Chapter 26
Twenty-Six
Less than an hour after we returned to the Kingdom of Lust from Trevon’s bar, Dani was fast asleep against Eros’s bare chest. Her dress was pulled nearly all the way up her legs, her breasts were falling out of her top, and her lips were parted ever so slightly.
She looked so lustfully angelic, even in her sleep.
They were lying against their maroon velvet comforter in their room. Eros’s eyes were closed, his breathing slowing. His lip twitched, like it used to in Heaven. He scratched her head lightly around her horns.
I smiled at the two and walked over to the window.
Their room was on the highest floor of their castle, overlooking the white stone walkways and the beautiful trees with soft pink leaves.
Outside, the sky was a maroon. Light from my kingdom made of ice was gleaming through the northern sky even though it was miles and miles away. It had always been the brightest.
When I leaned against the window and looked toward Eros, he was staring right at me. His eyes were almost brighter than usual, lingering on me as I stood there.
We stared at each other for a long time, and all I wanted was for him to love me again.
When I had fucked it up for both of us in Heaven and we both fell, Eros still loved me. When we were the only ones in Hell, he still loved me. When everything was so bare those first hundred years here that I thought to myself that we should go back to Heaven, he still loved me.
Then we had drifted apart for thousands of years.
I swallowed hard and shook my head, trying to shake that memory. Eros’s eyes softened, and they looked so sorrowful and guilty.
Everything that I wasn’t. And that was oddly why I had loved him from the moment he showed up under one of Raphaela’s apple trees and smiled at me. So much emotion.
Not that pent-up shit that angels always had. This was real.
True.
“Do you still love me?” I asked.
I knew the answer. It would always be yes. But I wanted to hear him say it. Just those three little words that he hadn’t truly said to me for thousands of years.
“Don’t use me to fuel your pride,” he said, placing Dani down on the bed and standing up. His abdomen was nearly glistening under the moonlight.
“Have I ever used you for my pride before?”
He clenched his jaw, suddenly much tenser than he was a moment ago. “Yes,” he said. “Many times, and I’m done with it.”
I pressed my lips together and stepped forward. “Am I using Dani for my pride too?” I scoffed and shook my head, gazing out the window. Angry and cold all of a sudden.
“She’s the strongest in all of the kingdoms, so I wouldn’t doubt it.”
I inhaled the deep aroma of Eros’s natural scent—cinnamon.
“Well, if you didn’t want me to be with her, you shouldn’t have asked me.
All I wanted—All I have ever wanted—was you.
For the thousand years we spent away from each other and for the millions of nights I dreamed of Raphaela, I woke up in an empty bed and wished you were still there with me. ”
Dani groaned on the bed and pulled the blankets over her head. “If you’re going to fight, do it in one of the Lust Rooms downstairs. We got soundproof walls installed.”
“Go,” Eros said to me.
Dani sat up and threw a pillow right at him. “I said downstairs. I gotta get my beauty sleep, or I’m going to be hungry tomorrow, and you don’t like when I’m hungry.”
I walked to the door and held it open for him. He grabbed a shirt, pulled it over his head, and walked out.
“What a woman,” I said, walking down the stone staircase, lit by pink fire.
We made it all the way downstairs to the main floor before he spoke. “You’re getting on every one of my nerves tonight, Lucifer.”
“Is that because we didn’t get to fuck at the bar?” I asked, walking toward the Lust Rooms.
“No,” Eros said, not making eye contact with me. He walked in the opposite direction toward the door. “Now, leave.”
“What’s your problem tonight? Why don’t you stop acting like lust is the only emotion you can feel for people other than Dani? What is so wrong about us, Eros? I can’t understand it.”
“I’m a fucking incubus, Lucifer,” he finally said, turning toward me.
His nostrils were flaring. “Fallen angel of erotic love.” He took another step toward me.
“What don’t you understand about that? Don’t let your pride get in the way, thinking that we were something than what we were. We fucked. That was it.”
“Did you forget that you were an angel of love?” I stepped closer.
“You were worshipped almost as much as a god. And when you and I were sinning in Heaven, you told me you loved me. An angel or a demon—it doesn’t matter.
You embodied love at some point, and I know you can’t have love for only just one person. ”
“I can.”
“We don’t live in Heaven anymore. You keep forgetting that. We’re in Hell. You’re not under that ghoul’s strict rules. You can live however you want. Love whomever and how many you want.”
“Why don’t you shut up for once in your life, Lucifer?” he said, stepping toward me. His eyes were black pits. “And leave.”
I blew a breath out of my nose and drew my finger across one of the side tables in their foyer, stepping closer to him. “No.”
His jaw clenched. “Leave.”
“No.”
He grabbed my jaw in his hand, trying to intimidate me.
“No,” I said again, stepping toward him. I grabbed his chin in my hand. “I’m not going anywhere. You love me whether you admit it or not, and all I have to do is this to prove it.” I pulled him closer to me and pressed my lips to his.
And he kissed me back, this time needily.