She laughed, her soft voice drifting through the air. “The perfect team?”
“Me and Maria will get you looking hot,” I said. “Hair, make-up, nails. Anything you need.”
She blushed a deeper red and smiled at me, the moonlight bouncing off her eyes. “Sure,” she said. “I’d like that. I’d like that a lot.”
My smile widened even more. Dr. U and I rarely spent time together anymore. Hell, we barely spent much time together at all, even when I was growing up. But… I wanted to see her so happy, just like I wanted Mom to be happy. She deserved happiness for everything she had done for me.
“How’s Trevon?” Dr. U asked, eyeing the two men. While Eros was calming chatting with Trevon still, Trevon was working himself up. Breaking into a sweat. Hands clenching into fists. Fingers tugging on the ends of his hair.
After speaking some nasty words to Eros, he hurried over to me and Dr. U, eyes desperate. “Come out to dinner with me.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m having dinner with Eros.”
“But—”
“No.”
“Dani.” He reached for my hand, but I pulled it away.
“No. Why don’t you go out on a date with Samantha or something? She’s been bothering me about talking to you. And…” I gestured between us. “We. Are. Over.”
His jaw twitched, and he walked out of the rink and down the street. Dr. U looked over at me, giving me her infamous do-I-want-to-know? look. I just shook my head, not wanting to even get into it right now, and told her I’d finish closing.
After Dr. U departed from the rink, Eros stalked over to me, wrapping his hands around my waist, and stuffed his nose in my hair. “Let’s skate,” he whispered into my ear.
“Eros, I’m closing right now. I can’t.” I turned around, about to walk back into the building to turn the light off, but Eros stepped in front of me with that dangerous smirk plastered on his face. “Oh, come on. You can break the rules just for me, can’t you?”
My lips curled into a soft smile, and I grabbed a pair of skates for both of us. “If this is some elaborate scheme to have sex with me in public again, I don’t want to do it.” His eyes twinkled, and I pulled his skates away from him. “I’m being serious, Eros.”
“Relax, Dani,” he said, grabbing his skates from me. “It’s not some elaborate scheme.” He pulled on his shoes and tied them, pulling me onto the ice. “It’s some scheme that I just threw together.”
I narrowed my eyes at him and playfully pushed his chest. “You’ve been hanging out with Lucifer too much,” I said. “You’re picking up his mannerisms.”
“Lucifer and mannerisms don’t go well together,” Eros said, curling his arms around me and pushing us forward.
“Exactly.”
He chuckled in my ear, making me shiver in delight. His cinnamon scent drifted through my nose, and I inhaled deeply. “So, what’d you and Trevon talk about?”
“You,” he said. “He wants you back, and I just let him know that if he lays a hand on you, you’d probably… maybe…” He smirked down at me. “... Take his life.”
I arched a brow. “I’d take his life?”
“Or I could throw him back into The Chains.” He spun me around, his hands in mine, breathing in the frigid air. “But… he smelt… weird.”
“Do you think… he’s possessed again?”
“I don’t know. I can usually tell when someone’s possessed, the scent of a demon is overwhelmingly strong. His scent isn’t that strong. But… it wasn’t that strong last time either.”
“I’ll keep an eye on him, and I’ll tell Zane to watch him too. I can’t risk Maria getting possessed. I already lost one of my friends; I can’t lose the oth—”
Suddenly, an excruciating pain split through my back, near the sides of my spine, and I grasped Eros’s arm, trying to hold myself upright.
“What’s wrong?” Eros asked, brows furrowed together. He grabbed my hands to steady me.
I clenched my jaw, hoping the feeling would pass, and squeezed my eyes closed. I wanted to tell him that everything was okay, that this pain was disappearing and that I’d be fine… but this wasn’t the time to keep things from Eros. I learned that the hard way with Javier.
“My back,” I whispered. “It hurts.”
His eyes filled with darkness again, and I could see my glowing ones reflecting off of them. “Tell me where it hurts.” Starting at my neck, he slowly trailed his fingers down the middle of my back, down each vertebrae until he reached the center.
