It’s time to let go of the hate.
All this time, Eve could never shake the anger she felt when that arrow pierced her neck. To know the battle began when she finally confessed her sin - her purpose - was the single most devastating truth Eve was forced to live with every day of her pathetic life. If she could go back to that moment, she’d have—
“I’m not sorry,” Eve blurted. Clearing her throat, she turned around to face her mates. “I’m not sorry for giving that child a soul. I’m proud of what I did.”
What a terrible truth to admit. All of this mess was because of her. Michael’s obsession to wipe the world clean. The fall of the Brotherhood. Lucifer ruling Hell. Fuck, maybe even the concept of good and evil was her fault too. It was hard to gauge how deep her responsibility really went with the fate and state of the world. But her mates losing the brotherhood and then being forced to lose her too? Yeah, she was responsible for a good portion of all that. Even if it couldn’t be helped.
Lucifer’s purpose and Uriel’s were designed around souls existing. Gabriel used his cursing gift for good – even if that good felt awful to his conscience. And Constantine? She glanced over at her mate and he felt like he was a thousand miles away even though he was only five feet from her. That distance between them was because of her, too. She’d pushed him away and now he was used to keeping his distance from her.
No more.
Eve cupped his face in her hands and kissed him with all the love she’d denied him for centuries. When Eve pulled away, she hoped to see passion in his gaze.
It wasn’t there.
Biting her lip, Eve vowed to do everything in her power to erase that hollowness in Constantine’s eyes and replace it with Hellfire.
Anam bumped her leg and wagged his tail.
Eve’s cup runneth over.
“There is a reason for everything.” Her gaze sailed around the room. “Where’s that needle? The one to carve the marks?”
Gabriel grabbed it from a small table and walked over to her. His eyes were pleading for forgiveness. “We didn’t mean for this to happen,” his voice cracked in the middle.
“Neither did I,” she confessed. “But I’m glad it did.” She wasn’t talking about her stupid wings, either. Leaning into Gabriel’s body, she kissed him slowly. Taking her time and savoring the softness of his lips, the velvet of his tongue, Eve gave Gabriel something she never had before: Gentleness.
That Angel craved it. They both did, she supposed. A shudder ran through her when Gabriel grazed his arrow on her rib with the back of his hand.
“Forgive us,” he whispered against her lips.
“There is nothing to forgive.” Eve meant it and hoped like hell Gabriel knew that. “I’ve never truly hated you,” she confessed. That was a lie she told herself so often, it almost felt like the truth. But no more. Never again. “I know you never really hated me, either. We only hated ourselves.”
Grabbing the tool from him, she took her time and made her way over to Lucifer. She didn’t know if he was incapable of speech right now or if he was just staying quiet on purpose.
“On your knees, Satan.”
He dropped immediately.
Handing him the tool, she kissed him and pushed every bit of love she could muster into it. “Mark me,” she commanded.
“I did,” his voice was deep and laden with guilt. “I’ve destroyed you.”
Eve’s eyebrow arched, “Do I look destroyed?” With her arms stretched, fresh ink on display, naked and pumped with enough juice to set the world on fire, Eve spun in a slow circle for them to all take a good goddamn look. “I told you, you can’t break me.”
“He snapped your wings off like you were a fucking fly,” Gabriel argued.
Eve blew out an angry exhale and snatched the dagger she used earlier on herself. Without a word, she stabbed her thigh and the blade struck her skin, then bounced right off.
“I choose,” she deadpanned Gabriel. “And then I choose again,” she stabbed her thigh a second time and the blade sank into her flesh. The pain was sharp, and though she was expecting it, that didn’t stop the bile from rising up her throat. Grunting, she yanked the dagger out of her leg and knelt on the floor.
The Devil’s black flames curled around her thigh and healed her immediately when he wrapped his hand over the stab wound. She stared at him and smiled. Lucifer looked like himself again. A good portion of his original coloring was back – how that was possible, she didn’t understand. But some of his darkness had receded, which was a good sign.
