Chapter 9 Lucifer
LUCIFER
Luc flew to Ollie and Harper’s apartment building.
His brothers were graciously allowing him entry to the roof.
They’d less graciously mentioned that their protective spells would stop his heart if he attempted to enter the building, as if reaching out to Dex was nothing but step one in his latest deception.
He’d prove otherwise.
Luc didn’t want to belong in the Realm of the Damned, and never should have fled after their failed date. He couldn’t fix things with Dex from there, if he could fix them at all.
From the sky, Luc spotted seven figures on the rooftop. Dex stood in the middle of the group, protected on all sides. Even Ollie had shown up.
Shame burned Luc’s throat like acid. What a brave human.
Dex and Ollie held hands, their shoulders pressed together. Luc’s chest constricted as if his heart had shriveled. He’d had that once, the fierce love of family, and he’d pissed it away, favoring his own importance and conviction that he was right.
He felt more alone than he had in centuries.
Luc landed, folding his wings at his back. He stood before his mate in his true form, red horns curling along his head like a ram’s, tail poised, and eyes glowing crimson. He did not hide, but laying himself bare didn’t feel like enough.
Dex’s gaze swept over him, colder than Luc thought possible, and his lips parted in disbelief. A visible tremor traveled through him, and the knuckles of the hand clutching Ollie turned pale.
“You tricked me.” Dex’s tone was accusatory, betrayal written all over his face.
“Dex, please.” Luc dropped to his knees, the sudden movement causing Ash, Dante, and Onyx to surge forward. “I didn’t know you and Ollie were friends.”
“You t-tricked me,” Dex repeated, voice shaking.
Luc’s skin burned hot, his voice coming out in a whisper. “I didn’t. I never used magic on you. No illusions. I showed you my human form because it was the only option. I said there were things about me that you needed to—”
“Stop.” Dex shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. Even if you didn’t cast a spell on me, you still deceived me. I thought… But there’s no explanation, no excuse. All I want to know is if you hurt Ollie?”
The words stuck in Luc’s throat. Dex was right. There was no hope here. No coming back from what he’d done.
“Well?” Dex snarled, clutching Ollie tighter. “Did you try to kill him or not?”
“I did.” Luc’s gaze fell to the floor.
How could he look at Dex, let alone Ollie? That day at the beach had become a blurry memory. He’d been nothing but cruel, discarding Ollie’s life without a care for anything except his anger at Dante and Ash. And proving he was right.
“Then I don’t need to hear anything else. Ollie, let’s go. I don’t want to be here.”
“C-come on.” Ollie’s voice came out strangled and small, and Luc shriveled with shame.
He couldn’t watch as the two young men walked away, their footsteps echoing like the gavels of judgment. How had he deluded himself into believing he could fix this? No truth would make Dex love him when he wasn’t even worthy of forgiveness.
“I’d like an explanation.” Dante’s hard tone cut through the air.
Luc’s gaze rose, finding Dante’s arms crossed over his bare chest and his eyes blazing with black fire.
“Why did you try to kill Ollie and Harper?”
Luc shook his head. “Dex is right. There is no excuse.”
A growl ripped from Dante’s throat, and Ash and Onyx closed in around him, Nico at Onyx’s elbow. It seemed Harper had left with Dex and Ollie.
“So it was mindless violence?” Dante snarled.
Luc’s fire sparked. “Why are you so desperate for me to justify myself? You think I have a reason that will satisfy you? No answer is acceptable, and I won’t pretend otherwise.”
“Stop twisting your words so that we can’t argue with you.” Ash’s eyes flamed orange. “What about our truce? We agreed to move forward if you stayed away. You expect us to believe you didn’t know Dex was connected to Ollie? Please. The two of them are like family.”
Dante rumbled in agreement. “The truce is off.”
“I swear I didn’t know.” Luc rose to his feet, wings twitching in growing agitation. “This wasn’t a move against you or Ollie. I was leaving town, but I couldn’t seem to get this coffee shop out of my head. I saw Dex there, and I knew.”
Onyx stepped closer. “Knew what?”
“Dex is my mate.”
Stunned silence fell over the group. No one seemed to move a muscle.
Saying it out loud seemed to solidify it. A pain far greater than when he’d realized he would have to let Dex go lanced through Luc. He’d still let his mate go, but he hadn’t wanted it to be like this. He wanted the chance to love Dex, and he’d never get it.
“Bullshit.” Dante’s voice shattered the calm.
Luc’s internal fire raged, hollowing him out as pain consumed him.
“It’s not bullshit. Dex is my fated mate.
I felt it before I even saw him. I was drawn to the ceramic mugs he makes and sells at Seaside Coffee, as if the art holds a piece of his essence.
I was mooning over a handcrafted cup the day I saw Dex for the first time. ”
“So you say.” Dante sounded impossibly more enraged. Fuck, this was a lost cause.
Why would they believe Luc when he had initially doubted their claims of finding their mates? Violently so.
Ash grabbed Dante’s arm. “Wait. It makes sense.”
“Excuse me?” Onyx gasped as Dante shouted, “What the fuck?”
Ash didn’t back down. “I wondered if Dex was another mate, remember?”