I whimpered and grasped his biceps, the pain overwhelmingly strong. “It’s not Javier, is it?”
“This is where it hurts, Dani?” he asked me. When I nodded my head, he gazed around and tugged off my coat. “Take this off.”
“Eros,” I said under my breath. “We’re in public. If I get caught out here… naked…”
“Dani, listen to me and take it off,” he said, his voice sounding so serious that I was actually nervous. I took off my jacket and tossed it onto the ice next to us. Another pain shot through my back. Something felt like it was poking hard against my skin from the inside.
Javier… it had to be Javier and his demon.
I swallowed hard, remembering when Trevon was in The Chains and a demon climbed his way out of his throat. Javier was dead… but… but what if he really wasn’t… what if...
“And your shirt,” Eros said.
“My shirt?”
“If you don’t take it off, it’ll rip.”
“Rip?”
“Dani,” Eros said, jaw clenched. “Now.”
I gulped and pulled the shirt over my head, leaving me in the black lacy bra I had worn only to seduce Eros in later tonight. Eros eyed my bra, his eyes oddly not turning hazy, and I arched a brow at him. “What? Do you want me to take this off t—”
My legs buckled underneath me, another pain flaring around the sides of my torso from my spine. I grasped onto his biceps, holding myself up, and he wrapped his arms around me, pushing a hand through my hair and rubbing my scalp rhythmically.
“What’s going on?” I asked, my lips trembling.
“This is going to hurt,” he said, trying to soothe me. “The first time always hurts.”
“What the hell are you talking about? Why are you talking in circles?” I asked, digging my claws into his flesh… but my nails hadn’t turned into claws. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t break his skin with my blunt nails. So, I stared up into his dark eyes to see my eyes glowing a bright white.
“Your wings, Dani.”
And, within that moment, my knees buckled for real this time, only Eros caught me and held me up by the waist. I could feel my skin stretching and tearing, and could hear the ripping of flesh. Something grew from my back, protruding at angles I didn’t even know existed.
I buried my face into Eros’s chest and let out a scream, hoping he would muffle it. The last thing I needed was to attract the attention of someone like a human or a demon, especially when I couldn’t control this, whatever it was.
When the pain had subsided, that lingering ache never really leaving me though, I let go of Eros and stood up, the sudden weight almost too heavy on my back. I gazed behind me, my eyes widening.
Oh, my god.
They were huge.
At least seven feet wide and standing a solid foot above my head, my wings were grand with black streaks near the base—at least that’s what I could see and white feathers near the edges.
“I haven’t seen angel wings in thousands of years,” Eros said breathlessly, eyes wide in amazement. “The last time I saw wings this grand and filled with this many feathers… were Lucifer’s before he fell.” He brushed his fingers against my wings and smiled.
My wings were as grand as Lucifer’s once were? Did that mean I wielded as much power as he did? Or maybe even more…
“But Lucifer’s looked nothing like this,” Eros continued. “They were pure white.” He grasped my hands and stepp
ed away, admiring me. “And a feather would fall each time he sinned.”
I wanted to ask Eros how he knew Lucifer’s feathers fell off, but I pressed my lips together.
“Yours don’t look like they’ll ever fall, just transform into the darkness.” He trailed his fingers down my spine and near the blackened feathers. “Your father was right, Dani. You’ll rule as Hell’s most powerful queen.”
Not Lust’s most powerful queen. Hell’s.
Chapter 26
I tugged off my peacoat, folded it over my forearm, and stepped into the chilly waiting room at Dr. Xiexie’s office by myself. Eros was off preparing Lust for the ceremony, which was coming up faster than I expected; Lucifer was doing God-only-knew what with him. But after last night and experiencing my angel for the first time, I needed to come back here to talk to Dr. Xiexie about this.
Some demons lingered in the room, chatting aimlessly with each other. I sat on the sofa and played with the ends of my coat as I waited, trying to ignore the subtle stares the Lusts and Envies were giving me.
