Lucifer inhaled a half of a breath. His arms opened wide of their own accord.
The stone floor vibrated with each pound her bare feet made against it. Flames crackled loudly around the room.
His heart was a battering ram, slowly smashing his defenses to splinters. Thump…thump…thump.
“Lucifer!” she screeched.
Annnnd just like two atoms colliding in space, the boom of Lucifer’s heart clapped with the roaring in his chest, and the rest of the world caught up to speed– Thump-thump, thump-thump.
Eve slammed into Lucifer so hard, he stumbled back, crashing into the table as he caught her. Thumpthumpthumpthump! Heart pounding, world spinning, he couldn’t feel anything but her. THUMPTHUMPTHUMP! Eve’s wings curled around his body and she gripped his face and squeezed. Tears turned her eyes bright and glassy.
“I can’t believe this!” she scream-cried. “It’s a fucking miracle!”
He couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t swallow.
Couldn’t speak.
Reduced to total silence, Lucifer fought to gain control of his speech. Eve smashed her mouth to his and the incessant ringing in his ears grew louder. When Eve pulled back, he still couldn’t process what happened.
Eve wasted no time explaining - she spun around and ran into Uriel’s arms next.
Lucifer looked over at Gabriel. He wore a similar shocked expression as the Devil. Then Lucifer looked over at Constantine and saw he looked worried.
“Holy shit!” Uriel grabbed Eve by the ass and lifted her in his arms, spinning her in circles. “It’s about fucking time you got down here!”
Eve’s laughter rang out and rattled Lucifer’s heart and head back into action. He blinked twice. Shook his head. Looked around the room again.
Eve was still there.
This wasn’t a dream. It was real.
“So,” Uriel said, putting Eve down on the ground again. “What was it you all were saying about those precautions and barriers staying strong? Because either this is a true miracle,” Uriel kissed Eve’s shoulder, “Or Hell’s perfectly constructed spells have crashed, just like Heaven’s.”
Well fuck.
Chapter 27
Gabriel needed to get out of Hell. Right. Now. He couldn’t be locked down here with this much happening and no control over it. “Come on,” he grabbed Constantine by the shoulder and man-handled his brother out into the hallway.
“Where are you two going?” Uriel called out.
“To get those goddamn books about the red sky,” or whatever the fuck they needed to get in order to piece this madness together and defeat Michael.
Gabriel couldn’t help the paranoia trying to shackle and gag his heart. He couldn’t afford to lose what little of it he had left. And seeing Lucifer’s face just now? Feeling what the Devil felt when he saw Eve in Hell?
Fuck that. Gabriel couldn’t do it.
It was too much too soon. Everything felt wrong and right and fucked up.
Had Eve lied? How was it possible after all this time she was now able make it into Hell? Gabriel had seen her body slam divine barriers before. He knew she couldn’t crossover in earlier years. But maybe she found the secret long ago and kept it until now. Making a grand entrance would totally be something she’d do.
Holy Divinity, the look on Lucifer’s face when she came racing into the throne room like that.
She held too much sway over the Devil to make him revert to a speechless ball of erratic heartbeats and heatwaves. Uriel was no better. Like he’d been waiting this whole time to see her walk through those doors, Uriel didn’t seem shocked to see her. He was impressed and relieved. And Eve hadn’t walked, she ran through the doors of Hell. Full-throttle, wings out, barefoot and dripping in the heady scent of sex.
“Are you doing this to avoid her?” Constantine said once they made it to the portal doors.
“I’m not avoiding her,” Gabriel growled. “And by the smell of you, you haven’t been avoiding her either.”
“Jealous?”
Yes. “No.”
“Come on,” Constantine led the way and the portal dumped them out into a cabin that looked a lot like one Gabriel had in Switzerland. But this wasn’t Switzerland. It felt different.
“Where are we?” He thought he knew every home Constantine had, but he’d never been to this one before.
“Tucked away, is all.” Constantine turned on a few lights and moved around in a rush, grabbing a bag and stuffing it with various notebooks and hardbacks and whatever else he deemed worthy to snatch up.
