“I’m so glad I found you and didn’t kill you,” she said as she arched her back and pushed back against me.
“I am too,” I whispered.
As she turned away from me and let her head drop between her arms, I placed my hand on my heart…
“I am too.”
Chapter Nineteen
“You will lead me to the Troll King’s chamber and then you will transport yourself away. You can go to Nirvana or come back to the Dark Palace. Either of those locations will be safe,” I instructed, sliding my arms into a black Armani sport coat and checking my reflection in the mirror. Smiling, I straightened my collar and chose a tie. Hell, I was such a handsome bastard.
“Whatever you say,” Elle answered vaguely.
I’d heard that kind of non-answer before. I used the technique often myself. It wasn’t going to fly today—or ever.
“Look at me,” I said, taking her arm and roughly turning her to her face me. “You just recently returned from a battle with the Trolls all torn up and bloody and near fucking death. You might be immortal, but you can definitely be killed. That’s unacceptable to me. You following my train of thought here, Siren?”
“Yep, I hear you, asshole,” she replied, pulling away and moving back to the mirror. Elle finished touching up her blood red lipstick while ignoring me completely.
No one ignored me. For the love of everything malicious, I was Satan—people bowed to me. What the Hell was she thinking?
With Herculean effort, I held my composure. I’d already done quite a bit of damage for one day.
The sex had made me a little crazy. I’d never experienced anything like it—and I’d experienced a lot in my many debased centuries. When my Siren had informed me that she was going home to change her clothes and get ready to go after her soul, I got so furious at the thought of her leaving me that I blew out the back wall of the Dark Palace. My entire staff was now busy repairing the results of my tantrum.
Not to be outdone by my bad behavior, Elle then proceeded to douse me in fire and call me all sorts of wonderfully horrifying names for telling her what she could and couldn’t do. In order to make amends, I might have gone a little over board.
Hell, I was drowning.
With detailed instruction sent to Darby, Dino and Dagwood along with my own special brand of over the top materialistic magic, everything Elle could want or need was produced within minutes—including a closet equal in size to my own. Suffice it to say my closet was enormous. I was a clothes whore.
“No. I don’t think you did hear me,” I replied tersely, as I watched her with greedy eyes. I wanted to get the Troll fiasco over with immediately. All I could think about was taking her back to my bed.
“You’re bossy and rude,” she said, pointing her finger and shooting a single flame of black fire at me. “While the closet and the clothes are cute, I don’t live here.”
I caught the flame in my hand and reveled in the cleansing burn. “Yessss, you do,” I snapped. “I want you with me. Period. The easiest way to make that happen is for you to relocate to Hell. I happen to have a very important job… just in case you missed that minor fact.”
Rolling her eyes and selecting a vintage low-cut lavender Halston from the dresses I’d chosen for her, she made a derisive noise. “I understand your career is rather all consuming. I have no issue with that. I just won’t live here.”
“And why not?” I demanded, losing patience quickly. I could give her the damned world and she seemed to care less.
“You know why,” she said without making eye contact.
I did know why. She wanted my love. What she didn’t realize was that my love would destroy her—I was evil—I was death. Nothing of who I was connoted love or anything close to that weak emotion. My heart was black… and the soul she insisted I had didn’t exist.
What I could give her were jewels, clothing, protection, sex and anything else her heart desired. What I couldn’t give was the one thing she seemed to want above all else.
“Elle, I…” I ran my hands through my hair and tried to come up with a spin that she might buy.
“Stop, Lucifer.” She crossed the room and took my hand in hers. “Sometimes things simply are what they are. You say you can’t love me and I can’t live without love. I’ve waited so many years that I can’t even count them to love someone and be loved back. A Siren who exists with unrequited love will eventually wither away and die—immortal or not.”
“You love me?” I asked, frustrated, annoyed, and for the first time in my existence, scared.
She nodded slowly. “I think I do. You’re the most despicable being I’ve ever come across. You lie, you cheat, you steal… but there’s something more.”
