Chapter 9 The Most Fallen
~ JANN ~
“Any sign yet of the spineless Fetchlicker?”
Lucifer sprawled on a chair, one leg thrown over the arm, sipping from a silver goblet that held a deep red liquid I prayed was wine. The way it stuck to his lips until he licked it off, made me queasy.
I stood at the center of the carpet in the Council Chambers. I’d been summoned here for what I thought was an Advisors meeting, only to find no one but Lucifer waiting for me.
“There’s plenty of signs—and rumors,” I said with a shrug. “He hasn’t revealed himself, and no sign of an increase in numbers in the city. I’m surprised, honestly. I wouldn’t have thought he’d leave his opponent so much time to organize.”
Lucifer didn’t raise his eyes from his goblet, just turned it slowly in his hands and tipped his head.
“He’s here,” he said definitively. “He’s afraid of what he sees.
But the green-eyed fuck isn’t a total coward.
He’ll show himself. And when he does, you report.
” His eyes lifted to mine. “Immediately.”
I nodded once as if it were a simple instruction. “I’m not your weak link. What about Gall? What instructions does he have? I’d be concerned that he might—”
“Gall’s already seen him,” Lucifer said quietly, eyes on me.
“What?!” My shock wasn’t faked. I thought if Gall had told Lucifer he’d seen Melek, there would already have been—
“My grandson still clings to the dregs of that cursed honor. He didn’t kill his guardian on the spot, because Melek had saved his skin so many times, he thought he owed him that. He warned Melek to flee and not return,” he scoffed. “We have had words.”
Nerves tingled up my spine.
Lucifer’s face hardened. “Gall has been instructed in a very detailed manner about what he’s to do if Melek appears again. He won’t slip through our grasp again. Gall wouldn’t dare.”
Shit. I shuddered to think how Lucifer had punished him for that.
I swallowed. “Is Gall still… able to fulfill his duties?” Gall and Istral were supposedly sequestered. I should have known Lucifer wouldn’t truly leave him alone.
Lucifer snorted. “Yes. I wouldn’t risk that—assuming he actually knows how to use his prick.”
“He knows,” I assured him, as any Nephilim would. “The question is, whether she’s strong enough to carry the babe.”
“She is.” The dark certainty in Lucifer’s tone made my skin cold.
“May I ask… Can you identify the women whose bodies and minds are certain bets? If so, it would be greatly helpful—”
“That isn’t your concern,” Lucifer said, sitting up quickly and taking another sip from his goblet. “All paths have been lighted. Now it’s up to my grandson to fulfill his role as royal stud. The rest is in the hands of… well, God, I suppose,” he smirked like he’d made a joke.
“And his queen?”
“What of her?”
I kept my expression blank and breathing easy. “Will she live? Gall is very attached. If he loses her—”
Lucifer shrugged and flapped a hand, as if the question were hardly worth thinking about. “I suppose we’ll all find out together, won’t we?” Then my lungs turned to ice as Lucifer, the Fallen Archangel, turned his eyes to me.
There was something incredibly unnerving about the eyes of an immortal. Humans said the eyes were the windows to the soul—but what of the soulless? Staring Lucifer down, was staring into the abyss, and in my experience, it never got easier.
The Most Fallen tipped his head like a bird. He wasn’t smiling.
“Is there a problem?” I asked.
He huffed. “I find the humanity in all of you… frustrating.”
I scoffed. “I’m no human. Pit me against any one of them—”
“Except your females.” Lucifer wrinkled his nose and his tone grew disdainful. “They are your bleeding hearts in this world—this desire to protect, to shelter—”
“To possess. To control,” I muttered. “The women are ours to use and hold. It’s only natural that we hold them away from the others—we don’t have the benefit of your insight. We have to make certain the lineage passed on is ours.”
Lucifer took another drink from that blasted goblet. “That too,” he conceded casually. “Yet… how would it be, Jann, if your female was taken? Harmed? You would be weakened by her hurt, I believe.” The casual warning of those words was chilling.
I took one, jerking step forward, then froze like I’d caught myself, snarling. “Bullshit. If anyone harms her or my offspring, you’ll see just how weak I am.”
Lucifer smiled at me over the rim of his cup. “I hope that’s true. Your mind remains a fog.”
“I told you, those Fetch are insidious little creeps that can reach into an unguarded mind. I have to keep my defenses up or they’ll see where I am.
” I gave him the cocky smile I usually reserved for young bucks who thought they could ambush me and still win, but a bead of sweat trickled down my spine.
Lucifer didn’t respond to my claim. “Jannus the Halfling. The half-known.” He hesitated and locked eyes with me. “The half-man.”
I sneered. “I have little purely human blood running in my veins, and make no claim to it, whatsoever.”
Lucifer regarded me thoughtfully. “No, it’s true, you are far, far darker than those you call friends and allies. Brothers, even.”
My body wanted to stiffen, but I forced myself to relax and pretend I hadn’t heard the implication of his words.
