Chapter Forty-Five Azrael
Chapter Forty-Five
Azrael
“It’s nothing,” Charlotte says quickly.
Too quick.
I see the devious look the moment it forms in Lucifer’s eyes, and I realize there’s still a new level of hurt he can bring me, a way to walk back his own vulnerability.
A punishment for how I just humiliated him.
The wedge he’s chosen to drive between us is a truth I’ve been refusing to name.
She never saw me as his equal in the first place.
“Tell him, little dove,” he orders. “Tell him what you asked of me.” He traces a hand over the smooth leather of her collar, a reminder that no matter what I may have coerced her into saying, she still chose him. She always has.
Right from the very start.
And maybe that’s the problem—maybe she never saw anything except him.
My eyes narrow, my shoulders tensing, but I want the answer just as much as he does, so I don’t say anything. Don’t put a stop to it.
I won’t give him the satisfaction.
I look at Charlotte, and she pales slightly.
Clearly, I made a mistake thinking he’d be the only one who’d ever hurt me.
She didn’t even see the knife in her own hand because loving him made it easy for her to forget that I bleed just like he does. I was just the collateral damage to their gravity.
“I . . .” Her throat writhes as she swallows. “I asked him to take the first step toward mending things between you two, that’s all.”
“That’s all?” I lift a brow.
That’s fucking all?
Treating me like I’m nothing more than a pity fuck.
Like my grief was just a bruise she could kiss better.
Like all I needed was a kind word from him to come running back, because what else could I possibly want but his attention?
Like my love was always second best.
To both of them.
The whites of Charlotte’s eyes grow wide. “I didn’t mean to interfere. I just—”
“You didn’t mean to interfere?” I chuckle, using my thumb to swipe at the edge of my mouth, before I rake a rough hand through my hair.
“That’s all you think I was to him? That all it would take for him to mend things with me is a few kind words?
Like I was always some background player in his story?
Someone who’d just be grateful for table scraps? ”
“What? No.” Charlotte shakes her head, suddenly tugging against the remaining shackle on her wrist. “I just thought if he reached out first, it would mean more. I didn’t think—”
“Let me tell you something, baby girl.” I prowl toward her, cutting aside any attempt to soften what he and I were.
“Before you were here, it was me.” I place my hand on either side of her hips, leaning in so that my breath’s hot on her face.
“I was the one who pulled him out of the pit when he broke. I was the one who bore the heat of his rage and the ice of his silence after he fell. I was the one who rebuilt him, made him whole, and I knew the taste of him long before you ever learned to chant his name like a prayer.”
Charlotte trembles, her chin quivering.
But the sight of her tears does nothing for me.
I can see the truth of it in her eyes then, how she never viewed me as a real threat.
She never thought I meant anything to him.
Not a threat. Not a partner. Not even part of the equation.
Just the shadow standing behind him—useful, maybe, but never essential.
“And what else didn’t you mean, little siren?
” I shove off her, starting to pace. “That’s what sirens do, isn’t it?
Sing their sweet songs and never look back at the wreckage they create.
What else didn’t you mean when you put on his collar?
Did you think it wouldn’t matter to me? That it wouldn’t cost anything when you chose him?
” I sneer at her. “You never even looked back to see what it took from me.”
My gaze cuts to Lucifer, but he seems more than content to stand back and watch the destruction he helped create.
He’s letting us bleed for him. That’s always been his favorite kind of devotion—worship through suffering.
“I’m sorry, Azrael. I didn’t mean to—”
“Do you know why I call you that?” I ask suddenly. “Little siren?”
She casts a reluctant glance toward Lucifer, before she gives the barest shake of her head.
I prowl toward her again, my face transitioning to the skeletal creature I truly am as I place my hands on either side of the wall near her, caging her in.
She turns away from me, wincing in fear.
I chuckle.
I fucking thought so.
I was never going to mean to her what she means to me.
I grip her by the back of the head, crushing my mouth to hers—not a kiss, a punishment—until she pulls away in disgust, and I can’t help but laugh. “Because sirens lure men to their death.”
Abruptly, I turn my attention to Lucifer, my skeletal face as horrific as it is uncanny. “You want to use our past as a means to toy with her? I’ll fucking play.”
I snap my fingers, and suddenly, the hall outside the meat locker has been transformed into something he never would have expected to revisit.
His Father’s throne room.
Where God carved off his wings like he was nothing.
Lucifer stiffens like the phantom pains on his back have returned in full swing.
A deathly stillness comes over me as his eyes widen.
He shouldn’t be surprised by my ability to wield my power inside our realm like this, but he still seems to be.
Charlotte glances around the room, her eyes flicking over the white marble walls, the throne of flaming sapphire, its surface gleaming, and the soft white light that seems to emanate from everywhere.
Her mouth opens from the shock, but she’s free from her shackles now and no longer the focus of my fury.
My anger lies with him.
It’s always been him.
How he refused to forgive himself enough that we could be anything.
“Where are we?” she asks.
The Depths and Lucifer’s dark palace are the only parts of Hell she’s ever seen.
“My Father’s throne room, I’m afraid,” Lucifer answers, his face paling. “Or a re-creation of it.”
The very place where this all started.
Where he fell. Where I destroyed everything.
Made a promise. Swore my loyalty to His father.
Before I even knew him.
All in the hope he’d someday be mine.
And where did it get me?
I turn my gaze to him. “Tell her what you did.” I point toward Charlotte. “Tell her what you’ve been keeping from her, or I can.”
Charlotte’s eyes go wide. “Azrael, you can’t—”
“Quiet, cumslut!”
“So, it’s to be a restaging then?” Lucifer asks, his jaw tight.
He’s afraid of his own vulnerability, loathes it, even now, but he won’t allow his precious bride to bear the brunt of it.
“Too much for you, lover?” I taunt.
He bares his teeth. “Never.”
I prowl forward, and he falls to his knees, allowing me to circle him like we have so many times before. Like we used to do back when we meant something.
Before our love turned into a war we both swore we’d win eventually.