sway of his body and keep him steady as his strength slowly returned.
Lucifer flexed his fingers. They were pale and perfect, tipped with short black nails. His bare arms and chest were covered in scratches and lacerations, smeared with black dust and rivulets of red. A snarl tore from his lips.
Mihail would pay.
His snarl died and his head snapped up, his eyes fixing on his fortress.
What if Asmodeus hadn’t driven Mihail away?
What if Mihail had left, after taking Nina?
Lucifer stumbled forwards, managing a few steps before his right knee collapsed, sending him back down onto the black ground. He struck it hard and grimaced as pain shot up his knee and zinged through his bones. He couldn’t wait for his strength to return. He had to reach Nina.
He had to see that she was still there.
Waiting for him.
He shoved back onto his feet and fixed his eyes on the fortress, determined to reach it. The distance seemed enormous, an insurmountable obstacle between him and his little mortal when he was weak. He wanted to teleport there, straight into the room she had made her own, but no matter how hard he tried to muster it, he didn’t have the power to use that ability. His knee went to give out on him again but he managed to remain upright this time, merely staggering a few steps to the right instead.
“You are in no fit condition to walk.”
He ignored Asmodeus’s observation and kept trudging forwards, unable to deny the fierce need to see that Nina was safe and Mihail hadn’t stolen her from him.
When Asmodeus placed his hand on Lucifer’s shoulder, Lucifer turned on him with a growl and lashed out at him, backhanding him hard across the face and knocking him away.
Asmodeus snarled right back at him, his golden eyes flashing red and his fangs on show.
There had been a time when Asmodeus had known his place and wouldn’t have dared to touch him.
Lucifer huffed.
There had also been a time when Asmodeus had been more like a servant to him, a slave who did his bidding without questioning his orders. He slid his gaze to his right, towards the male, and hated the voice that mocked him by mentioning that he had attempted to do with Asmodeus what his master had done with him. He had made the male carry out atrocities without a thought to how it made him feel and had expected him to obey his every command.
He spat a curse at Asmodeus, one so dark that the ground shook beneath his feet, and instantly regretted it when the trembling caused him to lose his balance and he hit the basalt knees-first again. The small pebbles cut through the remains of his trousers, biting into his knees.
He should have paved every fucking path in his kingdom.
He slammed his fist into the ground, so hard that fault lines forked out from where he had struck and pain danced up his arm, a fiery heat that stole feeling from him for a brief second before he burned in agony all over again.
“Do you mind? Do you know how much of my power it took to remake those?” Liora’s light voice was laced with a sharp edge, and as much as Lucifer wanted to lash out at her too, he found he couldn’t.
He looked down at the hands she had repaired and realised that it must have taken most of her power to use such a spell. Suddenly, he didn’t have the heart to hit anything for a while.
What the fuck was happening to him?
He wanted to blame Erin, but he had the terrible feeling that this time the blame rested on someone else’s shoulders.
Someone’s beautiful, slender shoulders.
Shoulders that were part of a curvy body hidden beneath prim and proper clothing, and supported a head full of wavy red hair, a face made up of clear skin with rosy cheeks, soft shell-pink lips that he couldn’t stop fucking thinking about kissing, and the most stunning peridot eyes that entranced him.
Hell, he needed to see her.
He needed it so badly that he took the hand Asmodeus offered, hauling himself back onto his feet, and didn’t even grumble when the dark angel cast his other hand out, creating a swirling black maelstrom slightly taller than he was and broader.
Lucifer trudged into the portal, not quite able to believe he was relying on Asmodeus and allowing someone to help him.
That hadn’t happened in millennia.
Since long before he had fallen.
No one had ever tried to help him.
He stepped out of the portal in front of his fortress and looked back at Asmodeus and the little witch. She wisely busied herself with the hem of her black dress, fraying it with trembling fingers. The dark angel didn’t avoid his gaze. He held it instead, his golden eyes intense and focused.
“Mihail left when we arrived,” Asmodeus said, his deep voice suiting his appearance, and grimaced as his eyes darkened to red again. “I wanted to kill the bastard for what he did to Nevar and Lysia, but he fled the moment he saw us approaching.”
