Chapter Two Charlotte #2
“After you, little dove.”
At his invitation, I stiffen, the cold air coming up from the Depths suddenly even more suffocating than the heat. Lucifer’s lips twist.
He’s enjoying this. The asshat.
I made my bed, and now he’s going to make me lie in it.
Like the true sadist he is.
I clench my teeth, hesitating.
Fuck. What did my upbringing do to me?
I can trust in myself, goddammit.
I press my lips together, forcing myself to remain strong as I brush past him.
At the bottom of the narrow staircase, we come to a series of stainless-steel doors covered in elaborate locks, and Lucifer opens the third one on the left with a single brush of his finger, or maybe his shadows, I’m not really sure which.
As we step inside, I’m greeted with the sight of what appears to be a grimy meat locker.
What the . . . ?
My heels click against the ceramic tile as the door slams shut.
Why did he . . . ?
I step farther in, taking in the dingy space, the flickering fluorescent lights, the rusted floor drains, and the lingering rancid smell of something rotten. It could be the set of a horror movie.
No less than he deserves.
Seemingly undisturbed, Lucifer steps past me, and to my surprise, the familiar scent of smoke and whisky that clings to him doesn’t do anything to calm my restless nerves, even as he offers me his hand.
I take it, holding on to the small bit of comfort he gives me.
I asked for full disclosure, to be a part of his celestial family, and since then, my fiancé’s done nothing to shield me from his world.
So why does it feel like we’re moving backward?
“I’m happy to do this for you, little dove. Just say the word,” Lucifer whispers, breaking the momentary silence as he tucks a stray strand of hair behind my ear.
I’m not sure I can do this, I think.
But I don’t send it down the line of our connection, so he doesn’t hear me.
As much as I sometimes wish he could read my mind, he can’t. Not in that way. Both he and Azrael have insisted I have nothing to prove, but they’re wrong in this case.
I do have something to prove.
To myself, at least.
“Let’s just get this over with.”
Lucifer nods, his grip steeling me as he leads the way.
When we reach the final part of the meat locker, a freezer or kill room that’s been sectioned off by several hanging plastic panels, he nods encouragingly.
Whatever challenges either of us faces, we face them together.
It’s me and my devil against the world. No pressure or anything.
I’m the Queen of Hell after all.
My soul belongs to the fallen angel beside me, for now and the rest of eternity.
And I’m grateful for it.
Even if I’m still struggling to figure out who I am underneath.
We step inside, the opaque plastic flaps swinging as I tell myself it’s only natural to feel nervous.
It doesn’t matter that I was made from one of Lucifer’s bones.
I’m still my own person with my own trauma and history.
But the moment he steps out of my line of vision and my eyes settle on the monster in front of me, my stomach drops.
At first, I don’t fully register that it’s him.
He doesn’t look anything like the man who raised me.
He’s thinner, paler, emaciated. If it wasn’t for the fact he’s wearing the same baggy, bloodied suit I’m pretty sure he died in, the one with the navy blue tie Mark bought him three Christmases ago, I wouldn’t recognize him.
He’s strapped to an old metal electric chair in the middle of the room, the leather that binds him cutting into his skin, so I know he can’t move from his seat, but panic still grips me.
Initially, he doesn’t acknowledge that Lucifer and I are there or even lift his head to look at me. He’s slumped back in the chair like he’s been tortured so many times and in so many ways that the how and why make little difference anymore.
Good.
The thought tears through me.
Though I’m instantly ashamed of it.
Lucifer gives my hand one final reassuring squeeze before he releases me, and I watch in an odd mixture of curiosity and abject horror as my father stiffens at his approach.
He recognizes the sound of Lucifer’s Armanis.
Just like I do when Lucifer and I are alone in the playroom.
Though for a far more fucked-up reason.
Lucifer wrenches my father’s head back by his graying hair, and it’s only then that my father speaks. “‘He who was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.’”
I flinch, my heart racing.
Lucifer doesn’t appear the least bit fazed.
“He does that,” he says, speaking as if my father isn’t there, like he sometimes does to me when we’re deep in a scene. “Speaks only in those bloody bastardizations of my Father’s verse.”
In quotes from the Bible, he means.
I exhale a shaky breath.
Once a zealot, always a zealot, I guess, I send down the line between us.
Abruptly, Lucifer releases him, tipping his chin toward the exit. “Would you like me to—”
“No, stay.”
Lucifer lifts a single brow.
We may have put a temporary pause on our dynamic, but the Prince of Darkness answers to no one—me included.
“Please?”
He nods, capitulating like he’s happy to do this for me. He leans against one of the meat locker’s refrigerators, crossing his arms over his chest.
As if he’s eager to see what I’m about to do.
You and me both, sir.
Slowly, I step forward, my father’s gaze meeting mine as everything else around us just sort of falls away, and all the progress I’ve made suddenly abandons me.