Focus on the good things, Dani, like your angel. I closed my eyes, imagining my grand wings stretching the length of this room, my eyes shining like two white orbs surrounded by a ring of darkness, my skin glimmering even in the shadows.
“The Lust Queen’s horns will hang in Chastion before the Crowning,” the Lust said to the Envy.
I pressed my lips together. Focus, Dani. On better things. On virtuous things. On heavenly things. Something other than fire and ash and pure destruction.
“Looks like she’s already going insane,” the Envy said, nudging the Lust.
I swallowed hard, anger pumping through my veins. Think of Eros, Lucifer, Dr. U, and Jasmine… But all I could think about was who was feeding them this bullshit. My entire body ached to snatch their necks and snap them after I found out.
“A human can’t rule Lust.” The Lust chuckled. “Even if Sathanus doesn’t kill her, she won’t last a single day, trying to tame Eros and the rest of us.”
Something inside of me snapped, and I stormed over to him, grabbed him by the chin, and wrapped my hand around his thin, little throat. “All you should worry about is how disrespectful you’re being to your new queen who will rule the Kingdom of Lust with or without your approval. If I hear another word from you, I will snap your neck and take your soul without question, so I suggest you stop questioning my authority.”
The Lust’s eyes widened, and I pressed my lips together, trying to stay calm because while I couldn’t hear Javier’s voice ringing inside my head and I couldn’t see his red eyes staring right at me… I could feel him stirring up trouble, instigating my wrath, and making me angry again.
Before Javier took complete control of me, I released the man’s neck and glared down at him. “Why don’t you run back to Sathanus or whoever the fuck is starting all this drama and tell them that if they want to shame me, they should come to the damn ceremony and see what happens?”
The Lust bowed his head, an unusual look of terror crossing his face. “I apologize, Commander.”
The Envy crossed his arms over his chest, sneering at me. “What are you going to do to us, if we don’t? If you want to kill us, kill us now. Prove yourself to everyone here. Earn your respect.”
Wrath pumped through every one of my veins. My fingers ached to slide around his neck and feel the life pumping out of him. All I could see were the thousands of ways I could make him hurt and the one way I could kill him so damn easily that he wouldn’t feel a single thing.
“Commander Asmodeus,” the nurse said from the doorway. “Dr. Xiexie will see you now.”
My heart thrashed against my chest, Wrath’s fire warming every single inch of my body. It took everything inside of me to bite my tongue. I gave him one last look and stormed to the nurse.
“That’s what I thought,” the Envy shouted. “A human isn’t capable of what you claim to have done. You’d never be queen. You’d never live up to your father’s reputation. I’ll enjoy rubbing off on your horns when you’re dead.”
I hurried into the back hallway before I snapped, my vision shifting between a clear to a grey to a black color, and I stopped mid-stride. Jaw twitching. Heart pounding. Blood boiling. I could see Wrath in my vision, the ash falling from the sky, the flames licking my toes, the heat inside of me.
“Commander,” the nurse said cautiously. She stood in front of Xiexie’s office, lips pressed together, eyes wide in fear. “Commander…”
For a split moment, I reached my hand out for her neck, wanting to break something… But, instead, I brushed my thumb against my ring and thought of Mom swinging me around in circles at the ice skating rink, the white ice reflecting off her eyes. And my wrath slowly dissipated.
Lord… at least I could kind of control it now.
After taking a deep breath, I walked into Dr. Xiexie’s office and shut the door behind me. Unlike the last room, there wasn’t a bed in this one but a grand oak desk, floor-length and foggy windows, and an enormous bookcase with titles in Demoniac, an ancient demon language, that I couldn’t quite read yet.
Dr. Xiexie stood by the windows, staring out at Pride. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” He smiled to himself, then turned to me and sat at his desk. “I didn’t expect to see you so soon. Is everything okay?”
I sat on a white cushioned chair and placed my coat in my lap. “I… um… got my wings last night.”