Lucifer had to bite his tongue to stop himself from asking whether the angel had been alone.
“You have…” He sucked down a deep breath and somehow managed to force the words out. “My gratitude.”
Asmodeus looked as if he had just sucker-punched him.
Liora’s eyes widened but she kept them locked on her dress. A dress that stretched tight over the swell of her stomach. Lucifer looked at the bump. It seemed his grandson would have a playmate soon.
Everything was going to Hell and he had the awful feeling he was going there with it.
Was nothing sacred?
For thousands of years he had lived for one purpose, to rule his realm and one day have his revenge.
Now he found himself living for visits with his grandson, seeing his daughter, and even the rare visits that Asmodeus made that he knew weren’t habit or about the business of tracking the princes of Hell. Asmodeus was losing his fear of him, just as the others were. They were coming to view him as an ally.
A friend.
Hell help him, but he was beginning to view them as something other than enemies too.
Something other than lowly beings put on this planet to amuse him, and sometimes infuriate him.
He waved Asmodeus away and turned towards his fortress. He had made it up the first of the curved polished black stone steps when Asmodeus spoke.
“So who is Nina?”
Lucifer froze.
He could feel the amusement running through his creation’s blood, knew the bastard had been ready to gauge his reaction and he had given himself away by stopping dead and tensing on hearing her name.
“A female Mihail brought to me. I am using her as bait for the angel.” He schooled his features and looked back at Asmodeus.
The amusement he could sense in him shone in his golden eyes. “Right. She is nothing more than bait. Understood.”
Asmodeus turned away, casting another portal at the same time. He ushered Liora towards it and through it, and paused at the threshold.
The black-haired male looked back at him. “You sounded a little concerned about your bait being taken from you when Liora was patching you up… in fact… you seemed a little like you were worried she would be gone… and you look worried that she might be.”
Lucifer scowled at the insubordinate bastard. If he’d had a fragment of his power left, he would have had the angel on his knees and pleading him for mercy. As it was, he could barely knock him on his backside and Asmodeus knew it. He was pressing his advantage.
Just as Lucifer had taught him.
Asmodeus waved him away and backed towards the portal, a smile curving his lips. “She is safe. I had Liora check with a spell.”
He tried to hide his relief but the chuckle that left Asmodeus’s lips said he failed. Lucifer raised his hand, willing to weaken himself a little to knock the angel on his backside after all, but the portal swallowed Asmodeus and disappeared.
“Maggot,” Lucifer grumbled and steadily climbed the steps to his home, trying to ignore the fact that the weight on his chest seemed a little less now that he knew Nina was safe.
A diagonal slash above his hip split open as he lifted his left leg to climb the next step and he grunted and covered it with his hand. Warm wetness coated his palm and he pressed harder, stemming the flow of blood. The toe of his left shoe caught on the top of the step and he almost fell, his wings shifting and fluttering to restore his balance.
Lucifer grunted and managed to make it up the remaining steps without falling or reopening any more wounds.
He slowly walked towards the imposing tall twin doors of the fortress and they opened for him, parting to reveal the vestibule and the floating staircases that criss-crossed the vast room.
The candles in the gilded-bone chandeliers flickered as he entered and he walked a little taller as one of his men came out of the corridor across the room from him. The young Hell’s angel studied him warily, his crimson eyes darting over his wounds before shooting off to the wall behind him. The male wisely chose to head back into the room he had exited, leaving Lucifer alone in the great hall.
Had the male attempted to help him, Lucifer might have been tempted to send him back to Heaven for his insolence. He wasn’t in the mood for company and coddling.
He managed to make it to the first floor of the castle, carefully ascending the steps so he didn’t fall off the open sides. In his current condition, he wasn’t sure his wings would hold his weight. The last thing he needed was to fall flat on his face and have one of his men witness it. It was rare enough that he came back from a fight with injuries.
Normally, he could heal any injury instantly.
Because normally, he hadn’t been expending a vast amount of his power to make day into night in order to impress a human female.
Tonight, he would have to patch them up and allow them to heal at their natural pace.
He couldn’t remember the last time he had been forced to do such a thing but he definitely remembered how uncomfortable it had been in the times he’d had to wait for his heightened healing abilities to repair his body.