by Dahlia Lu
She nodded. “To start with, yes.”
He dematerialized and then came back half a minute later. “Unfortunately my temples have gone to rubble in my absence. That means I need to find another place to dwell.”
“Temples?” She lifted a brow in curiosity.
“I am a god. Naturally, I have temples…had temples. How else would people worship me?”
“A god…?”
“Are all mortals so slow witted? Must you repeat everything I say?”
“No, but, why would Lucifer trapped a god in the earth for…a long time?”
“That, I don’t remember. It will also come back, in time.”
“If that is the case, then why don’t you come to my home? I think it’s big enough for the three of us.” She nodded invitingly. “I have a roommate who is into the paranormal; perhaps a touch too much for her own good. Her favorite movie is Little Nicky. She would love to meet you. Who am I kidding? She would throw herself at you.”
“Do you not fear me, mortal?”
She casually shrugged. “For about fifteen minutes, but then I remembered that I grew up surrounded by demons inside a floating castle in Hell. I even met a vampire once.”
“What is a ‘vampire’?”
“You’re really that old, huh? Well, they’re creatures of the night that survive by drinking blood. Anyway, back to my story. He captured me and then I demanded to be fed and he looked at me like I was crazy. He asked me the same question ‘do you not fear me, mortal?’ and I said no to his face. I told him even humans fattened cattle before they are slaughtered and asked him wouldn’t he want to increase the quality of the blood he’s about to drink. He got me some Wendy’s and then his friends came, so we played poker until dawn. Then he left. I wondered if he had forgotten about feeding.”
“I have no idea what you just said. Stop mumbling nonchalantly and show me where you dwell. I wouldn’t want you to die before I have the chance to lure Lucifer out.”
“Very well….” She scanned the surrounding area. “I have no idea where we are.”
“You are completely useless,” he muttered.
Her eyes hooded. “Ouch at the verbal abuse.”
He turned to her and she could almost see the thoughts forming in his eyes. His hand reached out to her neck and lifted her up to her feet. She panicked, her fingernails clawed at his forearm so that he would release her. “If I die…Lucifer…”
He understood. He abruptly dropped her to the ground.
She wrapped her hands around her throat, coughing violently on the ground. He knelt by her side and stared her in the eyes. When she looked away, he yanked her chin up, forcing her to look at him.
“Where is Lucifer?”
“He slumbers!” She screamed at him. “You psycho…!”
“I am asking you where, mortal!” He growled. “Where is his burial ground?”
“How the hell should I know?”
His blue eyes glowed fiercely. He grabbed her by the shoulder and dragged her toward the waterhole. He dipped her head underwater, pinning her into place. She fought him fiercely, but her efforts were in vain. The more she struggled, the more water she was forced to swallow. He lifted her above the surface. She gasped for air.
“Bastard,” she cursed him between each breath.
“Where is his burial site?”
“I told you…” She gasped for a deep breath of air. “I don’t know!”
He shoved her head back into the water, this time, holding out much longer. By the time he yanked her back up again, she was gasping for dear life. She coughed, trying to expel all of the water that had gotten into her lungs.
“Where is his burial site?” He rasped impatiently. “I won’t kill you, but I can always torture you.”
Amara glared at him. She needed to use his mentality against him. “I am only a lowly mortal. What makes you think Lucifer would reveal something that important to me?”
He slowly loosened his grip on her shoulder. The glow in his eyes quickly faded. She kept a steady glare on him long after he had released her.
Chapter Two
The mortal was glaring at him with her large, grey-blue eyes. Her youthful, dark brows drew together, displaying contempt. He turned away from her, but he could still feel her angry glare on his back. It was distracting him from his thoughts. The roadmap he had just drew in his head jumbled together.
With great irritation, he said, “Close your eyes or I’ll gouge them out!”
She closed her eyes immediately. “I’ll glare at you through my eyelids then.”
“You are interrupting my thoughts. Wouldn’t you want to see your Lucifer sooner?”
“Well…I have always been curious about meeting him.”
His eyes narrowed. “What does that mean?”
She gulped and quickly replied, “I mean… I miss him so much… and I can’t wait to reunite with him again.”
“If you want to see him again soon then help me think of a way to lure him out of his slumber.”
“You have been locked away for a long time. I thought you would have a good idea of how to seek your revenge.”
He raised his head and inhaled a deep breath for patience. “The only thing I was thinking about while being trapped was ways to torture him. I am still a wee bit disturbed by the taking of a mortal for a bride thing.”
He slowly lurched toward her and examined her body with his eyes. What did Lucifer saw in this short, frail, and insolent girl? Her only redeeming features were those enthralling grey-blue eyes and silken black hair, which cascaded over her back with a hypnotic, midnight sheen.
Average… Ordinary…
“I’m wet and I’m cold and I’m so close to dying,” she whined.
“Don’t lie to me mortal. That is not enough to kill you.”