“You did nothing to me that I didn’t want done, Lucy.” She tipped her head in the direction of her discarded wings. “They slowed me down. I haven’t been able to fly with them since I became trapped in the human world. They were dead weight.”
“Will they grow back?” Constantine asked. He was there when she’d lost her wings before, back in a desert after volunteering to be a sacrifice. Her wings reappeared within a week of being severed.
“I hope not,” she confessed. “I don’t want or need them to do my part to protect this world.” Her gaze fell back on Lucifer, who was still on his knees holding the carving tool. “Devils were not meant to fly, remember?”
Lucifer exhaled a shaky breath and tried to control the emotions fighting their way to his voice. To see the most powerful Angel in the world so stricken by the heart wasn’t pretty.
It was glorious.
Eve cupped his face, “The claw marks stay. If they disappear, you will give them to me again. Your beast is part of who you are. That untamable, glorious animal is what brought us together in the first place back in the Brotherhood of Angels. You owe that piece of yourself a voice too, even if it cannot speak our language. If the claw marks heal and disappear, you will remake them. But for right now, put your mark on me, Lucy. Wherever you want it to be.”
She waited for him to make a decision.
He chose perfectly.
Chapter 33
Lucifer finished carving his mark on Eve’s body and rose to his feet. Cradling the back of her head, he leaned in and kissed her with everything he had left. She gave it right back too – all that fire and dominance and territorial aggression. They all but slammed into each other and he grabbed her ass and picked her up, then bit her bottom lip and pulled it back as a tease.
“She’s mine,” he declared and carried her off to his bathing chamber.
His brothers didn’t protest. If they tried, he might have knocked them all on their asses.
Their bonding ceremony wasn’t fucking over yet. Not as far as Lucifer was concerned. His beast took over the show earlier and Lucifer still wanted his Angelic side to have a turn.
“Share, Lucifer,” Eve teased while squeezing her thighs tighter around him.
“Later.” He carried her off and slammed the door shut once they were in his bathroom.
Eve’s body was completely healed. Thank. Constantine.
While in beast-mode, he knew he’d been rough with her. He also knew she wanted it rough from him. Coaxing his animal nature like a motherfucking pied piper, she lured the beast right out and encouraged it to ravish her body over and over.
The beast in him made up for lost time. His Angelic side was no better.
“I feel like no time has passed since we were in Paradise,” he carried her into his shower and willed the water on.
“I know,” her teeth grazed his earlobe.
Why was all this falling into place so easy? And so fast?
Lucifer refused to give Doubt a seat at his table. He didn’t spare a glance at Insecurity or Suspicion either. Those demons in his head could stay the fuck away for a night. He needed this.
Badly.
The entire time he ravished her body, giving and taking energy, Lucifer could feel the darkness in him ebbing. It hadn’t vanished entirely, but it was much lighter now. Lucifer no longer felt the need to shred the world. He could look around without a red haze tainting every fucking thing. His tremors were gone…
for now, at least. He wondered if it was because Eve was a Purity Angel or if it was because she was the love of his life.
They stood under the shower spray together. For the first time since their reunion, Lucifer could see her without a filter. Her aura was vividly bright in a sparkle of rainbow colors. Her lithe body felt good in his arms. She had just enough meat on her to make his mouth water. Eve was strong. Confident.
And looked absolutely exhausted.
The aggressive side of him moved over and made room for his protective side to step in. “Lean back,” he wrapped his arm around her lower back and kept her balanced as she bent backwards and let the water wash over her.
His mark on her body was identical to the one he had. Four vertical slash marks with a fifth driving through each of them horizontally, holding them together. His was on his pec, directly over his heart. Eve’s was just below her waist. He loved that they wore matching marks. Loved how she smiled down on him when he carved it.
He loved every goddamn motherfucking thing about her.
