Fashionably Fooled

by peterman, robyn

  “Prada?” Astrid asked as her ears perked up.

  Vamps were clothes whores. Well, Demons were too.

  “Some Prada, Channel and a few Stella McCartney’s. You interested?” Elle asked.

  “You had me at Prada,” Astrid said with a laugh as she sat back down and wiggled with excitement.

  Elle entered the office with a pile of designer wear and plopped it at Astrid’s feet. I expected Astrid to scream with joy. She was such a materialistic Vampyre—it was one of her qualities I adored.

  But no. She simply stared at Elle with her mouth wide open.

  “Are you okay?” Elle asked with concern as Astrid continued to gape at her.

  “Are you?” Astrid whispered, staring straight at Elle’s stomach.

  While I had to admit Elle’s stomach had grown larger since her obscenely enormous breakfast of beans-n-franks, I found my niece’s behavior appalling in a way that wasn’t amusing in the least. Elle was still gorgeous even though she clearly had an eating problem. On April 1st the hangry issue would be moot. Astrid did not need to draw attention to the fact that Elle’s lady time had extended her belly.

  “I’m fine,” Elle said.

  “Are you sure?” Astrid pressed.

  “Why wouldn’t I be?” Elle inquired as her lavender eyes began to flash.

  Shit. Heads were about to fly. Literally.

  “Umm… well…” Astrid stuttered, looking to me for help.

  I wasn’t about to help her. I was casing the office for somewhere to hide. My niece was about to lose body parts.

  “Spit it out,” Elle snapped, beginning to cry. “I know I’m fat.”

  Astrid smiled at Elle then stood to wipe the tears rolling down her cheeks. “And you don’t know why?”

  “For the love of everything that doesn’t need to be discussed,” I shouted, having enough of my lover being upset. “Elle is having her lady time. You already know this, Astrid. There is no reason to point it out. It will be over on my womb eviction day. Her mother told my mother that her time shall only last a week and will be over early in the morning of April 1st. If you insist on making my lover cry, I’ll give you something to cry about for the rest of eternity. Am I clear?”

  “Wait. What?” Elle asked, glancing over at me in confusion.

  “Darling,” I said, warily approaching her. “I’m fully aware that you’re having your monthly lady time. Your homicidal tendencies and manly appetite are quite normal according to my mother. As is the weight gain—which I find insanely sexy, by the way,” I finished, giving Astrid a look to kill.

  “I’m not having my period,” Elle said.

  I paled considerably and grabbed the edge of my desk for purchase. It was the absolute truth that I found her rounder body ridiculously desirable, but the need for stabbing? No. That was horrifying. If this was to become our normal, I would need to remove all sharp objects from the palace.

  “You’re not?” I whispered.

  “No,” Elle said as her eyes narrowed dangerously, and purple sparks popped and crackled around her body. “Why would you think that?”

  It was my turn to look to Astrid for help. “Umm…”

  “Both of you idiots need to sit down,” Astrid said with a sigh as she gently seated Elle on the couch and shoved me down next to her.

  I really hoped Elle wasn’t armed.

  “You’re pregnant,” Astrid announced.

  “I am?” Elle asked, shocked.

  “We are?” I echoed her.

  Elle jumped to her feet and began to pace the office in a panic. I joined her.

  “How did you not know?” Astrid asked as she made herself comfortable on the couch we’d just abandoned and watched us with what I could only call amusement.

  “How would I know?” Elle shrieked, pulling a cookie from her pocket and shoving it in her mouth. “Until I banged Lucifer, I accidentally killed all the men I had sex with. I’m a Siren. I hadn’t had sex in thousands of years. I’ve never had a baby before.”

  “Didn’t you feel anything moving in your stomach?” Astrid inquired carefully.

  “I thought it was gas,” Elle yelled. “I’ve eaten a lot of beans-n-franks.”

  “Okay,” Astrid said, biting back her grin. “Makes sense. Let’s talk through this. Cool?”

  “Cool,” Elle gasped out, scanning the office in alarm. “Where did the rest of the cookies go?”

