Chapter 24
Chapter
Twenty-Four
MERRI
Iswirled my fingers in the hot water, bubbles breaking with the contact as I settled into my bath. There was nothing better to do here in my Lucifer-made prison, and I wasn’t in a state to talk to him again.
For the hundredth time, I wished I were the sort of supernatural who might stand a chance against him in a fight.
Not that I knew of any offhand strong enough to withstand that sort of physical confrontation, but it didn’t stop me from wishing it was possible.
I despised the idea of being stuck here, like a fly in a spider’s web.
I didn’t let myself think too hard about how Lucifer knew what scents I liked or the fact that I preferred bubbles to a bath bomb, even though deep in my heart I knew.
I’d handed it over freely during one of my chats with Cole.
The depths of his manipulation were staggering when I allowed myself to dwell on it, which was part of the reason I couldn’t.
I was in survival mode. Processing would come later. Assuming there was a later.
So, I laid my head back and breathed in the scents of strawberries and champagne, let the luxurious bubbles soften my skin, and tried not to think about my precarious predicament.
I was supposed to dreamwalk tonight. Sin made it clear to me that they were all expecting me to visit Grim. If we set everything aside for the moment, I understood why. Splitting my feeding between all four of them was the safest for all involved.
At least, that was our working theory.
Sin still maintained I could feed from him every day and it wouldn’t cause any lasting harm.
The biggest issue he wasn’t focusing on was that my body craved them all.
It had to be because we were bound to one another.
The magic connecting us made us stronger in some ways, more stable, but needed to be fortified regularly.
Which meant avoiding Grim would create ripples, the effects of which I could only assume would grow exponentially the longer I did so.
But I just wasn’t ready to face him.
The others were complicit, sure, but he was the one who took my heart and stomped on it without a second’s hesitation.
“Ugh,” I groaned, taking a hot washcloth and plopping it over my face in yet another effort to distract myself.
“Don’t think about them. It’s fine. You’re fine.
You don’t need them right now. You’ve gone days and days without feeding before.
Everyone deserves a night off, especially from heartbreak. ”
Even as I said the words, I didn’t fully believe them, but I clung to the excuse anyway. Two things could be true. I could need to feed, but also not want to. And I didn’t owe anybody explanations. It was my body, my power, and only I got to decide the whens and hows of what they did and didn’t do.
In what had become a bit of a habit in the last few days, Andi’s voice floated through my mind. Amen, sister.
I wasn’t sure if this was a Jiminy Cricket sort of thing, and she was now the voice of my conscience, or if it was simply a coping mechanism to deal with my current isolation from any kind of support system.
Either way, I’d been through hell in the last few weeks, or was it months now since I’d been thrust into this apocalypse? I’d more than earned a little me time.
With a heavy sigh, I sank deeper into the hot water and let it soothe my tense muscles. It wasn’t long before I drifted into a fantasy with no one around me. Not overbearing horsemen, not a world on fire. Just a beautiful garden at night, the fresh, clean air, and a sky filled with countless stars.
“Pretty,” I murmured as I started following a path that led deeper into the foliage.
I could still see the stars twinkling above, but there were sections of the sky obscured by a canopy created by the trees.
It was magical in a way that had nothing to do with actual magic.
The sort of fairy-tale setting that could only exist in dreams. The warmth of the night air coated me like a soft blanket, and I tipped my head up as I breathed in the rich scents of earth and night-blooming jasmine.
Crickets chirped in the distance, adding gentle ambiance to an already idyllic setting.
Walking along the mossy path, I ran my fingers over blossoms that seemed to glow when the moon’s rays hit them, my pace slow and relaxed. This was a sanctuary. A safe place for me to retreat when the world outside became too much.
The path veered to the left, and as I followed the slight curve, a new tree came into view.
It was planted in such a way that it clearly took pride of place in the garden.
It was massive, far larger than any other.
It also exuded ancient power, which made zero sense, but this was a dream, so natural laws didn’t exactly apply.
When a familiar blond head caught my eye, I suddenly realized exactly where I was and what I was looking at.
“Are you kidding me?” I muttered. “The Garden of fucking Eden?”
