by Emma Castle
“Diana?” he called.
“Yes?” She set her schoolwork down and rushed over to help him sit up against the back of the couch. He wiped an arm across his face, and it smeared the blood on the cut from his cheek. She’d get a towel and clean that up as soon as she had a minute to talk to him.
“What happened?” she asked, examining his eyes. The blackness had crept in a little, but they were still mostly brown.
“Tangled with a croucher demon,” he said and sighed heavily. “More than one, actually. Got my ass handed to me.”
“A what?”
Lucien tilted his head back, sighing again. The sound was world-weary.
“A croucher demon, a demon that lurks in doorways. The last time I fought one, it was back in Babylon.”
“Okay—” Diana had no idea how to respond that. “Are you and whoever that is safe?”
“That’s Andras, a prince of hell, one of my friends since before the fall.” Lucien’s honesty stunned her. He wasn’t usually so open about the fall or other angels.
“Are you guys okay? I honestly don’t know what to do.” She got up and went to the kitchen to wet a towel and returned to him and wiped his face gently. He let her, his brown eyes now halfway between that light brown and the dark almost black she was used to.
“We need to rest. The croucher demon sucks the life force away, and had Andras and I been mortal, we would’ve died instantly.”
Diana gently cupped his chin to make him face her so she could check him for more wounds.
“Do you have to fight these demons often?”
“No, that’s what was so dangerous. Normally a croucher is solitary, and yet there were hundreds in this old Aztec temple. They killed an archaeologist who was exploring the ruins.”
“What?” Diana paused, wiping some blood from his chin.
“Andras monitors human deaths. It’s his job. Suspicious deaths, even when those souls aren’t destined for hell, are reviewed by him. He found the dead human, realized he’d been killed by a croucher and brought me in. I’ve battled them before, but always one at a time. Even between the two of us we couldn’t stop so many at once. The group of demons fled the temple, and Andras and I—ended up here.” He tilted his head and looked around. “Why are we here?”
“Good question.” Diana sat back and stared at him. The king of hell and the prince of hell lay on her floor, completely exhausted from a battle with a bunch of ancient Babylonian croucher demons. Just another typical Saturday night.
“I should help Andras home.” Lucien tried to stand, but he collapsed back to the ground. Diana put a staying hand on his shoulder.
“Why don’t you rest. Close your eyes and sleep, or do whatever you need to do to recover. I don’t think you’re in any shape to go anywhere. Why don’t you lie down on the couch?”
She helped him get back up, and he collapsed on the couch. His head fell back, and he closed his eyes. After a minute of watching him, she grabbed a soft fleece blanket from her closet and laid it over him, and then she got a second one for Andras.
“I can’t believe I’m babysitting fallen angels on a Saturday night.”
Diana returned to her homework. It was only a few hours later when she finished and decided to order pizza even though it was almost ten o’clock. After the day she’d had, she needed it. She picked up her cell phone and was ready to dial when she looked toward the living room. Andras was gone. Only a blanket and his pillow remained. Lucien was sitting up, the blanket pooled around his hips, and he was flicking through the TV channels with the sound muted. How had she not heard him and Andras wake? She must have been zoned out on her schoolwork.
“Lucien? Are you better?” She put the phone down and walked over to him. He looked up at her, his eyes back to the dark, fathomless black again.
“I’m almost my old self. Andras is too. He had duties to resume and couldn’t stay to thank you for your hospitality.”
“Er…are you sticking around or—”
Lucien chuckled. “So quick to be rid of me, eh?”
“No,” she replied instantly. “I was just going to order a pizza if you want to stay. I’ll get whatever you like.”
“Oh.” Lucien seemed generally surprised, and honestly Diana was too. She hadn’t thought she wanted to be around him when she didn’t have to be, but that was changing. They’d had so much fun at the barbeque, and he’d seemed almost normal.
“So do you…” She held her breath.
“Yes. I like sausage.”
“Me too.” She retrieved her phone to order the pizza. Then she went to the bedroom to grab another textbook from her shelf. When she came back out, Lucien was standing up and stretching. His clothes were tattered and torn, and he still looked like…well…hell.
“Do you want to use my shower? You can freshen up if you want.”
He scraped a hand over his jaw in thought. “I think I will.” He headed for the bathroom and started stripping out of his clothes.
Diana didn’t move, she just stared at him, watching his glorious naked ass, but she froze when she saw his back and the two scars she’d glimpsed when he’d been swimming in Belize. The sudden need to touch them—to ease the pain that he must have experienced—was overpowering. Before she could think, she closed the distance between them and placed a hand on his back. He stiffened in response, but when she expected him to lash out, he didn’t.
“Lucien,” she whispered, tracing the knot of scars. “They look so painful.”
“They still hurt,” he whispered softly and glanced over his shoulder at her, and she saw pain in his eyes.
Diana leaned in and pressed her lips to his shoulder blades, then the scars one by one. Lucien exhaled softly, the sound so human that it broke her heart.
I’m falling for him. I’m falling for the devil.
She cleared her throat and stepped away before she did something foolish like getting into the shower with him.
“Shower and I’ll order pizza.”