  “I ate them,” I choked out, ready to dive for cover. I was still trying to absorb what Astrid had said. I needed my head on my shoulders to be able to think. Decapitation would be counterproductive.

  “Please stab yourself, Lucifer,” Elle requested.

  “My pleasure,” I replied, complying quickly. Grabbing a letter opener, I plunged it into my stomach. It was far less painful than a sword. Win-win.

  “Astrid,” I said, grabbing a pair of scissors to be ahead of the game in case the letter opener wasn’t sufficient. “Are you sure about this?”

  Astrid was enjoying herself far too much for my sanity. “Positive. Elle,” she said, intercepting my lover and pulling her back down onto the couch. “You’re Fate. You see the future. How did you not see this?”

  “I can’t see my future—only the fate of others,” she shouted then started to cry again. “Oh my Hell, I’ve harmed our baby! I’ve eaten sugar and beans for a week straight. This child will have rotten teeth, gas, and brain damage.”

  “Slow down,” Astrid said with a laugh. “First of all, babies are born without teeth.”

  “They are?” Elle asked with relief. “I’ve never actually been around a real baby.”

  “Umm… yes,” Astrid assured her. “And the baby will be fine.”

  “For the love of everything illegal,” I roared as the reality of the miracle hit me. “I have to steal baby items immediately. Our toothless child shall be born on my womb eviction day. We have nothing ready. Astrid, cancel the party. According to Elle’s mother, her time—which I incorrectly thought meant a visit from Aunt Fucking Flow—is only a week. Elle will be busy evicting our child from her uterus on the morning of my special day. There is no way I’ll have the time to blackmail Steve Perry into being my best friend. I do know it’s shocking to admit… but my child is more important than Steve Perry.”

  “Thank God for that,” Astrid muttered with an eye roll.

  “My brother had absolutely nothing to do with this,” I snapped, texting Lizard and letting him know to send out the Demon Army to ransack all the baby supply stores on Earth. “I’m the one who knocked up my lover. God would never get that lucky.”

  “Mmmkay,” Astrid said with a laugh. “I’ll cancel the party.”

  “No. Wait,” Elle said as she hopped back up, ran to the office supply closet and pulled out a hidden stash of cookies. “Let me get this straight. A Siren is only pregnant for a week, and I’ll have our baby in the morning?”

  “According to your mother, yes,” I said. “Of course, the information came from your mother through my mother who was on a rampage about her crotch. I should probably double check the validity of the facts.”

  “What’s wrong with your mother’s crotch?” Elle asked with a wince as she offered me a cookie.

  “I’d rather avoid speaking of my mother’s crotch,” I said, reaching for a cookie then pausing. “Will I have to stab myself if I take the cookie?” I inquired.

  “Yes,” Elle confirmed.

  “Will do,” I said, taking the cookie and plunging the scissors into my thigh.

  “Thank you,” Elle said, giving me a look filled with so much adoration I felt like I owned the world.

  “No worries,” I said, grabbing a dagger from my desk and stabbing my shoulder just to see her smile again.

  My lover did not disappoint.

  “Before Uncle Fucker passes out from blood loss, we should make a solid plan here,” Astrid announced, confiscating all of the office supplies on my desk that could be used as weapons. “Is there a midwife in Hell?”

>   “What’s a midwife?” I asked, quickly texting Lizard again to kidnap a slew of midwives.

  “It’s a person who will help Elle through the birth.”

  “I can do that,” I informed my niece.

  “Nope,” Astrid said. “Bad idea.”

  “But I’m the best at everything,” I announced with great pride. Babies were small. How hard could it be?

  “Except humility,” she muttered. “Have you ever delivered a baby, Uncle Idiot?”

  She had me there. “Not that I recall.”

  “Exactly,” Astrid said flatly. “We need a midwife.”

  “Fine. I will get a hundred midwives,” I said, texting Lizard like a madman.

  “Can you tell if it’s a boy or a girl?” Elle asked with a mouth full of cookie, still looking frantic about the turn of events.

  “Nope,” Astrid said, patting Elle’s stomach lovingly. “But it seems to me that Uncle Fucker’s swimmers produce girls.”

  “I find that offensive,” I snapped.

