Chapter Forty-Nine Lucifer
Chapter Forty-Nine
Lucifer
I see the moment my wife’s fear of what she could become makes her hesitate, as she begins to question if what she’s about to do will make her like him, like me.
A vicious creature whose only true focus has ever been on what benefits him.
I take that as my cue to step in. This is what I’ve been training her for from the very start, and I’ll be damned if I allow my Father and his blasted teachings to ruin it for me.
She hesitates, caught between who she was and the terror of what she could transform into.
Her father’s eyes narrow. “‘For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous: but the way of the ungodly shall—’”
“Oh, stop with the bloody Bible verses!” I sneer.
My wife’s hands start to glow as they clench into fists, and I can feel her anger, her wrath, barely leashed, my Father’s divine justice fading as she tries to bury it again. But I won’t let her hide from herself. From her power.
Not any longer.
“We all know they never actually meant anything to you, or you wouldn’t have hurt her.
You wouldn’t have ignored the parts of His word that didn’t serve you.
The parts all of you ignore about love, forgiveness, mercy”—I shoot a furious look toward Azrael—“about feeding the sick, housing the poor, loving thy fucking neighbor.”
I shake my head, the words pouring out like they’ve been trapped inside my throat this whole bloody time.
“Christ never turned away from the whores, the lepers, the sinners. He would’ve flipped every damn one of your tables, yet you ignore that to justify your own hate, your own bigotry.
” I wrinkle my nose, sounding like what I once was.
My Father’s warrior. “There’s nothing Christlike about you, and if it’s up to me, none of you are going to escape me.
That’s why you’re here, after all.” I gesture to my realm all around us.
“So, why don’t all you pathetic humans actually start to fight for your own salvation?
The best thing you can do for yourself now is to—”
“Michael will deliver the Righteous to the Kingdom of God!” her father roars, thrashing about against his bindings like if he could break free, he would do whatever it took to annihilate her, to silence her again.
My eyes turn serpentine, and Azrael snarls, stepping forward. I think I feel her rage waning, her shadows retreating to the edges of the room, but then she suddenly throws her head back and laughs, the pitch high and shocking.
And despite that her hatred for him is delicious, it sends a chill down my spine.
Because she sounds like me.
Furious and in control.
My she-devil really has come out to play.
“You really don’t know, do you?” She chuckles, shaking her head in between breaths.
“Of course you don’t. You’ve been down here this whole time, so why would you?
” She steps forward, brazen again as she places her hands on top of his shackles, leaning into his space.
“Michael has already betrayed you,” she hisses.
Her father’s eyes widen, his face a furious red. “No.” His features harden. “No, it’s not in his scripture. ‘And then there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon—’”
“‘And the dragon and his angels fought back,’” Charlotte snarls before she starts to circle him, her expression twisted in fury. “Michael used you. Just like you used me.”
“No.”
“The Righteous are all going to Hell, just like I warned you.”
“No!” her father roars.
“God’s gone, and He isn’t coming back.”
“Whore of Babylon! Daughter of perdition!”
“You and your religion mean nothing to me anymore! Nothing!” she screams.
I step forward, pressing one of Azrael’s blades into her shaking hand. She takes it before she stands in front of him again, trembling in her fury.
“I was your daughter,” she whispers, her voice breaking as she places a hand on her stomach like the thought makes her sick. “All I ever wanted was for you to love me.”
Her father sneers. “‘A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. Do not permit a woman to teach, to assume authority over a man. She must be—’”
“And yet you’ve never wondered where I learned to want all this? How your verses made me the perfect victim—perfect for him!” she shrieks, gesturing toward me. “You drilled obedience into me until it became holy.”
I pinch my thumb and forefinger tight, drawing it like a thread over his mouth, and his lips disappear. I may not have my power whenever I’m topside, but it remains here.
I take my bride by the shoulders as I lean down and whisper into her ear just as I did with Eve.
“Think of all he’s done, Charlotte,” I hiss, joining the fray as I tempt her, call out that dark power inside her with my own.