He turned on the taps and stepped into the shower, and she headed into the kitchen. She ordered a pizza and lay on the couch, her eyes glued to the TV so she wouldn’t think about a naked Lucien in her shower. He stayed in there a good half hour, and she got to the point where she was worrying about her water bill.
When the doorbell rang, she answered it and paid the teenage boy holding a large sausage pizza. Then she opened a bottle of red wine and poured two glasses and prepared two plates. She was carrying them over to the couch when Lucien emerged from the shower dripping wet, a towel wrapped low around his hips.
Oh. My. God. His dark hair was wet, and the ends curled up a bit. He grinned as he caught her staring.
“Uh…pizza’s here.” She pointed at the coffee table. He started to reach for his towel as though to remove it. She spun away, facing the wall.
“You can look now,” he teased.
She slowly looked over her shoulder and saw he was dressed now in jeans and a white T-shirt.
“How—”
He wiggled the tips of his fingers, which reminded her a bit of Samantha from the show Bewitched.
“Oh…right.” She held out the plate of pizza, and he accepted it. She quickly sat on one end of the couch, and he did the same.
“You want to watch a movie or something?” Diana offered.
“Sure.” Lucien bit into a slice and sighed, but the sound was one of relief rather than worry. Diana perused her DVDs and chose a classic movie—An Affair to Remember, starring Cary Grant.
When the credits began, Lucien leaned back against the couch and watched with mild curiosity. Diana half expected him to protest her choice and put on a horror movie or a violent action film instead. But he didn’t. He ate his pizza, drank the wine she offered, and watched an old romance movie…like a real boyfriend.
I should not go there. I can’t think of him like that. He’ll never be… We will never be…
She was surprised by how much that realization stung. She hadn�
�t wanted to like him or the way he made her feel, but so much had changed between them since that first night she’d come to him. The cold, unfeeling dark devil was changing into a lighthearted human man. Right now she could almost forget what he really was.
Maybe that was all she would ever have, a night like tonight where she could pretend he was human, that he was hers.
Lucien watched the credits roll on the television screen, and for a long moment he was lost in the story of the lives of the characters. Such loss, such love, such tragedy and redemption. It was a movie of hope and despair in equal parts. The ache in his chest, the one that reminded him he missed heaven, seemed stronger than it had been in many years. He glanced down at Diana, who slept in his arms. At some point they’d stretched out on the couch lengthwise, and she’d fallen asleep.
Lucien had never met anyone so trusting of him. She never ceased to amaze him. A human who trusted the devil. Really trusted him. He didn’t even really know her, this woman who was changing him from the inside out.
But I want to know her, want to know everything…
He vowed he would ask her a thousand questions when he had the chance.
He closed his eyes and brushed a lock of her hair back from her face as he opened his mind to the past, to the life he’d had in the realm of heaven before he’d fallen. He wanted to give Diana that glimpse and share what the light felt like. She carried so much of his darkness, but this one gift he could give her.
Gleaming spires, music played by divine hands, the glittering of white wings in the sunlight, the endless, vast everything. There was no limit, no end, not there. It was a beginning, a continuation, a journey, a destination. It was home.
Lucien’s eyes burned, and when he opened them thick tears escaped. He wiped at them, staring at the wetness on his hands in confusion.
Angels did not cry. The devil definitely did not cry.
Yet here was proof, the salty sheen upon his fingertips. Proof that he was…what?
Getting weaker? Perhaps. After fighting with all those crouchers, it seemed possible. Andras would counsel him to be careful, to make sure that he didn’t get attached to a human. Andras would be right. He needed to keep his distance. The king of hell could not afford to grow soft simply because a human woman made him want to feel, to remember. The scars on his back burned with the memory of losing his wings.
I paid my price. Now I’m free, free from caring, free from bowing down, free from obeying.
He looked down at Diana again, studying the way her dark lashes fanned out on her cheeks and the hint of a smile on her lips as though she was dreaming. He bent his head and feathered his lips over hers, and with a faint kiss he whispered to her, “Dream of me, darling. Dream of midnights past and midnights to come. Dream of heaven in my arms.” Then he closed his eyes and vanished.
Jimiel watched through the window as Lucien spoke softly to Diana as she slept. Kindness…that was the expression on Lucien’s face, but how was that possible? Lucien shouldn’t be able to be kind, if that was what Jimiel was seeing. Suddenly there was a flutter of invisible wings beside him, and he spotted Andras next to him on the balcony of Diana’s apartment. For a second Jimiel thought he would have to battle his former brother, but Andras raised his hands in the universal sign of peace.
“It troubles me too.” Andras nodded at Lucien and Diana.
“What can we do?” Jimiel asked. It was strange to be on the side of his fallen brother after so many years.
“Lucien has a contract. Only Diana can revoke it.”
“But when she saw Lucien’s lawyer, she learned that if he gets bored with her before the contract ends, Lucien can let her go and her father will be safe.”
Andras smirked. “Eavesdropping? Not very angelic, brother.”
“I’m her guardian. It’s part of the job. I can’t unhear things.”
