“Don’t worry,” Erin said and when her words didn’t have the desired effect on Nina, she pouted. “I said, don’t worry.”
“Why not?” Nina asked and Lucifer had been close to asking that question too.
His daughter had something else up her sleeve. He could tell by the mischievous look in her eyes, the one that told him she was enjoying herself because she had some power over him for a change.
Erin stroked Dante’s head, sweeping his black hair to one side and neatening it. The boy gurgled and kicked in response, wriggling in Nina’s arms. Lucifer looked down at Dante and then at Nina, heat spreading through his chest at the sight of her with the boy. He couldn’t help imagining that it was their child in her arms.
She would make a wonderful mother.
There was so much love in her.
Erin slid him a knowing look. Lucifer schooled his features, hiding his feelings from his daughter. The wicked edge to her smile said it was too late for him. He was done for. She knew how deeply he loved the woman he held in his arms and the thought of having a child with her, and he was never going to hear the end of it.
“Dante can protect people from harm,” Erin said and stroked Dante’s pink cheek. “He protects Veiron and me, and anyone he feels like protecting really… and he feels like protecting you. When the times comes, we’ll bring Dante to you and he’ll be able to protect you from the power of your baby.”
Nina raised her eyes to meet Lucifer’s, and he could see that she needed to hear it from him.
He hadn’t thought about it as a method of keeping her safe, because he hadn’t believed Erin would do such a thing for him, allowing her son to help him, but his daughter was right.
“Erin is telling the truth. Dante has the power to protect others from harm, Nina.” Lucifer lowered his hand and gently stroked the small of her back. “Even powerful angels cannot exert their power on those he chooses to protect. It may mean that I also still possess that protective power and that it was not stripped from me when I fell. I have not tried to protect people, not before today, but it is possible that I could help you withstand the effects of giving birth.”
“And Dante too.” Erin took Dante from Nina. “Because I’m not missing the birth of my half-sister… mainly because I want to see my dear old dad lose his shit.”
She grinned at him.
Lucifer scowled.
Nina laughed. “He really lost his shi—should we be swearing in front of Dante?”
Erin shrugged at the same time as Veiron.
“He can already swear in the demon tongue,” Veiron said, his deep voice gruff but edged with affection as he looked at his son. “We think it came built in.”
“Well, Lucifer certainly lost his temper a moment ago with the angels,” Nina said, her smile holding and her words fuelling his hope and keeping it strong.
He had lost his temper, had revealed the darker side of himself to her, and she wasn’t running from him.
Erin smiled. Veiron gawped at him.
“Your name is Lu—” he started.
“Silence, Maggot.” Lucifer waved his hand and cut him off, stealing his voice from him. The immense male’s lips moved but no sound left them.
He bared his fangs at Lucifer, his eyes turning crimson again as his red wings unfurled from his back and his black clothing melted away, replaced by the pieces of his scarlet and black armour.
Erin sighed, stepped up to her husband and pressed a kiss to his right biceps. That single brush of her lips seemed to work magic on the male, easing his anger so his eyes darkened back to their natural colour.
“I think I’ve tried his patience enough for one day,” Erin said and rested her cheek on Veiron’s arm. She glanced up at him. “Speak, Baby. Get it off your chest and let’s get out of here.”
Veiron reached down, covered Dante’s ears, and snarled at Lucifer, “Little Fucker.”
Lucifer waved him away, and the male looked as if he wanted to land a physical blow on him rather than the verbal one he had been allowed to deal.
“You really owe me now, Pops.” Erin pressed closer to Veiron and darkness flared, engulfing them both. When it dissipated, they were gone.
Nina’s gaze burned into the side of his face.
Lucifer slowly edged his eyes towards her.
He had a feeling that he would be paying his daughter back for a long time to come.
But he also had a feeling it would be worth it.
Because she had given him a chance with Nina.
A shot at winning her heart.
CHAPTER 16
Nina wasn’t sure she would ever get used to teleporting. The second her feet touched the black stone floor in her apartment in Lucifer’s castle, her knees gave out. He caught her waist, his grip firm but gentle, as if he feared hurting her.
She wasn’t sure he could ever do that.
He seemed incapable of it.
He attempted to prove her wrong by releasing her and drawing away from her, distancing himself as he backed towards the fireplace across the room. His striking golden eyes touched on everything but her, refusing to settle on her even when she moved towards him. He had been quiet from the moment his daughter and grandson had left with the big man she presumed was married to Erin.
A man who appeared to be an angel of Hell.
Seeing them together, seeing how deeply the man loved Erin and his son, and how much Erin clearly loved him back, had given Nina the final piece of courage she needed to face her feelings for Lucifer.
“Lucifer?”
He still refused to look at her, and she didn’t like the troubled edge to his eyes. She wanted to take away whatever was bothering him, but she couldn’t do that if he kept avoiding her gaze and remained silent.
“What are you thinking?” she whispered and closed the distance between them.