“How would you know? Mortals can even die from a cold. Well, I’m mortal.”
He had seen mortals die from scrapes. Just one more reason to look down upon them...
He seized her by the shoulder and teleported them both to shelter.
“This is not bad for a first try,” he mused, looking around the enormous room opening up to the third floor. “Spacious.”
Their sudden appearance earned a few surprised screams, as expected from these mortals. They were afraid of their own shadows. He froze the area, before anyone could get away. He walked over to one of them; a middle-age man dressed in penguin-like clothing.
“Who is the owner of this place?” he asked.
The man’s frightened eyes followed Noctis as he circled. The man replied in a stutter, “M…Mr. H…Harrington, the one… s…sitting on the couch!”
Noctis leapt toward the fat man half-sitting, half-standing man, frozen as he was about to spring out of his seat. “Are you Mr. Harrington?” Noctis asked very softly.
The man replied in a shaking voice, “Yes…”
Noctis grappled the man’s throat and snapped his neck in one quick motion. The man dropped onto the ground like a sack of laundry. Blood dripped from his opened mouth onto the carpet.
“I own this place now. Is that understood?” He asked as he looked around at everyone in the room. “Clean this up.”
The mortal girl screamed and scuttled back. “You killed him!”
Noctis rolled his eyes. “Pointing out the obvious again?”
He grabbed her hand and teleported her to the floor above. He quickly examined each room and then shoved her into the largest one. “Is this comfortable enough for you? Change out of those wet clothes.”
Her widened eyes stared back at him in fright. They were fixed on his hand. He groaned in disgust when he saw the blood.
That pig got his blood on me!
“How filthy…!” He growled angrily. “Now, I need to bathe.”
“You just murdered a man!”
> He inhaled a deep breath of air. “Yes, I did. We’ve established that. Now get out of those wet clothes.”
“You murderer…!”
“Your mind can’t even wrap around something so trivial.” He grasped her arm hauled her into the room. “You act as if humans don’t ‘murder’ each other. Are you going to get out of those wet clothes yourself or do you want me to strip you?”
Her arms flew to her chest. “I’ll do it!”
“Good.” He walked through another door and found a small room. “What is this place?”
“Um…it’s a bathroom…?” Her teeth were chattering from the wet clothes.
“What are all of these contraptions?”
She stared at him in disbelief. She joined him in the ‘bathroom’.
“That’s the tub, where you bathe.” She reached for the silver handles. “These are the faucets. You turn it for the water to come out. This one is hot and this one is cold.”
Fascinating...
She walked into the glass box and turned on the other faucet. Water cascaded inside the box. “This is called a shower. Same concept...”
She backed against the wall when he joined her. “What…what are you doing?”
“What does it look like I am doing? Stop asking questions you already know the answer to. It’s very annoying.” He reached for the faucets and turned them both. He adjusted the water a little warmer. He pulled her toward him. “Warmer?”
She nodded.
The warm water soothed away the bumps on her skin.
“I’m in a shower with a naked man,” she mumbled to herself, disbelieving.
“God,” he corrected her. “You’re in the shower with a naked god.”
“That makes everything all better.” Sarcasm was drifting from her voice. “Not just any god, but a volatile, half-mad, killer god. I am so lucky.”
“I won’t release you just because you flatter me.”
He unconsciously inhaled her scent.
Sweet like jasmine nectar…
She mumbled a curse, and then she flinched.
“Noctis… this is a little embarrassing, but…your male anatomy is bothering me.”
He knew what she was referring to.
“I’ve been cooped up for a long time, so you can understand how even a lowly creature like you can entice a very desperate god. Do not worry your little head. My body may react, but my mind does not agree by any means.”
She slowly shook her head as she blinked. “Still…very awkward…”
Her breath hitched when his hands cupped her breasts. “You said!”
“It’s the body, not the mind.”
Completely involuntary…
She elbowed him with all of her strength and he didn’t even budge an inch. She jabbed him a few more times, before turning around to face him. She shoved him back, but she was the only one moving. Her back hit the wall. His hand was swift to guard her head before it hit the tiled wall.
Her eyes stared back at him, wildly frightened.
“Fine, I won’t touch you.” Not even if you beg, mortal.
He withdrew his hand and turned around to exit the shower. He grabbed the neatly folded white bath towel on the sink and headed out the door. He could hear her exhaling in relief.
Not even if you beg…
Amara looked up from her plate, noticing that Noctis had been staring at her with revulsion as he watched her eat the meal prepared by the terrified captives. He slightly grinded his teeth as though he was imagining eating the food himself. There were blue and red lights whirling through the windows. More police sirens were heading their way and the only thing he seemed to be concerned with was with her consumption of food.
“How am I going to be able to sleep tonight with those loud sirens and a man trying to negotiate through a speaker?”
“Try,” he said simply.
“What if they break in and raid the place?”