The sight reminded Gabriel of the time he, Uriel, and Constantine escaped the brotherhood. Con grabbed a satchel and stuffed it then too.
“History’s repeating itself,” he said quietly.
“It’ll do that if you let it.” Con flipped through pages of a leather-bound book and put it back on a shelf.
“Do you remember anything about the Rapture?”
“No. Second comings are common, Gabe. Lots of folks get second chances to return to the living in one form or another.”
“Fuck me,” Gabe plopped down on a sofa that had definitely seen better days. The whole thing groaned with his weight and dust puffed up from the cushions. “I can’t believe we’re right back where we started.”
“And we’re about to do it all over again.”
“You know what they say about doing things over and over expecting a different result.”
“Come on, brother,” Constantine clicked his lights off and plunged them into darkness. “We’re not going to fuck it up this time.”
“Do you know what the ending of this is?” Surely Laz might have slipped and said something to him once. Maybe? Ugh, Gabriel was getting way too goddamn hopeful right now.
Constantine shook his head, “I only know what the ending isn’t going to be.”
“We can’t kill him,” he argued. “How are we supposed to kill an unkillable Angel?”
“I don’t know,” Constantine said in the pitch black.
They stood in silence for several seconds. It felt like years. “She’s in Hell,” Gabriel needed to grasp it better before he returned.
“Make amends with her,” Constantine said. “It’ll help us all.”
“I don’t need to make amends with her. I don’t need her.”
“Yeah you fucking do.”
“I barely know her!” Gabriel yelled.
Constantine flicked a light back on and glared. “You know her. You’ve known her since the minute you saw her. Your soul knew her the minute it felt her. Are you going to lie to my fucking face and say that’s not the truth?”
Gabe blew out a long breath. “How can I have let one woman rattle me so much I turned on my brotherhood? How can I have let one woman sear my mind with thoughts of her that are so bright, I can’t even look at another woman? How can I have let one goddamn female of our race own every single part of me? After all this time, after everything we’ve…” fuck, he couldn’t even continue talking about it. Swiping a hand over his mouth, he tried to reel in his chaotic thoughts.
It didn’t work.
“You know why she’s able to do all that to you? Because she’s the one. She was meant to do those things to you. To all of us.”
That didn’t make him feel better.
“Look, Gabriel. I know it’s fucking crazy, but take a step back and see the bigger picture. Look at Lucifer’s Hounds, for instance. Sara knew, the second she laid eyes on each of her Hounds, that they were meant to be part of her pack.”
“How do you know that?”
“I fucking asked her!”
Constantine had talk to Sara about personal shit like that, when he’d barely said anything personal to one of his own brothers in God knows how long? “Bullshit.”
“You’re not the only one with reservations here, Gabe. Eve’s fucked my head up too.” He laughed, “I see her – in my mind, in the world around me, in the souls – everything reminds me of Eve. From the cardinals at the bird fee
der, to the force of the ocean’s waves, to the smell of a tulip field, and even the goddamn salt on my fucking French fries. Everything pulls my thoughts to her. And I’ve ached. I’ve suffered. I’ve missed her so much it hurts to draw breath. And now? Now I can have her. We can have her. So, if history’s repeating itself, I’m glad it started over in this spot - where Eve came to us, willing to be locked in a cage with the world’s most dangerous Angel.”
“Lucifer is—”
Constantine jabbed his chest, “I am the dangerous Angel.” He started walking over to the door that lead back to Hell. “Being frozen for so long, cut off from you all as much as possible so I didn’t have to bear your pain too, it’s made me different Gabriel. And I am dangerous. Everything I’ve ever wanted is in Hell right now. And there is literally nothing I won’t do to keep it.” His laugh was cold, “A soulless man has nothing to lose, and everything to gain. Lucifer used to say that, remember?”
Gabriel swallowed the lump in his throat and nodded. He’d never seen Constantine so intense before. Not even back in the brotherhood days.