Until I’m nothing more than a scared little girl, standing in front of my abuser again, trembling.
Only this time, he can’t hurt me.
I’m more grateful than ever for the feeling of Lucifer’s shadows at my back.
A reminder that no matter what, he’s got me.
“You always did need a firm hand.” My father spits onto the floor at Lucifer’s feet before he turns back to me. “I knew from the start you were rotten to the core.”
I shake my head. “You’re not allowed to speak to me like that. Not anymore.”
“You’d dare chastise me with that serpent tongue, girl? After all I did for you?” He scoffs. “You’re no daughter of mine. The devil has dug his claws into you. You’re just a harlot of Babylon, drunk on your own rebell—”
“I’m not afraid of you or your God anymore. He’s too much like you.” I inhale a sharp breath, internally bracing. “Where’s Lilith keeping Jax?”
The first question that falls from my lips is a stupid one.
My father doesn’t know the answer, even if it is one of the most important questions on all our minds lately.
But I’m still new to this whole torture-and-interrogation thing, to releasing my anger, harnessing my powers, and with my father’s eyes on me like this, what my brain knows and body feels are no longer in sync.
But still, it sets the tone nicely.
His nostrils flare. “‘Trust in the Lord, your God, with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.’” He huffs, his eyes combing over me as he takes in the Valentino dress I’m wearing.
Too short, his judging look seems to say.
Then my makeup. Too dark.
My high-heeled shoes. Too suggestive.
All the way down to my venomous lips, my voice.
Too strong, his expression screams.
Everything about me has always been too much for him, too wrong.
Not good enough.
Too powerful, Lucifer whispers inside my head, encouraging me.
For a moment, I have to choke down the well of emotion his words release in me.
He’s given me more confidence in myself than he could ever know. More than any human partner ever could.
But somehow, it still isn’t enough.
No, not too powerful, I correct. Not yet.
Not until I conquer the last of the demons this monster’s abuse created in me.
I want to watch him and all his followers burn.
I glance down at the dress I’m wearing and give a fake, watery smile. It’s a modest look. Something I’d wear to any standard press conference or at Apollyon, Lucifer’s luxury conglomerate, where I used to work.
Now I’m at Zest, the lifestyle brand Lucifer’s sister, Greed, owns. I’m there—temporarily—while I start my own company. There’s been a lot of change in my life recently, but that’s one thing I’ve learned from all this.
Everything’s temporary.
My life. My choices. Even my father’s abuse.
And if Michael and Lilith have their way . . .
Humanity.
The very people I’m trying to save.
Not that they’ll ever thank me.
“Why her? Was it because she’s my friend? Why have you been so focused on me from the start? What’s the Righteous’s long game?” I demand, starting again, trying to infuse my voice with false confidence.
But my father has already sensed the crack in my armor, and like always, he aims to kill, the familiar derision in his eyes making me sick, even if he can only use words to hurt me.
“‘And I find something more bitter than death: the woman whose heart is snares and nets, and whose hands are fetters. He who pleases God escapes her, but the sinner is taken by her.’”
My body begins to shake.
I rear back my hand and slap him.
I’ve struck him before I’ve even chosen to do so, my palm glowing with the weight of my power and my rage as he laughs at me.
For all the disgust in my father’s eyes, the disgust I feel is tenfold.
The way he looks at me, I might as well have paraded in here with Lucifer’s cum dripping from my lips. It’s not an unlikely scenario, really.
But my sperm donor’s opinion doesn’t matter, shouldn’t matter.
And yet, all I can think, all I can hear and feel, is the hate in his tone, his amusement.
The way it rushes in my ears, mocking me.
The way it continues to rob me of my joy makes me question what I could ever do to be worthy of his love.
Every doubt. Every fear. Every anxiety.
Every feeling of worthlessness inside me belongs to him, to what he did to me.
That’s what he and his God gifted me.
And for that, he deserves to be punished.
I’m not sure whether the thought comes from me or from Lucifer, but I . . . can’t do it.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, my voice breaking.
Without warning, I tear from the room, not stopping even as I look over my shoulder and see Lucifer step forward, more than prepared to do this for me.
My vision blurs.
I sprint toward the stairs, no longer recognizing where I’m heading, until suddenly I connect with something solid—Azrael.
“Shhh. It’s all right, little siren. I’ve got you.”
I bury my face in his chest as Death holds me, unable to stop the painful sobs that rake through me uncontrollably, the sharp sound of my father’s tortured screams ringing in my ears.
I can’t bring myself to glance back to where I can feel him there, with Lucifer, the love of my life, for whom I’d do anything.
Azrael’s grip on me tightens as I fall further apart.
No, the worst villains don’t make us hate them. I encase myself in Death’s arms, unable to listen to the sound of my father’s screams.
They make us hate ourselves for how we can’t help but love them.