He lifted a brow. “They can try to break through my barrier. They won’t succeed, of that I am certain.”
“Can you also block out the noise?”
He got up from his seat and headed out the window. “I have a better idea.” He stared out of the window with his intense blue eyes. She saw them briefly flicker. When the lights ceased to shift between red and blue, he calmly returned to his seat at the dining table.
Curiously, she ran for the window. Everything stood frozen, even the cars on the road. “How did you do that?” She asked curiously.
He slightly lifted a hand. “Child’s play...”
Like that was an explanation. She turned away from the window. “I am curious. If you were locked away long ago, then how do you understand the language of this time?”
He sighed impatiently. “When I stormed the castle, none of the demons were old enough to understand my language. I had to invade their minds and take whatever I needed.”
“Do you… know everything they know?”
“An immortal’s mind is not a place one should linger for long. There is simply too much information to sort through. I needed to learn the language, and that was all that I took. Complicated language. It gave me a brutal headache.”
“Get what you need and get out as quick as you can.”
“Exactly...”
“So, this is a touchy subject, but what do you have planned for me?”
Silence...
His eyes focused inward, contemplating.
“Well?”
He returned his gaze to her. “Who could Lucifer entrust the secret location of his burial to?”
She guarded her neck when he got that crazy look in his eyes again. “I don’t know,” she lied. She knew for certain that Trent was entrusted with the secret, but there was no point getting him involved in this mess.
“Do you even know anything?” He asked, his voice condescending.
“Nope, I know nothing at all.”
He slowly shook his head in disapproval. “I wouldn’t wish you upon my worst enemy. Not even Lucifer deserves this kind of… torment of the mind.”
She hooded her eyes. “You wouldn’t, eh?”
“I’m beginning to pity him and I don’t even know the meaning of the word.”
“He happens to be very happy with his bride!” She argued.
He sputtered. “He’s happiest when he is trampling over his enemies. I would know. I had a view of his nostril, but only because he deceived me. Cunning, I give him that.”
“Of course, I don’t expect you to understand love.”
“I’m above that.”
“No doubt…”
“Why am I having a conversation with an insect anyways?”
If he treated her mother this way, she would have clobbered that handsome face of his. “This insect happens to be the wife of your arch nemesis. I deserve some respect!”
“You deserve nothing.”
She heaved a deep breath to calm herself, but the technique failed. She could feel the anger on her rigid fingers. “I have had enough of your condescending attitude you…you…second-rated god, forgotten by the rest of the world!”
He slammed his fists on the dining table, splitting it and the floor beneath it. He lunged toward her, grasped her by the neck and pressed her tightly against the glass window. She feared it would shatter and scar her face.
“I am very tempted to sever your head from your neck. All it takes is a wee more effort on my part.” He released her and she sank onto the ground, coughing and gasping for air.
“Inferior deity…!” She spat.
“You…!” He stopped his hand an inch from her neck. She challengingly stared him in the eyes, noting the tightened jaw line. He inhaled sharply for patience and slowly withdrew his hand.
“Psycho…!”
He straightened his
shoulders. “I will take great pleasure in killing you in front of Lucifer. I can barely contain the excitement of just thinking about it.” He grinned. “Now I have more motivation to keep you alive. You should eat some more. Do you need me to fluff your pillows for you?”
He’s insane!
“Not completely.”
She frowned. “Are you reading my mind?”
“No, you said that aloud. I wouldn’t dream of invading your tiny little world. I have a feeling I won’t find much there.”
“Oh…” She had an overwhelming urge to throttle him, but came up with a better idea. “So, you think mortals are disgusting?”
“Repulsive.”
“Really…?”
He nodded.
She got up to her feet and curled her finger toward herself to call him over. “I have something interesting you might want to hear.”
He leaned toward her.
“Closer,” she whispered.
He did.
When he got close enough, she grabbed him by the crisp white shirt’s collar he had ‘borrowed’ from the dead man’s closet and aimed for his lips.
He looked aghast.
The expression on his face was priceless! Was it worth her first kiss?
Hell yeah!
Thrilled, she giggled. “You just kissed a repulsive mortal.”
He stared at her blankly.
“You’re…supposed to get angry now, your eminence.”
She waved her hand in front of him for a reaction, any reaction, but he was frozen like a statue.
Finally, he rose.
He lifted a hand and she flinched back. She feared he would strike her, but he brought it to his temple instead. He looked deeply confused. He briefly glanced at her, and then dematerialized.
She brought her hands to her lips. The tingling feeling still lingered. It seemed like a good idea at the moment, but now, not so much.
“What did I just do?”
The seed had finally taken roots.
He could see the grand picture clearly in his mind and knew what he needed to do. All of the puzzle pieces began to fall into place. His thoughts were unfurling, straightening, and systematically organizing into coherent strings. He was finally beginning to feel like his old self again. All thanks to the mortal’s kiss.