“I know you have children, and I understand that sometimes men will settle for having children from another woman in their life—”
“Who did such a thing to you?” Lucifer interjected, his expression rapidly darkening.
She turned her cheek to him and bit her tongue to silence herself as thoughts of her ex-husband flooded her mind, making her heart ache. Tears lined her lashes again and she screwed her eyes shut, pulled down a sharp breath, and exhaled it hard.
Warm fingers brushing her cheek made her jerk her head up, her eyes flicking open to lock with Lucifer’s where he towered over her. The concern in his golden gaze stole her breath away and she stared into his eyes as she absorbed the comfort of his caress, stealing every last drop of it to restore her strength and put her feet back on solid ground.
If the tales were right, he would know if she lied.
They were beyond hiding things from each other anyway.
He had been honest with her, and now it was her turn to be honest with him.
“I was married… but he left me when…” Heck, it was harder than she had thought it would be. Her throat tightened and she struggled to gather enough courage to tell Lucifer about her past and share a piece of herself that she had never shared with anyone. She pushed the words out. “I was told by close to a dozen doctors, from regular ones to the most expensive physicians my ex-husband could buy, that I can never have children.”
Lucifer’s handsome face darkened again.
Her hands tightened against her stomach. “He left me for another woman and had the family he wanted with her instead.”
“He cast you out… he betrayed your loyalty and love for him.” He practically snarled those words, his deep voice a thick growl as his eyes narrowed and a corona of fire blazed around his irises.
Nina suddenly understood why she felt so connected to Lucifer, had always had the sense that they were kindred spirits. Her husband had betrayed her, just as Lucifer had said. He had taken her love for him, and he had broken her heart. She searched Lucifer’s eyes as the gold slowly bled into crimson, seeing in them familiar pain.
Suffering born of betrayal.
“I moved on with my life.” She flexed her fingers against her sweater, barely resisting the need to touch Lucifer’s cheek and comfort him.
Her words seemed to draw him back from whatever dark place he had gone to and he blinked, his irises clearing as he looked down into her eyes.
She had moved on with her life, but she could see that Lucifer hadn’t moved on with his.
He had chosen the other path, the one that had looked dark to her but had inevitably drawn her to it when her ex-husband had contacted her about meeting up.
He had chosen revenge.
And now she had been pulled into a plot against him and she still didn’t understand why she had been chosen.
“So you see, Heaven picked the wrong woman,” she said with a smile that she didn’t feel in her heart, because that part of her wanted to be the right woman for the man standing in front of her.
She wanted to be what he needed her to be—his strength, his courage to rise onto his feet and choose the right path. She wanted to give him a reason to set aside whatever plan he had to avenge himself.
But she wasn’t sure she had the power to do it.
She had seen him with his daughter. No matter what he had said, family was important to him, and that was the one thing she couldn’t give to him.
“It isn’t possible that I’m pregnant, Lucifer. Not unless the doctors were wrong.” She went to back away, but he caught her hand, pulled her up against him and wrapped one arm around her waist to lock her against his chest.
He smoothed his free hand over her hair.
“They were not wrong… and if it were anyone else you had slept with…” He growled low in his throat, his eyes flashing crimson and his fangs on show as his lips peeled back off them. That brief flare of anger heated her blood, made her heart beat a little quicker as it whispered that he was jealous. “It would not have resulted in a pregnancy. I have a very special ability. I can make a barren womb fertile and receptive to me.”
Nina’s eyes slowly widened and a shiver danced down her spine and arms.
Her mind went blank and she could only stare up into his eyes as she took that in and processed it.
“But you don’t want me to be pregnant.” Those words left her lips of their own volition, rising up from her heart.
“It is not because I do not desire children, Nina. It is because of the risk to you. I have finally found something that I want to keep hold of and not lose, and I fear…” He chuckled mirthlessly. “I have not missed that emotion, but you certainly bring it out in me. I fear that I will lose you because the baby will be too powerful. I will lose you both.”
She didn’t need to ask to know that was the reason he only had one daughter even when he had been trying to father children for a long time. She pressed her hands to her stomach, a trickle of fear running through her, clashing with the hope in her heart.
Erin had survived though, and that gave her hope a boost.
With that boost, she found strength that had been dormant in her, determination that she embraced as she stood a little straighter and held Lucifer’s gaze.
“I’ve been through too much pain and loneliness to let something like this kill me. If I am pregnant, I won’t let anything stop me from bringing this child into the world, because it’s everything I’ve ever wanted, and you gave it to me… and that only makes it more beautiful.”
Lucifer averted his gaze, looking beyond her right shoulder. “No female who has borne my offspring has ever survived.”
Cold stole through her, but she refused to let it take hold and stir her fear again. “What about Erin?”
“Her mother died at birth.” The solemn edge his eyes gained had her raising her hand and placing it gently against his cheek.
She drew him back to face her, so his eyes locked with hers, and managed to smile, hoping it would alleviate his fear together with what she was about to say.