Constantine’s face contorted into an awful sneer. “Well I’m not soulless, I’m fucking numb. And that, brother, somehow feels worse.” Con lifted his hands, palms-side-up, “I’m like a plastic bag in a windstorm, thrashing and jerking and whipping all over the place. But that plastic bag can’t feel a fucking thing because it’s not alive. I’m not alive anymore. I’ve died slowly with every year that’s passed and we’ve all been apart. I’ve iced out my brothers, lived like a hermit, and cut my heart out and shoved it in a fucking box so I didn’t have to feel it beat. In the beginning, I couldn’t stand Hell because it’s too hot and I didn’t want to feel it. I never visited you in the mountains because I hated the snow and how cold my wings would get, and I didn’t want to fucking feel it. I can’t stand seeing Uriel on the beaches because I’ll be damned if I wanted to feel the salty spray of the waves on my wings. There’s been no joy for me. No life. No pack. No Eve. No nothing.”
“Same for all of us.”
“And that’s my point. I lost myself. But you? You still have hope. So does Uri and Lucifer.”
“You’re not a lost cause, Con.”
He pounded his chest and snarled, “I just fucked her. Fucked her to the point I had her screaming all our goddamn names. And do you know what I felt?”
Gabriel’s jaw clenched. He shook his head, barely able to keep his eyes locked on Constantine.
“I. Felt. Nothing.”
Constantine turned, grabbed the doorknob, and slung it open. “I’m desperate, Gabriel. I need to feel again. Need to be alive again. I’ve been lost for so long; I don’t know which end is up anymore. Eve breaking the barriers and coming into Hell just now? That’s not a coincidence. Her coming into our lives back at the brotherhood? That wasn’t a coincidence either. And that she has the power to carve her name upon our souls so deeply we’ve each carried torches for her after all this time? That is also not a coincidence, brother. These things don’t just happen. Either we’re being played and someone much larger than us is pushing our pieces across the board, or fate is giving us a second chance to set things right again with our pack before the world ends. I don’t give a fuck which it is so long as when the universe goes up in flames, I feel the burn too.”
He marched away and left Gabriel in the dark cabin, alone.
Michael played with Lilith’s wavy dark hair. She’d gained significant weight since she was his servant in the Brotherhood of Angels. All the more to play with, he thought. His dick stirred looking at her thick thighs and hips. She filled her gown out beautifully. The pinched sleeves and low neckline, the silky fabric of her gown crossed and flowed across her tits and ribs before falling to the floor like a waterfall of white. Lilith looked very much like a Grecian Goddess.
He wanted to fuck her mouth, her cunt, her ass, and tits. But with the hate pulsing from her gaze, he didn’t think she’d enjoy it all that much. Believe it or not, he wanted those he fucked to actually get a little something out of it too. He was gracious like that.
“Keep swallowing or you’ll choke.”
Lilith convulsed, trying to fight the tube shoved into her throat. While a malanum poured magic down the funnel, Michael held her head still against his stomach and continued to stroke her hair. “Shhhhh, swallow it, Lilith. It’ll go so much easier if you obey me.”
She jerked furiously, her dress tearing as her heel hooked it when she kicked.
“Fighting is futile,” he purred. “It was always going to be this way. Embrace it, Lilith.”
Her hands were strapped to the arms of the chair he’d tied her in. Once they buried Sari, Michael had convinced her to walk with him. He consoled her. Cried with her. And when the timing was perfect, he struck.
“Come on, Lilith,” Michael cupped her chin, tipping her neck all the way back so the tube didn’t bend or slice her esophagus. “I’m trying to do this the kind way. I could always use other more effective methods if you don’t play nice with me.”
Tears slid down her cheeks in a steady stream of resentment and fear. Her fingers flexed. She was unable to move past the wrist restraints. Her nails were painted a blush pink. The small detail made her endearing somehow.
He loved the dirt under them. Loved that she’d hacked that Angel into pieces. The woman was merciless. She was also incredibly headstrong.
“Stop. Fighting. It.”
