Chapter Two Charlotte
Chapter Two
Charlotte
Two weeks later . . .
The worst villains don’t make us hate them.
“Are you certain you want to go through with this?” Azrael—Death incarnate—checks in with me again.
I nod, clocking how his white-blue eyes narrow as he watches me. “Jax is my best friend. I won’t allow the Righteous to get away with helping Michael target her and hand her over to Lilith without repercussions, and I can’t let you and Lucifer keep fighting my battles for me.”
And this is my battle. My choice.
And my zealot father we’re questioning, unfortunately.
Azrael gives a quick jerk of his chin, like he recognizes I’ve come to terms with the decision, and unlike Lucifer, he isn’t going to argue with me.
From where he stands on the opposite side of my new townhouse, his dark wings backlit by the blinding snow that now covers Manhattan, he looks exactly like the avenging angel humanity expects him to be.
Until he turns and the skeletal side of his face flashes.
A stark warning.
Few humans have seen Death like this.
Well, and lived to tell the tale, at least.
Azrael closes the distance between us in a few strides before he gently pulls me into his arms and lays a soft kiss on my lips. Whenever we’re close like this, the familiar trace of a scent I catch behind his ear soothes me.
Vetiver and rosemary.
Dark, earthy, inevitable.
A lot like the primordial himself.
Azrael eases back, releasing his hold, his pale eyes still on me, and the shiver that runs down my spine is beyond my control, even as I give him one last kiss and step through the ether.
I freaking hate this.
But no one ever said being an immortal would be easy.
I appear outside Hell’s Depths a moment later, the heat of my breath steaming. At the sharp landing, my stomach drops, instantly making me queasy.
The Depths’ dark obsidian halls seem to stretch on forever, an endless cavernous maze lit by the surreal glow of flickering torches. I sigh, leaning my head against the cold stone wall. The coolness helps a little.
Not that I’ll ever get used to traveling like this.
The nausea subsides, and I straighten just as the sound of some poor soul’s screeching echoes in the distance. I stiffen.
The Depths are for the worst offenders, my fiancé’s favorite victims, and though I’m still learning our realm’s geography, in Hell there’s no escaping the devil who’s supposed to be here beside me.
Or my own demons, it seems.
“Lucifer?” I call out, my voice echoing against the labyrinthine stone.
No one answers.
Tentatively, I inch forward, but I only manage to make it two steps before I’m snatched off my feet into a hidden alcove.
Lucifer has me pinned against the nearest wall in two seconds flat, the heat of his lips brushing my neck and the thrust of his hips hiking up the hem of the Valentino dress I’m wearing.
“Fuck. Is this . . . ? I mean . . . Bloody hell,” he swears.
“Yes,” I pant.
His whole body seems to sigh in relief. “Thank fuck.”
Ever since I put a temporary pause on our D/s dynamic, Lucifer’s been unusually careful with me, always asking my permission where he would have relied on my safe word previously.
This time, he doesn’t hold back.
He tears into me with renewed vigor, the feeling of his mouth on mine so perfect and delicious and sinful that I can’t help but whimper in need.
I want so badly to return to what we used to have, to what he wanted for me, but I can’t allow myself to give in to my baser urges.
Not yet.
Through his suit pants, the thick length of his cock presses into me, making me ache so much I’m twice as slick as I was already. He nudges my legs open.
“You smell like him,” he growls, his tone gruff and accusing, but his touch only grows more wild, more feverish.
“Does that make you want to punish me?”
Or Azrael?
Lucifer pulls my panties aside, dipping two of his fingers into me and stroking over that spot he knows I love so much, and I let out a breathy moan. I turn molten, more than eager for him to be inside me.
This is what he does. Makes me my most wicked and sinful self.
Everything I never knew I needed to be.
He coats his fingers, quickly bringing them to his mouth. “But you taste of me.”
His cum, he means.
The smug, self-satisfied grin he gives me is sin embodied.
“Azrael—”
“Hasn’t sealed the deal yet?”
The three of us have been practicing ethical nonmonogamy, with Lucifer and I still engaged, while he and Azrael have agreed to share me.
Except now they seem to have some kind of competition for me going.
Lucifer finishes licking his fingers clean of me, his forked tongue flicking over his skin, before he smirks at me, his hands on my breasts as he starts in on my throat.
That teasing smirk of his is pure evil.
Everything I want and more, and yet . . .
Why can’t I allow myself to have this?
All it would take to resume our dynamic is a single word, but . . .