  “Truth hurts, buttwad,” Astrid said with a laugh.

  My niece probably had a point. As long as my little girl looked like Elle all would be right with the world, but…

  “It’s a boy!” I shouted, putting together the pieces of my mother’s ramblings.

  The conversation with my mother had been about two different things entirely. Served me right for not being able to say the word menstruation. All of this could have been solved days earlier. Shit.

  “How do you know?” Elle asked, bouncing up and down on the couch with excitement.

  “My mother,” I said. “In between her waxing poetic about poisoning competitors with cupcakes and complimenting my balls, I thought I was asking advice on how to handle your lady time, and she was clearly talking about our pregnancy. She mentioned that the name Gaia was a good name even for a boy.”

  “I followed none of that,” Astrid said.

  “Doesn’t matter,” I said, kneeling in front of the love of my life. “You are carrying the heir to Hell in your beautiful, perfect belly. I didn’t think it was possible to love you more than I did five minutes ago, but I do. You are my goddess.”

  Elle’s tears flowed freely as she placed her hands on either side of my face. “I love you so much, you beautiful deceitful man,” she blubbered. “But I will remove your shmackle with my bare hands if you don’t get up in the middle of the night to change diapers.”

  “You have my word,” I assured her, placing my hand over my heart. I wasn’t even going to mention the fact that she’d called my dick a shmackle. We’d deal with that another time.

  “Tell him that after you nurse, he has to walk Lucifer Jr. back to sleep,” Astrid suggested.

  “What’s nurse?” Elle asked, confused.

  “I’ll explain later,” Astrid promised. “Just follow my lead.”

  “Got it,” Elle said with a giggle through her tears. “Lucifer, you have to do what Astrid just said.”

  I raised my brow at my niece, but actually liked the idea of bonding with my son. I would teach him all sorts of profane words and all the lyrics to every Journey song ever written.

  “It’s a deal,” I said. “Anything else?”

  “Astrid?” Elle questioned.

  “Tell him we’re leaving it open-ended,” Astrid said with a grin.

  “I can hear you,” I informed my niece.

  “Yep, I know,” she replied. “This is seriously fun.”

  “Define fun,” I said with an eye roll before turning back to Elle. “Lover, I think we should cancel the party. The womb eviction day of our son should be all about you. Not me.”

  “What the Hell is happening?” Astrid muttered with amusement. “Is the Devil becoming unselfish?”

  “Only for one person,” Elle said, pressing her lips to mine. “Me.”

  “And Lucifer Jr.,” Astrid said as she stood to leave. “So, the party is off?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “No,” Elle insisted. “The party is on. Our son will be born in the morning. I should be fine by the evening. Right, Astrid?”

  “Umm…” Astrid said, looking doubtful. “Not sure about that.”

  Elle rubbed her belly with delight and either ignored or didn’t hear Astrid in her excitement. “We will have the party. It shall be a double celebration of the two men I love the most—Lucifer and his son… Luke.”

  “Luke?” I asked, liking the feel of the name on my tongue.

  “Well, actually Lucifer Jr., but Luke for short so there are no mix-ups,” Elle said as she started to cry again.

  Cradling her stomach gently in her hands, Elle glanced up and me, and I felt as if I’d been gut-punched with magic that warmed me all over. The wind rushed out of my body and I tingled from head to toe. It was an odd sensation… and I think I liked it.

  Was this what happiness felt like? True happiness?

  I definitely liked it. Not that I would share the appalling news.

  I did have a badass father reputation to maintain.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Murry, how badly do you want that gift card to Red Lobster?” I growled as he stood in front of my desk and appeared confused by the question.

  Lizard and my army had been busy. The entire third floor of the Dark Palace was stocked with every baby supply imaginable. I had no clue what any of it was used for, but that didn’t matter. The heaping mass was colorful and stolen—just as it should be.

  Unsure if it was sufficient, I commanded my army to take a second pass and hit every toy store in the Universe. The heir of Hell would have everything his little evil heart desired.

  Now I just needed to make sure our joint womb eviction day celebration would go off without a hitch. It would seriously piss me off if someone tried to kill me on my big day.