Later, they needed to take turns branding each other, but marking Eve was most important right now. According to what Lazarus told Uriel earlier, binding Eve to them was first priority.
Lucifer captured one of her pebbled nipples in his mouth and bit it gently. Mother of Christ, he’d missed this. Missed her. Missed them all together.
While Eve ran her fingers through her soaked hair, the shower smelled like a floral garden. He’d forgotten how lovely flowers smelled. The Devil rarely kept any in Hell and when he did, they were never as fragrant as his Eve.
Grabbing soap, he worked up a good lather and memorized every inch of her sweet body while he washed her. She moved so comfortably - lifting her arms, turning her head, spreading her legs so he could reach every bit of her. He loved how Eve used him to keep her balance when he washed her feet and between her toes.
For a moment, he felt like he had a piece of his long-lost self in the shower with him. For another minute, he felt like he had a complete stranger in there with him too.
Eve had changed so much. Her colors, her confidence, her cold exterior. Yet, he could feel her burning inside with a passion of a thousand suns and the familiarity of her presence was undeniably comforting. She was a soulmate and a stranger…
Stepping back, Eve stared at him. The pulse in her neck beat wildly. “What are you thinking?”
“How I know you and don’t know you.”
“I remember that feeling,” Eve turned around and he stared at her back. The claw marks hadn’t faded and he wasn’t sure how he felt about that. Holy Hell, he must have cut her to the bone. A shudder rippled down his spine as his beast allowed him to see the memory of what just happened…
Lucifer fucked Eve up the bed until her body was flush against the headboard. If he had his way, he’d make her climb the walls and along the ceiling.
She clung to the iron chains and screamed for him to fuck her harder, harder, harder! Her wings flapped with her commands and it pissed him off. Those big wings covered too much of her sweet body and he wanted to see it all. Feel it all. Lick, kiss, and come all over her.
His balls tightened for the third time. He was going to fill Eve with enough pleasure to make her buck that luscious ass of hers against him. Her inner walls quivered. His dick swelled. Eve’s wings flapped wildly and they both got frustrated.
“Rip them!” she hollered. “Fucking do it!” She smacked him in the face with her feathers and it pissed him off. His protective side said Don’t do it. It’ll hurt her. The animal in him didn’t have the same concerns. It wanted to see her wingless and at its mercy.
“NO!” A warrior yelled.
The beast barked angrily. His hands wrapped around the joints of her wings where they connected to her back.
“Lucy, don’t!” another warrior hollered.
“Do it!” Eve screamed. Her body bucked against him and he felt her orgasm around his cock. Releasing himself at the same time, he pushed enough pleasure into Eve to make her claw the fucking wall and then he snapped those two glorious wings clean from her back. The crack and pop of her bones breaking, the sound of her flesh ripping, the cry that flew out of her lovely mouth was music to the beast’s ears.
She gushed between her thighs and soaked the bed.
In the distance, he heard more screaming. Hands were on him, trying to pull him off his woman. He bit them. Snarled and barked at them. Eve was the only thing he could see and hear clearly.
And she sounded like she was doing just fine.
Compassionate Lucifer would never dream of doing such a thing. Animal Lucy did as it pleased and relied only on instinct. Those wings needed to go. So off they went. Then he dicked her down hard enough for both of them to turn into animals in that bed together…
While the water sluiced down her muscular body, Lucifer ran his hand across her bare back. If her wings regenerated, would his beast rip them off again? The thought made his gut twist.
Now there are two wingless Angels in Hell.
The soap slipped from his hands and he didn’t bother to pick it up.
Eve dropped to her knees. Seeing her in a submissive position did glorious things to him.
She didn’t go for the soap either.
Without saying a word, Eve sucked one of his balls into her mouth. Swirling her tongue, she gave it a good, hard pull, then popped it out and went for the other one. Lucifer grunted when she licked his achingly hard shaft next. His arms flew out to brace against the shower walls.