He tried to back away, but his bottom hit the rear of the red couch, stopping his progress.
Nina slowly approached him, afraid he would teleport away from her if she made him feel she was pushing him. She didn’t want him to leave, and she didn’t want to upset him. She wanted him to stay.
She wanted to make him feel better.
Whatever he feared, she would chase it away for him.
She would take care of him.
He lowered his head, his tousled black hair falling down to caress his brow. His horns were still out, and his wings brushed the back of the couch at his sides, but his skin was more cream than white and his lips were pink again.
She had expected to be afraid when she had seen him change, but no matter how long she had waited, that emotion hadn’t washed over her. She hadn’t feared him.
She had only feared for him.
He had disappeared on her after announcing that Mihail had come and her heart had lurched in her chest, fear filling it as she had realised he had gone to fight the angel again.
He had gone out to protect her.
The need to protect him had been so strong that she had sprinted through the building and burst out onto the battlefield without thinking through what she was doing, determined to make Mihail and the angels see that she didn’t want to go with them.
She had reacted on instinct when she had seen Lucifer falling, burned from the weird light that had speared Hell. Everything in her had screamed at her to shield him, because she had felt certain that Mihail wouldn’t dare hurt her. She was important to Heaven, and she had wanted to use that to her advantage in order to save the man she loved.
“Lucifer?” Nina placed her hand on the hard black breastplate that protected his chest, wishing she could reach through it to the spot between his pectorals, directly over his heart. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”
He closed his eyes and sighed, shifting the breastplate and her hand with it.
“Can you imagine what demons do to angels when they end up in Hell?” He slowly opened his eyes and lifted them, hesitating on her lips before he forced them up to meet her eyes.
> The haunted quality to them told her the answer to that question and she placed her other hand against his cheek, unable to ignore her need to comfort him. He had been an angel once, and he had been cast into Hell. He wasn’t asking her to imagine what demons did to angels in his realm now, while he ruled, because she had seen angels in this land, both his men and those of Heaven, and they had been left alone by the demons.
He was asking her to picture what it had been like for him.
He looked off to his right. “It was a land without a ruler then. Nothing to stop them or hold them back.”
“They did terrible things to you, didn’t they?” Her palm trembled against his cheek, her heart aching as she pictured his back and all the scars that littered it.
I have survived atrocities. Torture so vile.
His words haunted her and her mind ran with them, throwing image after image at her, each worse than the last. How many times had he been tortured?
She stared at his chest, remembering how he had reacted when she had touched the vertical ridges of scar tissue on his back.
How many times had they torn his wings from him?
Tears lined her lashes and she blinked them away, not wanting him to think that she pitied him because she knew it would upset him. It wasn’t pity that filled her heart. It was anger. Fury. Rage that he had been put through so much pain.
Nina pressed her palm to his cheek and drew his gaze back to her. “You were betrayed.”
His eyes searched hers and he tried to look away again but she refused to let him.
His gaze narrowed, darkening a degree. “I gave them my loyalty… I carried out my orders without question… and in return I was cast into this hell. I am not a good male, Nina. I did not choose the right path, even though I tried to walk it. I did not have the strength to remain walking towards the light as you did.”
He disappeared and she feared he had left her, but then he spoke from behind her and she turned to face him.
“I trod the darker path… I allowed that darkness into my heart and I embraced it. Whatever torment I had suffered, I dealt it back a hundredfold. I bathed Hell in the blood of my torturers.” He held her gaze, his golden eyes turning crimson. “I destroyed what had been here, a prison for the angels who had sinned as I had, and in its place I built my own kingdom… a kingdom I rule, Nina… and nothing will change that.”
Not even her.
She knew that.
She knew that if she chose Lucifer, she chose everything that came with him. She chose a life in Hell, with a man who had a duty to punish those who were sent to his realm, as he had been punished before them.
“We’ve both been punished for things that weren’t our fault,” she said and continued before he could speak. “But now we have each other.”
He snarled and advanced a step, his enormous black wings unfurling to span the room.
She didn’t flinch. Didn’t move a muscle. She wasn’t afraid of him. He could rage all he wanted, test her as much as he liked, but she would never turn her back on him.
Because he was her home.
He was where she belonged.
“We are not the same, Nina,” he growled and stalked another step towards her, his horns flaring forwards as his ears turned pointed. “You are light and beauty… I am darkness and sin. I deal in pain and suffering. Everything that was dealt to me in this realm, I now deal to others.”
Nina sighed softly. “That isn’t truly the case is it?”
He glared at her, but there was a flicker of confusion in his red eyes, a pause in his step that told her that she could get through to him if she just kept pressing forwards and refused to retreat.
She could make him understand her feelings for him and that they were real.
He was lashing out at her because he thought they weren’t a good fit, he thought that she would never accept the things he had done or the person he was, and that wasn’t the case at all.
They weren’t perfect, no couple was, but she loved him and she knew he loved her.
