Chapter Sixty-Eight Azrael
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Azrael
When Lucifer tasks me with searching for his missing bride, I hear Charlotte call out to me from the Hall of Mirrors.
I’m at her side in an instant. She asked for privacy, for me to give her space today, and even though it was a risk, I granted it, because she didn’t want me to see her before she walked down the aisle.
She stands in the middle of the hall in her wedding dress, and the sight of her hits me like an electrical jolt through my body.
The stillness in me shifts, almost alive.
Fuck, I love her.
And she’s mine now too. Even if she doesn’t know it yet.
My smile builds slowly. “You’ve never looked more beautiful, little siren.”
She blushes, her gaze sweeping over me. “You don’t clean up half bad yourself.”
I grin. I don’t particularly love how the tux I’m wearing stifles my movement, clings a little too tight to the width of my shoulders, but I smooth a hand down the front all the same.
Her gaze follows it hungrily, but then she glances away, like she still thinks she shouldn’t want me. “Lilith was just—”
“I know.”
I prowl toward her, closing the distance between us as I recount the details of mine and Lilith’s deal. The blood oath I made.
Charlotte’s eyes grow wide, her long lashes fluttering. “So, you broke your covenant with God to save . . .”
“You and Lucifer. And also . . .” I tip my chin toward her bodice, to what she’s hiding.
“That’s the real reason why Michael gave up opening the seals? Because Lilith’s already locked them? Thanks to the deal you made with her?”
I nod. “She’ll still try to get Lucifer to agree to relocating, but only after he and Michael have it out. She’s still hell-bent on finding God, destroying everything.”
We’re not in the clear entirely.
But one enemy is better than two.
Charlotte takes it all in, the hope in her eyes building. “And how did you manage to . . . ?”
I blush, pawing at the back of my neck sheepishly. “Don’t ask.”
Charlotte laughs. “Azrael, you devil.”
I chuckle. “There’s a reason my brothers, her little harem of Horsemen, were designed after me, and why she never much liked me with Lucifer, aside from the fact that I couldn’t give her grandchildren.”
She suppresses a smile. “A part of me thinks I should be jealous, but I guess I no longer have a claim on you, do I? And when you’re immortal, it seems like everybody ends up fucking everybody.”
“Something like that.” I grin.
We both fall silent for a beat, the space between us charged with everything left unsaid.
“Azrael.”
She steps forward, and for a moment I think she might tell me that she . . .
She places her hand on my chest. “I know what you’ve been guarding all these years.”
My breath comes out in one fell swoop.
A knot forms in my stomach as my limbs turn heavy.
She can’t possibly mean that she knows the secret I’ve been guarding.
“When Jax sent me her prophecy, I saw . . . a lot of moments between you and Lucifer, including when you first met, when he was pleading for . . .”
God’s mercy.
I keep my face blank, my breath bottling in my chest.
She’s so close, so fucking close, but I can’t allow myself to hope that she’ll figure it out.
“You’ve been safeguarding Lucifer’s redemption this whole time, haven’t you?”
I exhale everything I’ve been holding in.
A weight lifts from my shoulders, and I stand tall, a rush of adrenaline swelling in me.
“Lucifer told me that when he lost his wings, God also took his ability to create,” she says, practically reading my mind, “and then when I asked Seraph, she said Lucifer was never included in God’s original redemption competition in the first place, but that’s not because God doesn’t love him, is it?
It’s because Lucifer already had God’s redemption this whole time.
He’s just been waiting for you to guide him, to help him see. ”
I bow my head in a silent prayer, glancing toward the heavens as I mutter, “You mangy Mother Fucker.”
All this time and He wasn’t just waiting on my Lightbringer.
He was waiting on me too.
To show Him I was willing to risk everything for the son He’s always loved.
For the daughter who believed in Him.
I close the distance between her and me in two quick strides, needing to move. To release some of this . . . this euphoria I’m feeling.
I grip her by the back of her neck, my gaze combing over her appreciatively. Fuck, she’s breathtaking. Everything I could ever want, though I thought she’d never put it together.
“You clever, clever girl,” I praise her.
She blushes, glancing down shyly. “You stood by Lucifer for all of eternity, hoping that one day he’d see the good in himself.”
I nod, my face feeling stretched from where I can’t stop smiling. “If I’d have told him, he would have never believed me, and he would’ve risked losing . . .”
“You,” she finishes.
“No.” I draw in a large breath, my chest expanding. “You. Lilith may have fated you for him, but God chose you to help him heal.”
Charlotte beams at me, the love in her eyes washing over me like a wave of peace, of contentment. “You’ve been guarding us both, at all costs, right from the very beginning.”
I place a hand on her lower back, pulling her close, until she can feel my need pressed against her. She gasps, still thinking I’m forbidden fruit to her, but the bit of amber in her eyes turns molten.
“It seems God makes good on some of His promises after all.”
I want to lean down and kiss her, show her she’s ours, rip this dress off her and fuck her until she’s full of me, but I’ll leave that final revelation to Lucifer. I run my thumb over the diamond collar she’s wearing.
Our collar.
Or it’s going to be.
Even if we’ll only have a short time for her to wear it, if Lilith has her way with God.
“What are we going to do about Lilith?” she asks, her thoughts mirroring mine. “I have some ideas, but I’m going to need your help.”
“I’ll safeguard your plan however I can, little siren. Trust me.” I cast her a lighthearted grin, filled with the promise that from now on, she and her devil will have my undying loyalty.
For now and the rest of our shared eternities.