Chapter Thirty-One Charlotte
Chapter Thirty-One
Charlotte
“No,” Azrael snarls at Lucifer. “No, I’m not your chained beast anymore.”
Death thrusts into me so hard I’m certain I’ll be bruised come morning. The way he’s pounding into my cervix, like he doesn’t give a damn about what Lucifer or I think, is too good to withstand—and also more than my tender heart can take.
He’s looking at us both with more than a furious hunger in his eyes, the feeling more intense than any time he’s ever looked only at me. The way he’s driving into me is so ruthless and unrelenting that I realize he must be reliving what happened between them.
I look toward Lucifer, and I know he feels it too.
Whatever’s left of what they once shared is destructive, and it’s coming out in the safety of the scene.
Azrael thrusts even harder, so hard I can hear each ruthless smack of his hips against me, the ecstasy inside me building until I feel myself slipping away fast, losing myself too quickly, and this time, I’m not certain Death will catch me. He’s so focused on Lucifer, on the pain between them.
My spine runs cold, pleasure and fear mingling, as Azrael reaches up and cuts off my airway. I tense.
Pompeii. Sodom. The Black Plague.
All times when he must have lost control.
Fear grips me, my face turning red.
How many casualties? I ask myself as that familiar feeling of danger shoots through me, heightening everything. How many people had to die for their love?
The Angel of Death glowers at me, fucking me like I’m nothing but a useless rag doll, and from his expression, I realize he’s enjoying this.
He enjoys the sight of me dying.
Everything I thought I knew about Azrael shatters in an instant.
I start to buck, my shock making me fight and strain against him, but he’s nearly a foot taller than I am and almost twice my weight.
I’m not sure how I never put two and two together before.
It’s one thing to know he’s Death incarnate. It’s another to see him actively enjoy it.
Enjoy hurting people, hurting me.
The pleasure and pain inside me heighten, unlocking my fear, my shame.
Just as Lucifer looks toward him and orders, “Break her open, Reaper.”
The command acts like a tripwire inside me, igniting everything. I tip over the edge, clenching all over Azrael.
“Fuck you, you prideful asshole,” Death snarls, his grip on my throat tightening as he throws back his head.
“But you fucking love it, don’t you?” Lucifer bellows in return, thrashing in his chair, as I pulse and pulse, my eyes rolling back into my head as I feel Azrael cum inside me.
Death comes undone as he and the devil fight over me.
And the implications of that, of what that could mean for the world, for them, are so intense they’re triggering.
The anger and shame that floods through me is immediate, even as the pleasure inside me mounts.
How could I have not realized?
How could I have not realized that he . . .
I don’t allow myself to finish the thought.
“Let her down now, Reaper,” Lucifer growls, reining Death back in.
Azrael’s grip on me loosens incrementally.
Like that single command spoken from my future husband’s lips holds more sway over Death, over the world, than I ever could, despite that I’m the one he’s currently fucking.
I shudder and shake, a heady mixture of desire and fury tearing through me.
I thought I was prepared, thought I understood.
But I didn’t realize they’d both be my undoing.
My heart shatters in two, all my old trauma coming to the surface.
Azrael releases my throat.
My breath comes back in such a rush, my vision goes dark.
It burns on the way down as I gasp for life.
But Death’s still thrusting inside me, his skeletal face thrown back in such pleasure-pain, he looks lost. Wherever he is, it must be a brutal memory, because despite his clenched jaw, there’s a bit of moisture gathered at the edge of one of his eye sockets, like he could break any second. He’s bleeding grief instead of tears.
And I was the one who asked for this.
Who put them both up to this.
Abruptly, I kick Azrael off me, fearing the destruction that’ll result if I don’t.
I’m barely capable of tearing myself out of Death’s grip before I shout, “Inferno!”
The whole scene comes to an abrupt and screeching halt.
“Baby girl?” Azrael breathes, his eyes suddenly open, his face covered in flesh again as he casts a fearful look at me. Like he’s concerned I might be terrified now that I’ve seen the truth of what he is.
I stumble off the bench.
“Charlotte,” Lucifer says, the shadows I was wielding falling away from his wrists.
Azrael reaches for me, but I shake my head, pulling away from him.
“Don’t,” I breathe, panting, still feeling a bit of his cum dripping embarrassingly down my leg. My gaze darts between them.
That’s all this ever was, wasn’t it?
A ploy for Lucifer to get back with the one immortal who actually matters to him.
“It’s not like that, and you know it,” Azrael says, as if he can read my mind. And he’s right. Of course he’s right.
But knowing something and seeing it are two different things.
How could I have been so selfish as to put my own needs first?
“Little dove,” Lucifer says, rising from his chair, his voice incredibly soft, tentative, the one he uses during aftercare with me.
Slowly, he moves toward me.
Like it physically pains him to see me this distressed.
As if he wasn’t just reminiscing about how many people he—
“No,” I say again, turning my full attention and frustration in his direction, feeling suddenly braver than I ever would if Azrael weren’t here to support me, like I can let it out.
As if the balance of power between Lucifer and me is finally level now that Death’s tipped the scales for me.
“You don’t get to toy with my heart and his when you’re the one who thrust us together. ” I swallow, my hands shaking.
I knew what I was getting into with both of them and yet . . .
“Charlotte—”
“And you.” I pivot toward Azrael, my gaze softening. “You haven’t been being honest with me.”
And it shocks me how quickly Death switches back to being the gruff but gentle warrior I trusted so easily.
“Baby girl.” Azrael puts his hands up as he slowly moves toward me. “I love you, but we all agreed to this, you know that.”
“I know,” I admit, my breath suddenly uneasy, “but I just didn’t realize how . . .”
How selfish I was being.
Acting like my needs matter.
I glance toward Lucifer, my clenched hands trembling.
This was never going to be what I wanted, was it?
I see the second the thought lands, the moment he hears me. The tension in his shoulders coils. They have more shared history, more to work through than I ever could’ve imagined. How can I ask them to wade through all that, for me?
This can’t be what I’d hoped for, can it?
Not without causing both of them pain.
“Charlotte.” Lucifer inches even closer, like he means to come after me. He looks just as pained as I am.
Because he had to overhear how Azrael and I . . .
Oh God.
He didn’t even agree to this, didn’t even want to . . .
“I’m sorry,” I say to them both, my frustration turning inward.
Just like my upbringing taught me.
I don’t bother to grab my clothes before I turn and flee.
Without warning, I plunge into the ether, barreling down into the safety of mine and Lucifer’s realm beneath.
It was never going to work between the three of us, was it?
Not when I still feel like asking for more makes me unworthy.