“I don’t think Lucien will tire of her. He’s growing more attached, and the attachment is weakening him.” Andras scowled. “We fought off a hundred crouchers, and they almost killed us. He’s battled much worse in the past with less trouble.”
Jimiel watched Lucien suddenly vanish, leaving Diana alone. She reached for him and, finding nothing, made a soft murmur of disappointment but remained asleep.
“What can we do?” Jimiel asked.
“I don’t know.” Andras’s blue eyes seem to burn like ice. “Killing her is out of the question.”
“Of course it is!” Jimiel snapped. “Guardian angel, remember? My whole job is to keep her breathing.”
Andras chuckled darkly. “And yet you let Lucien make a deal with her. What happened? Take a day off?”
“No. I wasn’t watching her at the hospital. She was supposed to be safe there.”
Andras shook his head, still grinning darkly. “Well done.”
“Shut up,” Jimiel growled.
Andras was still laughing when he disappeared. Jimiel sighed and continued his vigil at Diana’s window, praying he would think of something. What in heaven was he going to do? But Andras was right—only Diana could break her deal with Lucien, and she wouldn’t do that because it would condemn her father to death.
“We’re both screwed,” the guardian angel muttered to Diana, even though she was too lost in dreams to hear him.
14
Yet he who reigns within himself, and rules passions, desires, and fears, is more a king. - John Milton, Paradise Regained
The third midnight
* * *
Diana was actually excited for Friday to come.
The week had seemed to drag until Friday morning. She’d gotten texts from Lucien, of course, his teasing comments always making her laugh, and she strangely missed seeing him. She woke up early, expecting to see a box on her doorstep, but there wasn’t one. Seth sat on the windowsill, his tail swishing as he chattered at the birds outside in the tree near her apartment. His little trilling noises always made her laugh, but today she felt edgy. Why hadn’t she gotten her box? She’d always gotten one the morning of their meetings.
Then a thought struck her. Had her plan succeeded before she’d even had time to start? Maybe Lucien was done, had had enough of her and was moving on? It was very possible…and yet she didn’t want it to be true. She wasn’t supposed to feel that way, but she did. After everything, she liked Lucien, liked being with him, in bed and out. Trusting herself to the devil to save her father was one thing. But falling in love with him? That was a whole other level of stupid.
Diana went through the motions of showering and dressing. She fed Seth and then packed her bag and headed down to her car. She jerked to a stop at the sight of a sports car parked next to hers and the tall dark-haired man leaning against the driver’s side, a coffee cup in one hand, a paperback in the other.
“Lucien?” Diana couldn’t believe he was here. How long had he been standing there?
“Morning,” he replied and sipped his coffee. He finished whatever page he was on and closed the book. She caught sight of the cover.
“Paradise Lost? You read Milton?”
“Of course.” Lucien chuckled and tossed the book into the space behind his seat. “For a blind man in the 1600s, he had a decent grasp of what happened when I fell. I’ve always suspected he might’ve been a prophet.”
“A prophet?”
“A human who receives visions from angels. Once an angel falls, we can’t see those humans who have the ability to hear heavenly messages. It’s Father’s way of protecting the prophets. Not that I or any of my fallen brethren have any intention of doing anything to hurt them.”
“Right.” She honestly had no idea what to say to that. Sometimes when he talked about things like prophets, angels, and demons, she still on some level couldn’t wrap her mind around it.
“So… What are you doing here? I don’t come to see you until tonight.” She was pleased, really pleased that he was here, but he’d been absent all week, and she’d feared she might have succeeded in boring him.
&nb
sp; “I thought we could take a little trip to London, or maybe Shanghai, grab some food and see how quickly I can strip you of those clothes.” He said this all with such a seductive, flirty grin that her knees buckled.
“That sounds great, but I have class until twelve thirty.”
“Are you rejecting me for some boring old economics class? Me and an exotic foreign destination?” He cupped her chin and crowded against her a little, making her blood pound with excitement, but she had to remember that class was more important, no matter how much she wanted to run off with him.
“Umm…yes?” She tried not to laugh at the mock wounded expression on his face.
“Dammit. Outfoxed by schoolwork.” He frowned, then jerked his head toward his car. “Well get in, I’ll drive you to class.”
“Seriously?” She stared at the Aston Martin roadster.
“Dead serious. Now get in.” He hopped into the driver’s seat, and she got in the passenger side after tucking her backpack in the space behind her seat. Then she buckled herself in, and he gunned the engine. Soon they left her apartment complex behind.
By the time they reached campus, she was laughing and trying to hold her hair back from the wind whipping around her head.
“See you after class. I’ll be right here.” He nodded at the curb facing her building.
“You sure? I mean, I can imagine you have lots of things to do, run hell and all that.”
He snickered. “Run hell and all that… Yes. I certainly do, but right now you’re my priority. Being with you pleases me, and as long as that holds true, you won’t be rid of me.”
She almost corrected him that after three months the relationship would be over, but she didn’t want to think about that.
“See you in a few hours,” she called over her shoulder and headed inside.
“Still with your ‘not boyfriend’?” Jim asked when she stepped through the glass doors of the building.
“Yeah.” She blushed.