“You’re forgetting that I punish and destroy. There’s not a being alive that doesn’t live in mortal fear of me. I’m what nightmares are made of,” I shot back in a flat tone. She may as well know all if she truly thought she loved me. I wasn’t worth the wasted emotion.
“I’m no prize,” she reminded me in a harsh voice. “My list of sins is long. I have to live with my monstrous past. I killed with no remorse for a long time. You punish evil—your methods might not be conventional according to polite society standards, but I am evil—or I was. The Devil may be nightmare inducing, but I’m the real nightmare—not you.”
“I call bullshit. You haven’t killed in thousands of years. You chose a different way to feed and go on. You’re far more noble than me.”
“Noble is a relative word—aristocratic, high-born, splendid, righteous, honorable and good,” she said with a sad sigh. “I’m neither honorable nor good. The fact that I think I could love you is beyond what I deserve in this long wicked life of mine, but I feel something. It’s unfamiliar and frightening, but I like it.”
Dropping her hand and pacing the room like a caged tiger, I fought to put a logical case together. “If you’ve never known love, how are you so certain love is what you’re feeling?” I snapped, wanting to win the exchange, but knew the possibility was slim.
Her hand went to her heart and I froze as if I’d been threatened with my immortal life. The truth was such a dangerous thing.
“I’m not sure,” she admitted.
I wanted to set my Palace on fire at her answer. It made no sense whatsoever, but being reasonable wasn’t exactly my forte. Why did I fucking care if she only thought she loved me. I didn’t want her to love me at all. I didn’t want to love her either—I just wanted to keep her.
“Then this conversation is moot. It’s simple. Don’t love me and all our issues are solved. We’ll live in sin and I will bed you constantly in between ruling the Underworld. You have my word that I’ll kill anything that looks at you sideways. You will never want for anything and you’ll always be safe with me. As for your soul, it will be returned to you shortly. Then you can redecorate the Dark Palace to your liking—purple goes wonderfully with black. Hell can look like a massive bruise for all I care. All I care about is you being here with me. What is mine shall be yours. Problem solved,” I said in a no-nonsense tone.
If I couldn’t win completely, I wasn’t going to play. Her laugh, while delightful, was also incredibly confusing. Had I done something right or wrong? Women were so damned hard to figure out. My Siren was almost impossible to gauge.
“Oh, Lucifer,” she said still smiling wide. “It’s difficult when you have no control, isn’t it?”
“I have no idea what you mean.”
Elle twisted her blonde hair into a sexy knot on the top of her head and pinned it with a diamond clasp as she continued to watch me with amusement. I had no clue what was happening here, but I wasn’t on fire so I assumed it was fine.
“You are feeling things,” she said, picking up the Hermes bag I’d given her. “And you hate it.”
“I beg to differ. I feel nothing,” I lied. “Nothing.”
“Whatever you say, O Great Deceiver,” she replied smoothly. “Are you ready to leave?”
&n
bsp; “Are you going to transport once we find the Troll King?” I shot back.
“Sure.”
Her smile looked so sincere I was tempted to believe her. But I knew better. Her assurance was as deceitful as my saying I felt nothing. Elle was almost as good a liar as I was. Almost. I was a difficult act to beat, but my Siren came close.
If I weren’t so concerned about her being harmed, I would have enjoyed her disrespectful insolence. But her death was not on any agenda I had or ever would have.
Nodding, I pretended to buy the bridge she was selling. However, a change of subject was in order or I’d keep pushing her until we both ended up ablaze and the Dark Palace lay in ruins.
“How do you remove your soul?” I asked.
She glanced up sharply and squinted her eyes at me. “Why? Why do you want to know that? I thought you didn’t have a soul.”
“I don’t,” I said. “Just curious.”
She placed her hand over her heart. “Like this.”
“You chose our signal of truth to be the same as the act of removing a soul?” I asked, perplexed.
“I did. I simply place my hand on my heart and call forth my soul.”
“That’s it?”