Her father’s eyes bulge and his face contorts as he recognizes what it is I’m doing, as he witnesses how thoroughly I’ve seduced her. “All the times he hurt you.”
Her tears come hard and fast as she trembles from the memory. “Too many.”
Her father thrashes in his chair, his screams muffled.
“Think of every moment he chose to forsake you!” I shout over him. “Every doubt he ever created.”
Her muscles quiver, the temperature in her body rising, anger simmering.
I can feel it. Her desire to end him.
“Then think of how I’ve worshipped you.”
She draws in a harsh breath, her chin held high, her eyes closed at the thought of the pain I’ve brought to her this evening. At what I have kept from her.
At the twisted love I have captured her with. Right from the start.
At the recognition that her life was mine from the very beginning.
“And then consider how it might have been different, what you would do.” My grip on her tightens, my hand caressing her throat as I remove her collar from inside my suit coat and place it around her neck again. “If only he’d done the same.”
I snap the buckle closed and release her, shoving her between her shoulders so that when she stumbles forward, we might as well be in another scene.
I know without a doubt from the way she staggers and then straightens, the muscles of her spine lengthening in a slow, deliberate movement, that the vicious creature I’ve been training her to be is here.
I’ve made her into the kind of monster my Father made me.
One day, she’s going to thank me for it.
“Tell him how you really feel, darling,” I order.
She shakes her head, still fighting it, despite how I can feel her rage simmering.
“Do it now, Charlotte!” I bellow, commanding her as I have so many times before.
But this isn’t a scene. It’s her father’s torture.
The exorcism of her demons.
It’s the crux of this whole goddamn thing.
“Show him how you feel!” I bellow.
“I can’t!”
“Show him or I’ll—”
She lets out a furious battle cry, screaming her rage out to the heavens, the fluorescent lights overhead bursting, and I see it then.
The moment she steps into her power.
The moment she becomes my queen.
She turns toward her father, her eyes now serpentine and glowing with hellfire as she says in a demonic voice, “Are you afraid, Daddy?”
And then she lunges, plunging the blade ruthlessly into his throat.
My cock gives an excited jerk at the sight of it, and Azrael’s eyes turn feral with bloodlust at the destruction he knows is coming.
But her abuser deserves so much more than the minor lash she’s given him, so I keep pushing, each command snapping like the crack of a whip as I drive her to be the largest, most hateful, most sinful version of herself she could possibly be.
“He stole your virtue!”
She shrieks, gripping the sides of his face, her hands igniting as his skin begins to singe and rot.
“Your innocence.”
She lets out another furious cry, the rage in it searing us both as she lunges into him, knocking over his chair. Her father writhes, bleeding beneath her, but if anything, she only grows more frenzied, more bloodthirsty.
My commands energize her.
She throws herself on top of him, shrieking as she claws at his face, over and over again, each blow a twisted memory.
My cock stiffens.
I’ve never wanted her more.
“Your virginity,” I say, marveling at how all the shadows in the room start to bend toward her, pointed and hovering, her rage sharpening them like daggers. Hundreds upon hundreds of them, one for every time he raised a hand to her. Azrael lets out a dark, haunting chuckle.
“And most importantly,” I hiss, driving the final nail in. “Your self-worth.”
The cry Charlotte releases is demonic, the sound of her rage like she’s channeling my Mother as she throws out her arms, the gesture bringing down all her shadows at once.
Her father’s blood sprays over the entire room like the splash of a baptism as she eviscerates him in one fell swoop, collapsing onto what little remains.
She curls in upon herself, sobbing.
I’m at her side a moment later, pulling her into my arms.
“Look at what you’ve done, darling. Look at all you’ve wrought.”
“I destroyed him,” she whimpers. “I—”
“No,” I say, gripping her face and forcing her to look at me. “You’ve freed yourself. I’ve freed you.”
A haunted look clouds her eyes, and my blood runs cold as she turns that demonic voice on me and says, “What have you done to me?”