He moved a step nearer to her and she resisted the urge to back off another one, torn between allowing him to close the gap between them so she could draw comfort from his proximity and pushing him away so she could have the space she desperately needed.
The air grew thicker and she wheezed as she tried to pull it down into her lungs.
Lucifer’s expression darkened, he caught hold of her arm before she could move, and suddenly it was dark and she couldn’t see anything. She tried to wrestle free of him but his grip tightened and he tugged her against his hard body, his arms wrapping around her to pin her to his chest. When the darkness receded, she found herself standing in the apartment he had given her during her stay.
She hadn’t really had time to process the fact that he could apparently teleport when he had taken her from London. She wasn’t sure she’d had enough time to process anything that had happened since she had awoken on his chaise longue in that gothic room to find him watching her. It had all been a whirlwind of craziness that still challenged her to a degree, muddling her emotions and leaving her unsure of what she was doing and whether she had actually lost her mind.
His fingers brushed her cheek, the caress so light that it wreaked havoc on her strength, tearing it away from her until she wanted nothing more than to lean into his touch and allow him to be strong for her.
She couldn’t do that.
She had done that before and it had only ended with her hurt and alone.
She pushed his hand away and paced across the room, breathing deep of the fresher air and using the time to clear her head so she could at least think straight and ask the right questions. Lucifer’s gaze tracked her, heating her as it increased in intensity, threatening to wreck her focus. She tossed him a glare, one she hoped warned him to give her some space and time.
“I will explain everything. I do not expect it will do me any favours, but I have made a promise to be honest with you, and that is what I will be.” He leaned his bottom against the back of the couch, pressed his palms against the black wooden frame and curled his fingers over the red velvet.
A single glance at him was enough to tell her that he expected whatever confession he was about to make to do far worse than paint him in a slightly bad light.
He expected her to despise him, and it was clearly hurting him.
And that messed with her head worse than anything up to this point.
He was the Devil. The original fallen angel. Ruler of Hell. A very bad person if the stories were anything to go by. If bad person was a way of saying the most evil being in the world.
But as she looked at him where he leaned opposite her, a look in his golden eyes that spoke of fear and resignation, laced with a touch of defeat and a dash of hope, she couldn’t see a monster.
He had been cold and distant at times, but he had been warm more times than that. He had been kind and considerate, affectionate even. She had seen a man who clearly loved his daughter and who was pained by the thought he wouldn’t be allowed to see his grandson. She had been with a man who had been gentle with her, had sought to please her and had protected her. Everything she knew about him went against the picture of the Devil she had grown up with.
But she wasn’t about to let that fool her into believing that all of it had been real.
She was determined to keep her head, view things objectively, listen to everything he had to say and think everything over before she made any move of her own.
Lucifer glanced down at his polished leather shoes, his handsome face settling in sombre lines that made her want to go to him, sweep her fingers across his sculpted cheek and make him look at her. She wanted to ease his pain, and it took all of her willpower to remain where she was and deny that need.
“You know who I am… and I am sure you can guess what that means. I am by no means a good man, Nina. I was shaped by circumstance into what I am today. I was used, my loyalty betrayed, and I was weak when I should have been strong.” He frowned at his shoes, the black slashes of his eyebrows dipping together above eyes slowly turning red. Fangs flashed between his lips as he spoke, and as she stood there watching the changes happening, she realised that she no longer feared him when he looked like this. He flicked a glance at her and she schooled her features, hiding her feelings from him. She built a wall around them, shielding them from his steady gaze, unwilling to reveal them to him when she was still uncertain of everything because she feared he would use them against her somehow.
She had been manipulated too many times to count and she had made a promise that it would never happen again.
Her mind supplied that it was too late and that promise was already broken. The angel had manipulated her and, for all she knew, Lucifer had too.
Her heart rebelled against that. Lucifer had said that she had seduced him, and deep in her heart she knew that it hadn’t been a lie to convince her to come with him or make her believe him.
“Go on,” she whispered when he didn’t look as if he had the heart to continue.
“I swore vengeance against those who had betrayed me, Nina. I turned my prison into my palace and I reigned with an iron fist.” He lowered his eyes to the floor at her feet. She could believe that he had plotted revenge, because hadn’t she done the same when she had been hurt? She had tried to lash out at her ex-husband by showing him how wonderful her life was without him when his had gone to hell. She had wanted to hurt him. Lucifer had wanted to do the same, only his plan for revenge was far bigger than hers and she had the feeling the consequences of it would be far greater. “As part of my plan, I have spent millennia attempting to… sire offspring.”
Nina didn’t need to see his eyes to know what he meant by that. “You seduced women… angels?”
He shook his head. “There are no female angels. I… only mortal females can carry my offspring.”
Cold slithered through her veins and she curled her fingers into fists as a viper hissed in her heart, whispering words that stoked her anger and made her want to back another step away from him, because she felt he was going to hurt her. The urge to lash out and deal the first blow was too strong, overwhelming her as it had always done since she had left her ex-husband, keeping her closed off from the world and protected inside her bubble.
A bubble that had begun to feel lonely, but still felt like a necessity to her.
It saved her from being hurt by others.
And Lucifer was going to destroy her when he realised that Heaven had brought him the wrong woman to knock up.
“So you’re saying you’ve been sleeping with every woman available in order to make yourself a child… bringing them to this place… probably to this room right?”