He had already told her as much, just without saying the actual words. He had shown her that he loved her.
She would show him that she loved him.
“You have angels working for you. I’ve seen them, remember?” She took a step towards him and he frowned at her feet and bared his fangs. Nina ignored the warning and advanced another one. “Tell me that I’m wrong if I’m wrong… but when an angel is sent here now, they don’t receive punishment, do they? You take them in. You give them a new home.”
He tossed a black look at her, but he didn’t deny her.
“They serve you and you’re lenient on them… although, I imagine some get hit by the pointy end of your temper.”
His face darkened and he growled through his fangs. Nina smiled at him. She was getting to know him now. He wouldn’t hurt her. All he could do right now was growl, huff and attempt to scare her, and she found it amusing and endearing in a way. He wanted to be the monster he had painted himself as, the one she was meant to see him as because of all the stories people told about him, but all she could see was a man that loved her and was hurting because he feared she would leave.
“You don’t punish the angels as you were punished.” Another step.
He rose to his full height and glared down at her, his black wings stretched wide, spanning the room and fluttering like smoke.
“It does not change anything,” he said, his tone gruff and dark.
Nina shook her head. “It changes everything. You changed everything. You said that yourself. You seized power and changed things here. You might have embraced the darkness, but it doesn’t rule you, Lucifer. I’ve seen the good in you. You’re not heartless.”
His shoulders dipped and his handsome face softened, the red in his eyes fading.
“I am,” he whispered, raised his hand towards her as his eyebrows furrowed and swept his fingers downwards through the air, as if stroking her cheek. “I was heartless from the moment I met you. You stole it from me.”
Nina’s lips curved into a soft smile and she stepped close enough to him that he could touch her cheek as he clearly needed to. He brushed his fingers across it as she continued walking, his head dipping to keep his eyes locked on hers.
She pressed her left hand to his black breastplate, tilted her head back and smiled up at him. “You have a heart.”
He opened his mouth and she lifted her right hand and pressed her finger to his lips to silence him.
“You have my heart.”
Warmth flooded his golden eyes and she heated inside, feeling light as he gathered her into his arms and pressed a kiss to her fingertip.
“You are not lying,” he whispered against it and she was tempted to chastise him for still wanting to doubt her, but she let it go instead.
She could understand why he couldn’t accept the heart she was offering him, her love and devotion, and that it was going to take him time to overcome the doubts that lived within him, born of his position and his past.
She would give him that time and she would make him understand. She would keep showing him that she loved him and wanted to be with him. She would show him every day that her feelings for him were true, until the day that he believed her, and beyond.
She would never stop showing him.
Nina slid her arms around his neck, locked her hands behind his head, and tiptoed as she lured him down to her.
She pressed her lips to his and he tensed, going still for a heartbeat before he responded. He curled his arms around her back, grabbed her bottom, and raised her up him. His mouth claimed hers, the ferocity of his kiss melting her and tearing a moan from her lips.
He pulled back from her, his golden eyes searching hers, flooded with hope and affection that brought a smile to her lips and only made her want to kiss him again.
She placed her hands against his cheeks, held his gaze, and lost herself in it.
She wasn’t afraid of him or what she was doing. She
felt certain that this was where she belonged, that this was her destiny, and that she would be happiest here. She wanted no part of Lucifer’s duties, but she understood that he had to carry them out. He was part of the balance in the world.
A world that she was going to bring a child into with him.
It still sounded crazy to her.
But it was the best sort of crazy and she wouldn’t change it.
“You’re going to be a wonderful father,” she whispered and his expression softened, bringing a smile back onto her lips.
He began to smile but it wavered, and a trace of fear entered his eyes. She shook her head but it didn’t stop that fear from taking root and spreading. Nina smoothed her palms over his cheeks and stroked his black hair, needing to soothe him. She didn’t want to think about what might happen. She wanted the next nine months with him to be heaven, not spent living in fear.
“You’ll never let anything bad happen to me.” She ran her fingers through his hair, sure of that in her heart.
Resolve vanquished the fear in his eyes. “And what makes you say that, Little Mortal?”
“Because you like me.” Nina was beginning to think that meeting Erin had unleashed her playful side, the one that had been dormant for nearly a decade, because she couldn’t stop teasing him now that she knew he responded to it so wonderfully.
He stared at her in silence. “Like?”
She nodded. He frowned and turned with her, carrying her towards the four-poster bed.
“I do not think like is the right word.” A flicker of mischief shone in his eyes and she had to force herself not to smile as the heavy air in the room lifted, becoming lighter and warmer with each step he took and each inch further he relaxed.
“Oh, it isn’t?” She wrinkled her nose up and wrapped her legs around his waist. “Adore then. You adore me.”
He shook his head, set one knee down on the bed and laid her down on it. He braced his hands on either side of her shoulders, his gaze tender as he looked down at her.
Her Angel: Eternal Warriors Romance Series Complete Series Box Set (Books 1-5) Page 162