“Yes. That’s it.”
I grabbed a sword and sheathed it in my belt. I didn’t need conventional weapons, but I enjoyed the look. Elle might think she was going to stay while I retrieved her soul, but she was wrong. I had the power to send her away and I planned to use it. She’d be angry, but her anger was something I realized I needed…
Wait a goddamned minute…
Her fire was doing what mine failed to do anymore. I needed her to burn away the sins and pain. I was no longer an island.
Unsure what I thought about this new wrinkle, I decided to ignore it. One thing at a time.
First my Siren’s soul needed to be stolen back. Then I needed to find and demolish the fucking darkness, and only then I would deal with what this confounding woman truly meant to me.
“Take my hand,” I instructed. “Which Troll compound are we transporting to?”
“Disney World,” she said with a wrinkled nose.
“Repeat,” I said, closing my eyes and groaning.
“Disney. World.”
“I hate Disney World—too damned touristy. And the humans are far too happy there.”
“Yes, well, we’re talking about the Trolls. Their taste has always been appalling.”
“Are you ready to go to the Happiest Place on Earth?” I said with an eye roll that rivaled my mother’s.
“Devil, I was born ready,” Elle replied so seductively I almost forgot what I was doing.
I laughed and gathered my wits. “That you were, my Siren—that you definitely were.”
Chapter Twenty
“Do you know these women?” Elle hissed as we stood at the gates of the Magic Kingdom and watched the humans exit while screaming for their lives.
“Unfortunately, I do,” I said, eyeing the impressive army of female immortals standing beautifully motionless amidst the throngs of fleeing mortals. They were armed and very, very dangerous.
“Are they past lovers?” she growled as her fingers began shooting black sparks.
“Absolutely not,” I insisted with my hand on my heart, enjoying her jealousy tremendously. Besides, they were most certainly not past lovers. I was related to a good portion of them.
Apparently, my mother had disobeyed me and called for back up. At least she’d had the wherewithal to only call females. Males would have been useless in the presence of my Siren. Plus any ogling of my Siren would have pissed me off. And even I knew it was terrible form to kill people who were trying to lend a deadly hand.
“Hi Dad,” my daughter Dixie called out, walking over with an enormous grin on her lovely face. “Got anyone you want to introduce me to?”
Elle stiffened beside me, quickly removed some of her lipstick, and yanked the neckline of her dress up. I watched in amusement as she fidgeted uncomfortably. It didn’t matter what she did. Makeup or no, my Siren was the most alluring women in the Universe. She could wear a garbage bag and make it look sexy.
For the first time since I’d known her, Elle was nervous and unsure. Dixie was a Demon, but she was far different than most. She was good-ish and it was clear that Elle sensed this anomaly. Hell knows I’d tried to encourage Dixie to embrace her dark side, but my favorite daughter lived with only one foot in that world. The only bad thing she had going for her is that she was mated to the Angel of Death. I hated the bastard, but as long as he made her happy he could keep breathing another day.
“Dixie,” I said, giving her a look that was supposed to quash her grin. It didn’t. All the most important women in my life had no fear of me, which was frustrating yet fabulous.
“This is Adrielle Rinoa, my…” I struggled to find a word that wouldn’t get me set on fire.
“I’m his temporary plaything,” Elle supplied and then shook my daughter’s hand.
“You are not temporary,” I hissed.
“That’s up to you, jackass,” she shot back and gave Dixie a tight smile.
Dixie’s delighted laugh alerted the others of our arrival and they all flew over. Literally.
“Temporary or not, it’s nice to meet you, Adrielle Rinoa. I’m Dixie, the only normal offspring of my father.”
“Normal is a word that belongs in none of our vocabularies,” my daughter Sloth said, eyeing Elle with curiosity. “Are you knocked up?”
“She is not knocked up,” I snapped. “She’s mine.”
Sloth took a few steps back, but laughed at my ire. “Oookay, Daddio. Just wondering.”