“I’ve seen how powerful you are, but you don’t seem to be all powerful.”
He frowned at that, and she knew he felt she was belittling him, but it didn’t stop her.
“I guess Erin’s mother gave birth naturally?”
He shrugged. “I cannot honestly say I was keeping track.”
It was her turn to frown at him. She didn’t want to ask how many women he had slept with over the years, but it was obviously enough that he’d developed a habit of seducing them and then sending them back to their world, and had probably used whatever powers he had to tell if a child had been born from their union.
His expression shifted, gaining a nervous edge that almost made her smile, because it told her something and it was the only thing she needed to know.
That part of his life was behind him now.
Somehow, she had captured this magnificent, if not a little dangerous and dark, man before her and now he only had eyes for her.
Eyes that were filled with affection and hope, together with fear that she wanted to remove for him.
“I’ll ignore that comment,” she said and relief joined the emotions in his gaze. “Do you think that it’s childbirth that kills the mother and not the baby?”
It was a frightening prospect that if she was pregnant, the baby growing inside her might actually attempt to kill her. She pushed that thought aside, trying to focus on finding a solution to the problem, because she was damned if she was going to die now that she had a reason to live.
Lucifer’s gaze turned thoughtful. “I believe it is the strain of the birth on the mother. When the baby attempts to draw all the power it can from her in order to survive, it kills her.”
Just how powerful would his baby be? As powerful as he was?
A flash of Erin hurling great orbs of black energy against the walls of the fortress blasted into her mind and she had to fight to supress the shudder that wrac
ked her. Erin had seemed as powerful as Lucifer. If she had been that way since before birth, it was little wonder the mother hadn’t survived.
But Nina might.
No, she would.
She smiled at Lucifer, who responded by giving her a quizzical look that asked if she had gone mad.
She had gone mad the moment she had met him, just as he had gone crazy when he had met her. This whole scenario was insane, but her heart said to run with it, because she felt at home here in Lucifer’s arms, looking up into his eyes. That heart beat faster when he brushed his fingers across her cheek and murmured soft words to her in a language she didn’t understand, the sound of his deep voice curling around her making her melt into him and distracting her.
She leaned into his lips as he pressed them to her cheek and then pulled herself back together and pushed her hands against his chest, breaking free of him so they could finish their conversation.
They were a long way from done.
“I might have the answer.”
Those five words seem to hit their mark because he stopped attempting to get closer to her and frowned down at her, a sceptical edge to his handsome face.
“You do?”
Nina nodded. “Caesarean.”
Lucifer’s left eyebrow shot up and she had to stifle a giggle. Her all powerful Lucifer evidently lacked knowledge about certain matters.
“Many women these days have to give birth through a C-section. They cut the baby out of them when it reaches term in order to avoid complications.”
His eyes widened. “They cut it out of you?”
The horrified edge to his expression and tone had her raising her eyebrows at him for a change. It seemed so strange to her, almost comical and wrong. By his own confession, he had suffered through torture that had no doubt left those marks on his back, and as much as she didn’t want to think about it, he had probably dealt out a lot worse to others. Yet, the thought of professional trained surgeons operating to remove a baby from its mother apparently disturbed him and seemed barbaric judging by his reaction.
“It’s perfectly safe,” Nina said. “My own mother gave birth to me that way. If I am pregnant, it would avoid the problem of the birth triggering the baby’s natural instinct to suck the life from me.”
It seemed so wrong that the part of that sentence that freaked her out was the start of it where she had mentioned the possibility of there being life growing inside of her, but she didn’t care. She was rolling with this crazy train, because the destination was the man holding her in his arms so gently that it was as if he feared he might break her and looking at her with a wealth of love in his eyes. He had changed her life, and she knew she had changed his too, and both had been for the better.
“It might not stop it from happening.” He feathered his fingertips across her cheek and fear surfaced in his golden eyes again. “I would have to find other methods… ways of keeping you safe.”
It touched her that he desired that, very deeply by the looks of him, and she nodded.
“You will stay then?” he whispered.
Nina looked up into his eyes, watching the way his emotions played out in them, realising that they were never cold when he was looking at her, not anymore. The fear in them steadily increased as she thought about what he was asking, thought about everything she would be leaving behind and thought about who he was.
The Devil.
A fallen angel.
The fallen angel.
Whenever she thought about that, there was a part of her that said she was crazy to be considering staying with him. In Hell. Where he no doubt spent his days terrorising souls just as the stories said he did. Those souls might deserve the torment they suffered, but that didn’t mean she could condone it or be comfortable with it.
She had felt there was darkness in him, but she hadn’t expected that darkness to be as strong as it was. She had expected it to be more like the sliver of darkness in her heart, the sort that many people carried with them.
But now she realised that while she held only a sliver of darkness inside her, he held only a sliver of light.
He was darkness.
He was the being that most mortals feared.
She studied his eyes, trying to see that being, but only saw Lucifer looking back at her. She only saw the man who had been kind to her, had fought to protect her, and had risked everything he held dear to bring her back to him.