“Your wings?” he said quietly, eyes wide. “Angel wings, I suppose?”
I didn’t know if they were solely angel wings, especially with those charcoal-colored feathers, so I said, “They’re white and black.” I paused. “And Eros thinks they won’t shed when I sin like angel wings do.”
“Black feathers?” He furrowed his brows, searched his bookshelf, and pulled out a thick leather-bound book, flipping through the pages and shaking his head. “No angel has black feathers… And there have been no accounts of feathers that don’t fall off when you sin.”
There was some noise in the hallway, and he lowered his voice. “When I was an angel, I found that feathers fall off fairly quickly. Lucifer’s took longer, which ranked him as one of the strongest demons in Hell… but not falling off at all… It just doesn’t happen.”
“But I’ve sinned so much already.” Every single night. “Don’t you think that I just wouldn’t get wings at all or that my wings would already be bare when they came in?”
He sighed and closed the book. “I suppose. Do you want me to examine them?”
“I would ask you to examine them… but I don’t know how to control them yet. They happened sort of… randomly last night, after I volunteered at the skating rink.”
Since yesterday, I had been trying to understand why I had gotten my wings now. And the only thing I had come up with is that volunteering and doing some good on Earth had caused it. Hell, it caused that man at the nursing home to see a halo over my head right before he died… but I still think that was just a hallucination.
“Have you been hallucinating?” Dr. Xiexie asked.
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “But now and then I feel that innate urge to destroy like Javier did… but I haven’t heard him.”
Dr. Xiexie nodded. “You will feel that. It’s likely, seeing you’re half-angel, that feeling won’t go away entirely for a long time… maybe not at all. Those hallucinations are mechanisms to corrupt pureness. You will struggle, but you must resist it.”
“I will,” I said, standing up to leave.
Before I could open the door, he cleared his throat. “And, Commander, there are only a few more days until the Crowning Ceremony… I suggest you spend them with your friends. Try to gather your goodness, because you don’t want to lose control during the ceremony. You need to be strong.”
Chapter 27
On my way back to Lust, I felt anxious. Not about my angel, but about that Envy. He hadn’t been in the waiting room when I left Dr. Xiexie’s office, but I didn’t know if I reacted
the way I should’ve. I wanted to be strong, but I didn’t want to kill the man…
Even though Lucifer told me I could control my power, if I wanted, I didn’t know what would happen if I didn’t want to control it. That man wanted me to kill him to prove myself. If I killed him… would I lose control? What if I couldn’t stop killing once I started?
I stepped through the portal into Lust, nodded at the guards who smiled at me, and walked out into the pink sunlight, letting the sun warm my frozen toes. I kept my head down, staring at the white stone walkway that led to the castle.
How could I show my people I was as strong, possibly even stronger than Asmodeus? While Eros believed it and Lucifer believed it and I was starting to believe it now too… not everyone else did.
Make them fear you.
Lucifer’s words rang through my head. They sounded so tempting, almost too tempting to pass up. “Make them fear me,” I whispered to myself. I didn’t want my people to fear me, but—
“Always getting in my fuckin’ way,” someone said in front of me. I stopped and glanced up to meet the alluring red eyes of that same Wrath I had been seeing everywhere. His muscles swelled under Lust’s sun, his tail curling around his body.
“Always in my kingdom, Wrath.” I stood in the middle of the walkway and pressed my lips together so he couldn’t get by. Well, he could get by. All he’d have to do is step over into the grass and scoot by me, but I knew he wouldn’t.
He sneered at me. “I can be wherever the fuck I want, Commander.”
I raised a brow at him and stepped closer, refusing to be intimidated by him. Though many things scared me in this unfamiliar world, he didn’t. And something about it made me confident in myself and my abilities.
His barbed tail wrapped around my ankle, slid up my leg, and curled around my thigh. I took a deep breath, trying to ignore the tingles running up my inner thigh. I was positive I had never met this man before, but his touch felt so familiar.
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