“Stop wondering. I don’t want to have to smite you in public,” I told Sloth as I sidestepped a pack of humans running like the Devil was on their heels. Of course the Devil wasn’t because I was standing right here. “Would anyone like to explain why the mortals are leaving the happiest fucking place on Earth?”
I glanced around at the group of female insanity and catalogued who was present. Clearly my mother was taking no chances. There was enough magic here to end time. Hopefully that wasn’t what was about to go down.
My nieces, Astrid and Tiara, were at the head of the group with my daughter, Dixie. My other daughters, The Seven Deadly Sins, stood to the side and whispered amongst themselves. They were a nasty little group, but were loyal to me and fought like the deadly Demons they were raised to be.
Pam, the profane and ridiculously formidable Angel, whose misuse of the English language constantly left me with my mouth agape, stood next to the delightfully vicious Vamp, Paris Hilton. Venus and Raquel rounded out the Vampyres along with Claudia—Tiara’s mate. However, a few other impressive immortals were present—Gemma, the soon to be Queen of the Fairies, and Lucy, the shifter who was also a True Immortal.
In fact, there were three True Immortals here other than me—Astrid, Lucy, and Dixie—Compassion, Temptation and Balance. And of course I rounded it out as Evil. This pleased me. If Elle refused to leave she could be protected by those who could not be killed.
“The humans?” I asked again.
“I made it rain snakes,” Gemma volunteered sheepishly.
Gemma was a wildly powerful entity—untrained, but quite gifted. Unfortunately, she was also good, as in not an evil bone in her entire body.
“Well, that would certainly do it,” I muttered.
“Not poisonous,” she assured me. “I just wanted them to leave so they wouldn’t get caught in the shitshow about to occur.”
“Good fuckin’ thinkin’ there,” Pam said with a curt nod of approval and a loving slap to Gemma’s back that sent her lurching ungracefully forward. “So what in the Hell are we doing? I was eating cookies and watching my programs, and next thing I knew I was sucked into some kind of fucked up tornado and my ass suddenly landed in Disney World.”
“Mother Nature is playing games,” I said. “I don’t need you. I can retrieve my Siren’s soul alone.”
“You’re a Siren?” Envy asked. “A real one? I thought they were extinct.”
“Clearly not. There are two of us left—me and my mother,” Elle replied.
“Three,” I corrected her. “Fate is a Siren.”
“Shut the front freakin’ door,” Astrid yelled. “That wankhole is a Siren?”
“Was,” I replied.
“She’s dead?” Tiara asked in alarm.
“Nope,” Pam chimed in. “We’d know if she was a goner—trust me. However, you can’t change species. That bitch is still a Siren.”
“Whatever,” I said. “I’m not here to discuss the drunken keeper of destiny. I’m after the Troll King. I’m going to guess the snakes will have alerted the bastard that something is up.”
“Sorry,” Gemma said with an apologetic shrug. “Wasn’t sure why we were here. Just wanted the coast cleared of innocent humans. I assumed it was something ugly when I saw who was gathered.”
“Well, the men not being invited makes sense now,” Venus said, taking my Siren’s hand in hers. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
Elle nodded. She was at a loss for words. I was fairly sure that not many in her experience were happy to meet her—especially women. Maybe having this insane bunch here wasn’t such a bad call on my mother’s part.
One by one, the women introduced themselves and either shook my Siren’s hand or hugged her. She was mute as she accepted the warm greetings.
“You okay?” Astrid asked Elle.
“I’m fine,” she assured her and then turned and faced the group. “I don’t want any of you here.”
“Trust me,” Pam chimed in with a cackle, giving Elle the eyeball. “If you’re worried about any of us comin’ on to your man, you can relax your crack. Ain’t nobody wants a piece of that evil ass. He’s all yours.”
Breathing in through my nose and blowing it slowly out through my lips, I reminded myself that it would be inappropriate to zap an Angel no matter how obnoxious she was.
“Pam,” I said, grinding my teeth. “While that was colorful, it was crude.”
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