But would she always see him that way?
Would she continue to feel love for him when she finally saw the darker part of himself that she knew he was hiding from her?
She dropped her gaze to his chest, closed her eyes as her mind churned, and then lifted her head and looked up at him as the answer came to her.
“Lucifer—”
The entire castle shook and Lucifer’s arms tightened around her, keeping her upright as the floor trembled so violently her knees gave out. Her heart pounded, her fingers grasping the chest of his suit jacket as she squeezed her eyes shut and pressed against him. He covered her head with his hands, shielding her as dust rained down.
The quake stopped as quickly as it had started.
Lucifer eased back and she emerged from his arms, and looked up at him.
Black wings made of shadows covered her. Polished obsidian horns curled from behind Lucifer’s now-pointed ears, parting his jet hair as they flared forwards beside his temples into fierce points. Blazing red eyes held hers. His lips peeled back off his fangs as he snarled, the sound startling her almost as much as his appearance, but not as much as the word he growled.
That single word struck fear into her heart.
“Mihail.”
CHAPTER 15
Lucifer teleported directly to the courtyard of his fortress, leaving Nina in the safety of her room and landing just metres from his enemy.
He snarled at Mihail and the six guardian angels flanking him, their polished silver-edged blue armour bright against the black backdrop of the spires of rock that enclosed the courtyard. Each male stood with their silver-blue wings furled against their backs and each wielded a curved silver blade, held point down at their side, close to the strips of armour that shielded their hips. None were a match for Lucifer. He could kill every one of them with a thought.
Or turn them to his side with little more than a push using his voice.
They were weak.
Their leader was not and Lucifer knew from experience that the angel wouldn’t give him a chance to exert the power of his voice on the angels at his back.
Mihail stood a few feet in front of them, his white wings drifting down to rest against his back. The dull black armour he wore shifted as he moved a step, the chest plate rising as he inhaled.
He wielded no weapon.
“Return the female to us.”
Lucifer chuckled at that and grinned at the angel.
“She will remain with me.” He canted his head and flexed his fingers at his sides, biding his time as he studied his opponent.
He wouldn’t allow Mihail near Nina, and he wouldn’t make the same mistake as he had the last time they had fought. He wouldn’t let Mihail trick him into firing on his own fortress. As long as Nina remained inside it, she would be safe.
Wingbeats filled the air, the steady drone making his grin stretch wider.
Mihail lifted icy eyes to the air above Lucifer and glared at the Hell’s angels descending behind him. The six men touched down, their black leather boots silent as they made contact with the obsidian stone floor. Lucifer issued them a mental command, ordering them to shield the castle from their intruders while he dealt with them.
Unlike Mihail, he hadn’t brought weaker angels to do his dirty work. He intended to take Mihail down by himself, without anyone interfering.
This was his fight.
“Hand the mortal female over.” Mihail drew a white blade from the air and pointed it at Lucifer.
He responded by shaking his head.
“Never.”
Mihail kicked off, but Lucifer was already moving, his shadow wings beating the thick air as he shot towards the angel. He threw his left hand forwards, sending ribbons of darkness rocketing towards Mihail. They broke apart when they reached him, rendering the urgent swipe of his sword redundant, and shot around him. Mihail’s blue eyes widened and he looked off to his left.
Lucifer sneered at the three guardian angels there.
Mihail’s white wings hammered the air and his body twisted, his left boot touching the ground. He kicked off, propelling himself towards the guardian angels. He wouldn’t be fast enough.
Lucifer’s shadows divided again and he turned away from them, leaving them to do their work while he shifted his focus to the remaining three angels.
Mihail should have brought more allies with him.
An agonised bellow filled the air as the first of his shadows struck, slithering around the neck of one of the guardian angels. The male went down in a heap as it tightened, strangling him. The other two angels fought valiantly, their silver swords bright blurs against the darkness. Mihail joined them and Lucifer growled as the angel raised his hand and white light shot down from the vault of Hell, engulfing the three guardian angels.
Dissipating Lucifer’s shadows.
It seemed Mihail had gained control over some new powers since their battle millennia ago.
Ones that Lucifer didn’t like.
“You dare call on the light in my realm?” Lucifer kicked off and ran at Mihail.
The angel turned swiftly to face him, his white ponytail sweeping in an arc behind him and his blade cutting through the air. Lucifer teleported, easily evading the blow, and appeared above him. He roared as he tossed his hand forwards at the same time as he beat his wings to carry him higher, clear of the blast zone of the black ball of energy he hurled at Mihail.
Mihail beat his wings and flew hard, tossing a grim look over his shoulder at the same time.
He launched forwards as the orb struck the ground where he had been and grunted as the blast struck his back, sending him tumbling head over heels through the air. His roar of pain was music to Lucifer’s ears as he hit the wall of the courtyard and slid down it to land in a heap, his white wings covered in black dust.
Dark and Damaged: Eight Tortured Heroes of Paranormal Romance: Paranormal Romance Boxed Set Page 59