Lucifer was dressed all in black, his golden hair standing out starkly against the darkness he draped himself in. There was never any doubt he was beautiful. But as a cloud shifted and moonlight spilled over him, he was simply mesmerizing. I’d never seen a man glow the way he did.
The snake.
The morning star.
I huffed, annoyed that in avoiding one dark and broody ass’s dream I’d landed smack dab in the middle of another’s.
Lucifer smirked at me, a brilliantly red and perfectly ripe apple in his hand. “The Garden of Fucking? Hmm, I quite like the sound of that.”
“Well, this has been fun, but I’ll be leaving now.”
I turned to go back the way I came, but the sound of his footsteps followed, and his fingers encircled my wrist. “Wait, please don’t. I was only having a laugh.”
Spinning to face him, I searched his eyes. “Why would I want to be here with you? This is the place you started the fucking patriarchy.”
“I beg your finest pardon. I did not.”
“Yes, you did. That apple? Consider it your boot on Eve’s neck. You haven’t let up since.”
The apple dropped from his hand and he glared at me. “The woman was starving. All I did was offer her a choice. What happened next was up to her. And that bootprint you’re accusing me of? It was definitely Adam’s. He has much smaller feet.”
I softened just a hair, latching onto the knowledge I could leave this dream any time I wanted. Perhaps this encounter was an opportunity rather than a problem. So I began a slow stroll toward the tree, allowing my curiosity to take the lead rather than my fear.
“Why?” I asked as he came up next to me.
“Why what?”
“Why all of it? Why fall? Why sabotage the humans? Why try to take control of the world?”
He sighed and plopped down on a bench that had appeared out of nowhere. “Haven’t we already been over all of this? Why the incessant need to rehash ancient history?”
“Because at best you’ve given me half-answers. When you give me a straight answer at all.”
Lucifer groaned and allowed his head to fall back. The angle gave me a surprisingly erotic view of his throat, and I hated myself for not only clocking it, but also the resulting lady tingles.
“You are nothing if not persistent.”
I flashed him a bright smile. “You’re welcome.”
“I fell because I saw the writing on the wall.”
“What does that mean?”
“He loved the humans more than us. He replaced us the same way one replaces a toy they’ve lost interest in.
No worse than that. Like a dog whose humans decided to have a baby and no longer had the time or inclination to care for their first child.
We were cast aside. Abandoned. Made to play babysitter to the siblings we never wanted. ”
“So you have daddy issues. That doesn’t exactly make you special, Lucifer. Lots of us have trauma, you don’t see everyone else trying to start an uprising and overthrow the natural order.”
“How would you feel if you were told you were the favorite, only to be demoted when someone else came along, and then, insult to injury, you’re expected to guard them as well?”
I thought for a moment. I was an only child. I’d wished for siblings when I was younger, but now I was incredibly thankful that never happened. How would I feel if I’d been in his shoes?
“Jealous.”
“Ding, ding. We have a winner.”
“But my point still stands. Plenty of people are jealous, and they don’t destroy their whole lives.”
He cackled. “Clearly you’ve never heard of a midlife crisis. It happens all the time, crabapple. Every fucking day.”
“Buying a sports car or cheating on your wife is hardly the same as causing a full-scale rebellion.”
“Isn’t it? I was fighting for all of us, railing against the circumstances He forced us into.
I am not a guardian angel. I’m more than the keeper of his precious humans.
All I did was point out his error in judgment.
I told my father how much he’d hurt us all.
But only a handful of my brothers stood with me.
As such, we were easily cast out. Which, when you take a look at your history, is a very typical move made by dictators and monarchs when they are confronted with the displeasure of their subjects.
Hello, American Revolution. Isn’t one of the tenets of your kind to rise up against tyranny?
To oppose fascism in all its forms? How can you judge me so harshly for being the embodiment of heroism? ”
“Are you really comparing God to a fascist?”
“I mean, they use him as an excuse all the time. So I say, if the iron fist fits.”
His feelings on this issue were much bigger than I’d expected. Honestly, I’d assumed what I’d get from him was more bravado and bluster, not bare honesty.
“So . . . you didn’t abandon heaven to come rule in hell?”