  “Umm…” Murry said, pursing his mouth in thought. “Is there a right answer, Lord of Dark Junk?”

  “Yes,” I shouted as my office began to fill with the most unsavory denizens of Hell at the moment. “There is a right answer.”

  “Just heard the great fuckin’ news, Giant Johnson,” Martha said as she and Jane waddled into the room wearing pornographic nurse’s uniforms. “We’re here to help Elle blow a watermelon out of a hole the size of a walnut.”

  “No, you are not,” I snapped. “You will go nowhere near my lover’s walnut.”

  Letting my head drop to my hands, I couldn’t believe the words that had just left my lips. Martha and Jane were destroying Hell… and that was tremendously difficult to do.

  “Can’t find an Immortal midwife who will come to Hell,” Lizard said in a frantic tone as he followed his concubines into my office.

  “That’s absurd,” I said. “What do Demons normally do when they have a child?”

  “My mom went into a field and squatted,” Dino said as he, Darby and Dagwood joined the ever-growing catastrophe littering my office.

  “I’m feeling the need to electrocute all of you,” I said calmly as Mammy entered the office.

  “Are we havin’ a party?” Mammy asked. “Trims are on the house!”

  Setting my desk ablaze, I let the flames consume me. The fire was wonderful and necessary if I was to refrain from committing mass murder.

  “There is no party, Mammy. You will trim no one. Am I clear?” I informed her as the flames abated. “Here’s what I need. I need Murry to find the damned Demon who is trying to ruin my womb eviction celebration so I can incinerate her ASAP. My son’s womb explosion day is the same as mine, therefore it will be perfect.”

  “You mean eviction,” Lizard corrected me.

  “That’s what I said.”

  “Nope, Monster Shmackle, you said explosion,” Jane volunteered.

  Hell, I hoped it wasn’t an explosion.

  “Whatever. I need my kitchen staff back so that I don’t owe the Fairies a favor. I don’t even like Fairies.”

  “Hang on a second, Lord of Dark Feces,” Mammy shouted as putrid green smoke waf
ted from her nose and ears. “Was that a crack at my lesbianic status?”

  I couldn’t help myself. I zapped the shit out of her. She barely reacted—just sucked the flames up into her smoldering nostrils and continued to glare at me. The woman defined insanity and clearly had a high threshold for pain. The blast should have set her ablaze.

  “I meant Fairies as in the sons of bitches with wings who live in Zanthia,” I said, considering zapping her again to see how much she could take. “Didn’t that hurt?”

  “Nah,” Mammy said with a grunt of laughter. “That was a pussy shot.”

  “Are you serious?” I demanded.

  “Totally,” she said. “And by the way, I’m a midwife.”

  “Nope,” I shot back quickly. The heinous possibilities of Mammy trimming my son or my mate during the eviction process were unacceptable. “Not going to happen.”

  “Might not have a choice,” Lizard said, chewing his gum a mile a minute. “Only found three Immortal midwives—a Vamp, a Fairy and a Gnome. Apparently, you banged all of them a few centuries ago and they hate your guts.”

  “Everyone hates my guts. I’m fucking Satan.”

  The room went silent as did I. All were smart enough to ignore I’d just announced, once again, that I could fornicate with myself. I really wished someone had spoken up. I was desperately in the mood for a decapitation.

  “I meant I’m the fucking Satan, and I’ve never banged a Gnome in my life,” I shouted as black flames flew from my fingertips, and I turned my favorite pilfered three-hole punch to ash.

  “In your defense, she did say you were wasted,” Lizard told me.

  My man-whore ways were long over, but they still had an unfortunate way of biting me in the ass. Thank all of Hell that Elle wasn’t present. The conversation would not end well if she heard it. We were violently possessive of each other, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

  “Before I kill everyone, I’d like to say a few words,” I forced out through gritted teeth in a tone that made everyone cower. “Murry the not so badass has sniffed every female Demon in Hell and come up empty. That is unacceptable. Someone wrote that letter, and she will be found.”

  “Understood, Lord of Dark Crap,” Murry whispered, shaking like a leaf. “I’m gonna find her.”