My mother died, as so many of them do. The thought made chittering fear rush through my veins as a vision of Diadre, sweat-soaked and screaming, writhing on a birthing bed, flashed in my mind.
“I have no brothers by blood,” I growled.
Lucifer didn’t answer. He kept staring.
I frowned. “Do I?”
Instead of answering, Lucifer got to his feet and strode past me, his body as vital and strong as the largest of our youths in his prime, though he had lived millennia.
As he passed me on his way to the door, he lifted a hand to pat my cheek a touch harder than necessary.
“As I said… we’ll find out together, won’t we? ”
Then he left me standing there, stunned and uneasy, as he opened the door behind me, then disappeared.
When I followed a moment later, he was gone.
Or only invisible.
Who knew?
Diadre. Lucifer's predatory gaze, and comments about my mate, gave wings to my feet as I hurried through the halls towards my chamber, praying I was truly as alone as it appeared.
Melek was frustrated by the need to hide in the shadows, and said he envied my ability to walk openly. But even though I had that freedom, in many ways, the restriction on my actions seemed far greater.
After all, I was a traitor to the insurrectionist king. And proud of it.
It made me an asset to Lucifer, but kept me walking a tightrope.
That vision in my mind of Diadre’s pain came again, but this time I stood in the grip of a furious Lucifer, and she screamed in the torment of being the human rope in a tug-of-war between Nephilim.
Fear crackled up my spine, and I began to trot, growling instructions to any guards or servants that approached to help, to leave my path clear.
Let them believe I was the asshole, too full of himself to deal with mere servants. Panic rode my blood. I needed to see my mate. To know she was safe.
I was running by the time I reached my rooms, and burst through the door quickly enough that I startled both Diadre and Caelan—who I’d left to serve her until I returned.
Diadre’s head snapped up when the door banged against the wall. Caelan whirled, one hand to her chest, eyes wide—not breathing until she realized it was me.
“Leave us,” I snapped to Caelan as I rushed across the room towards my mate. “Don’t return for two hours.”
“Yes. Of course.” Caelan dropped her head, left whatever she’d been doing, and walked briskly for the door.
“Jann? What’s wrong? Why—” Diadre was getting to her feet when I reached her, but I growled a warning and swept her up into my arms, carrying her to the door to make certain it was locked behind Caelan—then towards the bedchamber, my heart pounding and my breath far too fast for the merely mild exertion of trotting through the palace.
“Jann? What’s wrong?” Diadre whispered.
I shook my head, teeth gritted, as I swept her into the bedroom and lay her down on the huge, four-poster bed, leaning one fist on her pillow to brace my weight as she began to push up to sit.
I caught her precious face, cupped it and took her mouth, inhaling sharply in with relief when her lips opened for me and her sweet tongue tangled with mine.
The soft sigh she gave then, soothed my heart in a way nothing else could.
With a low growl, I crawled up onto the bed, straddling her on my knees as I broke the kiss, only long enough to pull the curtains around the bed.
Diadre’s eyes were wide, but she was already working on the buttons of my tight, silk shirt, while the pinch and strain of my cock in my leathers made me hurry to free myself.
The moment I sprang free, Diadre smiled and reached for me.
With a growl of approval, and pleasure, and sheer need, I leaned back down over her, bracing on one fist, using the other hand to loosen her clothing, forcing myself to slow and savor the time—to meet her eyes and trace the warm lines of her beautiful body.
It wasn’t until we were both naked, but I still hadn’t taken her—instead kneeling over her, stroking both hands over every inch of her, following the line of her jaw, her collarbones, her breasts, teasing her nipples with my thumbs, fitting my palm to her waist, sliding hands down her legs, then back up to the soft heat between her thighs with a growl through gritted teeth—as I fought the urge to cup one hand at the back of her neck and plunge into her—
“Jann? What’s wrong?” Diadre was breathless, eyes sparkling, her body thrumming—I could feel her arousal in the bond.
Yet, there was the flicker of fear there too.
She knew I’d gone to meet with the Council.
We hadn’t made love in days, because we’d both been tense and tired, and she knew I’d descended on her in a rush, even if I was slowing now…
Inhaling slowly, deeply, I made myself pull back far enough to meet her eyes, but continued stroking her body.
“Jann?” she asked, more nervous now, because I hadn’t responded. “What is it?”
I swallowed hard. “Nothing except… you’re precious to me, Diadre,” I rasped. Her eyes widened, then softened and she lifted her hands to cup my face. “Do you know that?” I asked gruffly.
Her lips curled up. “I do. I can feel it,” she whispered, then flattened one palm against my chest. “Here.”
I nodded, and clasped her hand to my chest, as I leaned down to cover her and press her into the mattress, reveling in her warm, soft skin, and pleading with God that no matter what happened to me, He would keep her safe.
Don’t make her pay for my sins.
Don’t make her a target of my curse.
Let our son be hers… and free of all of this sick, dark blood.
Please.