My thoughts turn to the other celestial in my life, the one whose deadly kiss acts as a kind of soothing balm to my soul, even if we still haven’t . . .
The heat in my face flames.
“Azrael and I are taking things slow.”
“Mmph,” Lucifer hums noncommittally, like he doesn’t know the meaning of the word. He claims my mouth again, so I have no choice but to taste myself on his lips.
I’m nothing but a bundle of pleasured nerves in his arms. Moldable. Like clay.
And more than anything, I want him to be the one to help sculpt the shape of me.
Though we both know he can’t.
He nips my neck, his fangs grazing over the now-sensitive skin before he pulls back, giving me just enough room to breathe. “Funny how you never felt the need to ‘take things slow’ with us.”
“You’re different,” I pant.
“Am I?” He lifts a brow, giving a half smile like he’s won this round, though we both know exactly what I mean.
I’m destined for him. Made from one of his bones.
Like Adam and Eve.
But Lucifer knows as well as I do that I can still be the architect of my own fate.
His family and their freaking apocalypse be damned.
“Don’t worry, little dove,” Lucifer whispers, the heat of his breath tickling me. “When Azrael does make his move, it’ll be well worth the wait. Trust me.”
I shove playfully at his shoulder, and he lets out a dark chuckle, easing off me.
I’m more than grateful he’s giving me the space to explore whatever this .
. . attraction is between me and Azrael.
He’s respecting my needs, allowing me the chance to build my own life, make my own choices, before I fully submit to him.
But my fiancé still has no qualms about reminding me that he and Azrael have their own kinky history.
A level of backstory that he and I don’t share.
Not that either of them has been particularly forthcoming about it.
Lucifer leans against the adjacent wall, reaching for a cigarette, the amber hellfire in his eyes roving over me. In his custom suit and polished Armanis, he cuts a dangerous figure. Sin and desire and temptation all rolled into one.
He wasn’t exactly thrilled when I told him I wanted to move out of the penthouse and divide my leisure time between him and Azrael equally, but sometimes I think the bit of distance it’s created between us has been good for us both.
I crave every moment he and I are together more than I crave my next breath.
And I would know, considering these days Death is practically stalking me.
“How was the press conference?” Lucifer asks, lighting his cigarette.
I shake my head. “Not worth discussing.”
Ever since Michael forced Lucifer to open the first seal of the apocalypse and Lucifer lost his earthly powers, the entire world has gone to hell in a handbasket—literally—considering Hell’s demonic legions have now infiltrated every part of the city, along with everywhere else for that matter.
With the second seal now open, war has begun breaking out all over the globe thanks to whichever one of Lucifer’s siblings went rogue.
We’re not entirely certain which one it was yet, but it’s made my already tentative alliance with them even more unsteady.
Meanwhile, Michael and Lilith are temporarily untraceable as they both prepare for their next strike.
Not to mention the human zealots called the Righteous have started moving into politics.
They and their followers are stronger than ever.
Who knew the Big Apple would be apocalypse ground zero?
And where’s God in all this?
That’s one question I can’t seem to stop asking.
The end of Lucifer’s cigarette flares, illuminating a small cut healing on his cheek, and another tortured scream echoes, reminding me of exactly where I’m standing.
Honestly, at the moment, actual Hell is preferable to what I’m dealing with topside. The media and the general population didn’t take kindly to my livestreamed “revelation” that I’m immortal.
Understatement of the century.
I brush all that aside and try to focus on the task at hand. “Do you really think I can do this?”
I look toward Lucifer, unable to hide all the uncertainty plaguing me.
About this. About him. About Azrael. The apocalypse.
All of it.
How when all of that’s stripped away, I still don’t know who I am underneath.
What kind of immortal I’m going to be.
Lucifer’s smirk widens, and I let out an irritated huff, feeling annoyed with myself.
Right.
These days I don’t need to ask for his approval. My own intuition is supposed to be enough.
So why do I feel like my anxiety is slowly crushing me?
“If I said yes, would that help you feel better?” Lucifer tilts his head curiously.
“No.”
We both recognize it for the lie that it is.
Lucifer’s expression softens.
He knows better than anyone what it’s taken for me to get here, even more than Azrael, who in the last several weeks has become my shoulder to cry on.
But unlike Death, Lucifer would never coddle me.
Instead, he simply opens a door I didn’t realize was there, stubbing out his cigarette and beckoning me forward like he not only welcomes how wicked I can be, but encourages it.
How anyone can resist him is beyond me.