Onyx snorted. “Yeah, mine, and you were totally wrong.”
“Clearly.” Ash’s glaze flicked to Nico, his flames snuffing out. “But I was right about the mates being connected. Harper brought Nico into the group, same as he brought Ollie. There had to be magic helping him find good people when he was in need. There must be a fated connection between us all.”
“But Luc isn’t one of us.” Dante’s words cut Luc’s heart open, even though he was already painfully aware they were no longer family.
Ash’s gaze sharpened in Luc’s direction. “He was our brother for a long time. Longer than he’s been our enemy.”
“So?” Dante sneered.
“So, there’s a connection among us, and the connection between Harper, Ollie, Nico, and Dex feels as meant to be as each of us mating them.”
Luc’s heart skipped. Ash believed him?
Nico shook his head. “It feels meant to be, but that doesn’t mean it is.
Concocting an explanation isn’t proof. Dante is right.
Luc isn’t part of your group anymore. And you’ve been wrong about Dex before.
Don’t be so quick to believe because it sounds good.
Lucifer has been hunting you all summer and broke the truce he supposedly wanted so fast that it seems to have been a ploy all along. ”
“It wasn’t a ploy.” Luc tamped his anger down. He couldn’t let rage rule him. It was part of what got him into this mess. He took a breath. “I was never hunting anyone down.”
“Bullshit.” Dante threw up his hands. “Everything you say is crap. Do you think we’re stupid?”
“No.” Luc clenched his fist. “I can prove it’s not bullshit.
If I were hunting you, you’d have been back in the Realm of the Damned months ago.
I’ve known where your house is all along, Dante.
On the clifftop within the protected nature reserve.
I saw through the illusions hiding your heavily guarded sanctuary as easily as I saw through your invisibility all these years. ”
Dante’s mouth dropped open.
Luc didn’t stop. “My plan to release the demons from Hell was set. Had been for a century. I rebuilt Hell to mimic Earth in preparation, so we could all adjust, and came here to find you three, to reveal my plans and offer you a chance to structure a new society with me. As I said before, I intended to hold onto your magic—hold onto the threat of reimprisonment. I was still scheming when I first showed up. But I wasn’t hunting you. ”
Ash raised a brow. “Then you were stalking me for what, fun?”
Luc’s gut twisted. It was all coming out. “No. It was far from fun. Seeing you three after two hundred years affected me more than I expected. I was angry. Lonely. And pissed off when I saw you spending all your time with some witch.”
“Harper is not some witch.”
“I know, Ash. He’s your mate. But you know what? Harper claiming he was your mate was the first time anyone had uttered the word mate to my face in over a thousand years. No one dared mention our failed quest once I locked everyone in Hell. And when Harper did, I snapped.”
Ash seemed stunned, Dante and Onyx too.
Luc’s fire wrapped around his miserable heart, and his voice rose.
“I took out a millennia’s worth of rage on your poor mate because he had the audacity to tell me something I didn’t want to hear.
There was no way it was true. I hated Harper and you, Ash, for bringing the reminder to the forefront. ”
Luc heaved a breath, his chest tightening. His tail flicked back and forth, wings begging for the open air, but he stood and faced this.
“I stewed over your claim of finding your mate for weeks, alone in that cursed place where I’d imprisoned everyone.
Being there after returning to Earth set my senses into overdrive.
The wrongness clawed at my insides. I couldn’t take it, and the second I fled back to Earth for relief, I found Dante playing mates.
But this time, it wasn’t rage that sent me spinning.
Hope broke through, and it fucking broke me.
Hope, when I knew better, wasn’t something I could endure.
The only way to be sure was to kill Ollie and force Dante to see the truth.
To see the truth for myself. And I’m sorry.
Not because Dex loves Ollie and everything is ruined, but because intending to kill him to get answers was my most selfish act.
Despicable. There’s no excuse and there will be no forgiveness, but Dex is my mate regardless. ”
Dante’s nostrils flared. “You’re right, there will be no forgiveness.”
Onyx closed his eyes, his expression tight. Was he disappointed? Surely he wasn’t surprised by Dante’s stance.
Dante went on. “I don’t care if Dex is your mate. I won’t convince him to hear you out, and neither will Ollie.”
“I don’t expect you to.” Couldn’t Dante see that wasn’t why Luc had explained?
At least Dante wasn’t arguing against them being mates anymore.
“Please, don’t tell Dex. I hate that everyone knows he’s my mate except him.
I need to be the one to explain, if he ever wants to hear it.
This needs to be worked out between us.”
Dante shifted his weight, uneasy perhaps? “Fine. That is your right. We can’t hinder your connection without breaking an ultimate rule.”
Ash and Onyx both nodded.
At least they believed Dex was his mate. Not that it mattered when Luc would never bond with Dex. Maybe it was best if Dex never found out. The knowledge would only cause further harm.
Luc spread his wings. “Now that’s been cleared up, and you know I wasn’t stalking Dex to get to you—that I was never hunting you—I take it our truce stands?”
The three exchanged a heavily loaded glance. At last, Ash said, “It stands.”
Luc launched into the sky.