“No, Nina.” He pushed off, rising onto his feet, and shook his head. She shook hers right back at him and held her hand out, silently warning him to keep his distance. Devil or not, if he came near her, she wouldn’t be able to stop herself from slapping him right now. “I never brought them here.”
“Well, that’s comforting.”
His jaw muscle twitched. “I know it does not sound good. I am confessing that I have slept with many women, but I have not been with a woman in months.”
“Months?” She barked out a laugh. “Wow… way to hold yourself back. So because you’ve been keeping it in your pants for a few months, Heaven just decided to stick me in your path… knowing you’d be horny… and that makes me what… just another inevitable notch on your bedpost?”
Her heart hurt and she pulled down a deep breath, resisted the temptation to rub her chest, and refused to let the tears stinging the backs of her eyes make an appearance. She should have stayed in her apartment in London. She shouldn’t have let Lucifer sweep her up in everything again, making her foolishly believe that somehow everything would miraculously end up perfect for her.
There was nothing perfect about this situation.
She had fallen in love with the Devil.
It didn’t get more messed up than that.
She folded her arms across her chest and began pacing again, needing the automatic motion to give her something to focus on so she could clear her head.
“Nina,” Lucifer whispered but she refused to look at him, fearing that if she did, she would lose her fragile grip on her heart and it would betray her and leap the gap to him. “There is something different about you. You are the first female I did not want to sleep with.”
Nina turned on him with a glare, her blood catching fire on hearing that. “Well, that’s lovely. How noble of you to sleep with me when you didn’t want to.”
He flinched away from her and then rallied, reaching his left hand out to her. She scowled at it, turned her nose up and resumed pacing. Faster now. Her swift agitated strides carried her back and forth across the expansive room, her trainers squeaking occasionally on the obsidian stone floor.
Lucifer raked his fingers through his black hair, messing it up as he tugged at the lengths and gritted his teeth. Frustration flashed in his eyes as she glanced at him, but other emotions shone in them too, ones she had never seen before and gave her pause.
Where was the confident man he had been around her for most of the time they had been together?
He had shown her a vulnerable side of himself, but there had always been a sliver of confidence remaining in his gaze, as if he was sure of himself despite allowing her to see his weakness.
His weary sigh kept her gaze on him and her pacing slowed, concern beginning to outweigh the other emotions in her heart.
“It was not an act of nobility, Nina. You were the first woman I did not want to sleep with because I feared…” He gritted his teeth again, growled through them, and clawed at his hair. “Fuck… I fear… so much that you are in on this plan and that you will leave me… and that… that would… I have survived atrocities… torture so vile… but nothing I have suffered… none of it broke me… but if you left me… that would destroy me.”
Her vision blurred as hot tears filled her eyes, causing Lucifer to wobble out of focus. She scrubbed them away and looked at him with clear eyes and an even clearer heart. His heart was in his eyes for her to see, every emotion that had been in his words as he had laid that fragile part of himself on the line, and no matter what she told herself, she couldn’t bring herself to believe what Mihail had told her.
He wasn’t a liar.
No one could pretend to look so broken and distraught, filled with pain at the mere thought that she felt nothing for him and that everything they had shared had been an act on her part.
She believed him when he said that her leaving would wound him, because her soul screamed that it would wound her too.
Her eyes searched his, and the longer she looked into them, the clearer his feelings became to her.
She already had wounded him.
She had hurt him by leaving with the angel and he had risked everything important to him in order to bring her back to him, and to keep her safe as he had promised.
He had risked alienating himself from the daughter and grandchild that he clearly loved.
The gravity of that hit her hard, knocking her a step towards him. It hit her in a good way, because for the first time in what felt like forever, she knew what it felt like to be loved and wanted.
She had found a man willing to stand at her side, one who would break all the rules and move mountains to be with her, and he hadn’t asked anything of her.
He only wanted her to give him a chance.
Lucifer looked away from her, towards the tapestry to his right that covered the door to the valley, and closed his eyes.
“I was rash… I should have thought things through… and I cannot apologise enough for the danger I have placed you in, Nina.” He sighed and his chin dipped towards his chest, and she silently cursed him for making her want to cross the small stretch of black stone flags to him and wrap her arms around him to comfort him.
It seemed insane that the Devil needed comfort, but everything about him said that he needed it more than anything right now. She was close to surrendering to the pressing need to give him something to soothe him, a sliver of hope at the very least, when he opened his eyes and frowned at the floor, his words freezing her to the spot and chilling her heart.
“Part of me hopes that what we have done does not result in a pregnancy.”
Nina’s hands came to rest on her stomach, her fingers curling to clutch the soft cream cashmere sweater. “Why?”
Her voice trembled and she knew he had heard her fear when he lifted his head and looked at her. She couldn’t find her voice, could scarcely breathe as emotions flooded her. She struggled with her feelings, trying to get hold of herself and quieten the part of herself that desperately wanted a child, afraid that thinking about the possibility she might be pregnant would only lead to her being hurt. She told herself on repeat that it wasn’t possible, and as soon as Lucifer realised that, he would no longer want to be with her.
He wouldn’t stand by her after all.
His steady gaze questioned her back and she couldn’t stop the words from spilling from her lips as her feelings rose up against her, owning her and stealing control, too powerful for her to contain.
“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.
Her Angel: Eternal Warriors Romance Series Complete Series Box Set (Books 1-5) Page 159