“Fuuuuuck.” His balls tightened immediately.
“You will not come until I tell you to.” She licked his cock slowly, paying extra attention to the tip. Then she cupped his balls and squeezed them hard, tugging them down and making his toes curl.
Lucifer grunted. He’d been celibate too long for this. Either he was going to hold out forever or explode down her throat too soon.
“Eyes on me, Satan.” Eve made a show of licking his cock.
Yeah, he wasn’t going to last.
Drenched, smelling like sex, on her knees eager for his dick down her throat, Eve was a wet dream. He’d had enough of them to know what they looked like by now.
She wrapped both hands around his dick and worked him hard enough to make his thighs burn with how tight his muscles coiled. She let go with a suction noise, and stood with a devilish gleam in her eyes.
“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” he growled when she backed away.
The shower wasn’t big, so she couldn’t get far. With her back against the wall, steam billowed around them and it wasn’t from the water, it was from Lucifer’s rising heat.
Eve spread her legs and dipped her fingers into her pussy.
Lucifer’s lips curled into a snarl. The only fingers that should be inside her were his. He grabbed her hand and pulled it away from that sweet paradise of hers. Raising her fingers to his mouth, he sucked those digits clean and licked his lips.
“We taste good together, don’t we?” she purred.
Lucifer swallowed. Then he growled.
Eve coaxed him forward and Lucifer braced his arms on the sides of her head, half-way caging her in.
“Make me howl again Lucy,” her lustful tone triggered all kinds of desire to come out and play.
“How?” Leaning into her neck, Lucifer teased, “With my tongue?” he licked her earlobe. “My hand?” he caressed her breast and toyed with her nipple. “Or with my dick inside you again?”
“Why should I have to choose? I want it all.”
“So greedy.”
Eve grinned wickedly and pushed his head down, forcing the Devil to his knees. Lucifer kissed his mark on her hip then swept across it with a long drag of his hot tongue.
“Fuck, Lucy,” her head hit the wall with her next groan.
His deep-throated chuckle echoed in the shower. She wasn’t expecting the surge of lust he enticed out of her with that one lick and the Devil was only getting warmed up.
/> Eve thought she could dominate him? Not a fucking chance.
Lifting her leg up to his shoulder, he tongue-fucked her into oblivion. Just when he thought she was going to fall from her joints being too loose, he rose and dipped his middle finger inside her. The Devil slammed her G-spot so hard, they both stopped breathing. Eve clawed the stone walls, her mouth opened in a silent scream and then she squirted all over his hand.
Fuck, he loved that she did that.
What a beautiful mess she made.
Before Eve could catch her breath, Lucifer hiked her leg up higher on his waist and pressed his body to hers. Bracing himself with a hand on the wall, he used his other to guide his cock into her swollen folds.
Paradise was found in the joining of a lover’s thighs.
Lucifer obeyed every command she gave. Faster, slower, harder, he eased up when she demanded and slammed her hard when she barked those orders too.
For once, he didn’t have to make a decision. He just had to listen and fucking obey.
With. Pleasure.
His body responded and his mind checked the fuck out.
Lucifer’s balls swelled and tightened as his orgasm began to build. He carefully balanced on the edge of reason. Teetering on that ledge was a special kind of beautiful torture.
Eve dug her nails into his ass, shoving him forward harder. Her other arm wrapped around his neck, clinging for dear life.
He drove her hard, getting perilously close to exploding. Sweat bloomed across his brow. The steam in the shower was thick enough to cut with a blade. His breaths turned ragged, lungs sawing that hot air and his head started swimming. The tendons in his neck strained. His thigh muscles burned. Abs contracting, balls tightening, dick swelling, he clung to his control like a dying man would a cliff that would be certain death should he dare to let go.
Eve’s eyes burned into his as she clung to her own little cliff.
“Harder,” she growled. “Fuck me harder, Lucifer.”
Raise the Dead Page 27