Her eyes bulged and turned bloodshot once the malanum dumped the next layer of magic down her throat. She pissed herself - the drip, drip, drip of her urine hit the floor and the scent wafted into the air. Michael pushed a little bit of his energy into her as a small mercy. Like it or not, he had feelings for her and hated how much she was trying to fight back. If she would just fucking cooperate, he wouldn’t be forced to be so cruel to her. Lilith’s pain and humiliation were entirely her fault.
“Easy,” he said in her ear, his hand fanning around her throat to keep it tilted. “Just accept this and it’ll get better.”
Her heel dug into the floor again, her toes curling as she whimpered around the tube in her mouth. Drool dripped down her chin.
“It’s okay,” he cooed. “You’re going to be okay.”
Her skin heated. The colors of her irises swirled. Blood vessels popped around her eye sockets and along her temples. The veins in her neck protruded, her tendons sticking out as she strained. The magic took over from there.
Her eyes locked on his for a heartbeat and he smiled down on her. Swiping the hair from her face he kissed her forehead, “That’s it. Good girl.” She exhaled through her nose, her eyes glazed over and she slumped in the chair.
“Get out of here,” Michael ordered the malanum. Once alone with Lilith, Michael unshackled her from the chair and cradled her against him. “Why couldn’t you have listened?”
Soon, Lilith would be as submissive as she was when she’d first come to him in the Brotherhood of Angels. He couldn’t tell if he was excited or disappointed about that.
Michael pulled the tube out of Lilith’s throat and scooped her into his arms. Cradling her, he carried her over to a bathtub filled with warm water. Placing Lilith gently on the side of the tub, he slipped her gown off and admired the view. “In we go,” he said quietly and lowered Lilith into the water. She whimpered once submerged. Her hair pooled around her and steam rose from her body.
She whimpered again, her glassy gaze trying so hard to find something to latch onto.
“Trust me, Lilith,” Michael poured herbs into the water. “When this is over, you won’t remember a thing.”
Chapter 28
Lucifer slammed his fist on the table and called the meeting to order. Every Hell Hound was in attendance. He asked Eve to wait in his bedchamber – for no reason other than to get her out of his sight so he could focus.
Her being in Hell, wrecking his defenses in a miserable way, wasn’t going to help him be the Devil he needed to be right now.
“Si
t the fuck down,” he ordered the room.
Planting his ass in the chair at the head of the massive table, he looked around at his men… and women. His mouth curled into a wry smile. Pride swelled in his chest. The Devil called and his Hell Hounds came within minutes, dressed for battle and ready to kill.
Even his Darling Sara was ready. Dressed in leathers so quickly after having a baby made her look vibrant and frightening – perfect if you asked him. But the baby in the cradle, positioned between her and Tanner, was a terrible reminder of what was at stake.
“We have a lot to cover and no time to spare,” Lucifer looked over at Sara and dipped his head, “We have a new Hound with us today.”
Sara bent down and picked up the little bundle wrapped in a grey shirt. “Meet Evelyn Lyric Morningstar,” she said.
Lucifer’s heart dropped. He didn’t know they’d named her… and he would have never expected that name.
“Morningstar,” Brock grinned, “Nice one.”
Sara kissed Evelyn’s head before passing her over to Brock to hold first, “Thought she’d do the name justice.”
“Of that we have no doubt,” the Devil smiled. Holy fuck, Morningstar? Really? He wanted to groan and applaud at the same time. He did neither.
“Her eyes,” Brock’s features softened. “They’re gorgeous.”
“She’s part Divine,” Lucifer explained. “She’s the first full-blooded Hell Hound in existence.”
Brock kissed her head and passed Evelyn to the next Hound. The baby made her way around the room filled with the world’s most viscous protectors and finally back into Sara’s arms. She sat down and cradled the child, giving Satan back the floor.
“We’ve reason to believe there’s been a breach in our barriers,” Lucifer announced. “We have cells filled with innocent souls who dropped to me instead of Heaven.”
“And more just dropped,” Reggie said from the doorway.
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