Chapter 37
Thirty-Seven
Almost instantly, I dropped Dani’s hand and stepped toward Raphaela. She was really here, really in Hell.
I shook my head. No. No. This couldn’t be. I was just imagining her again, like I had for the past thousands of years. She couldn’t be here.
Yet … my hands suddenly felt clammy, and my heart was pounding faster than it ever had.
“Lucifer,” Raphaela said. Her voice was soft—nothing like my visions of her scolding me, nothing like I had seen or heard for at least a thousand years in itself. It was different. She sounded like she had in Heaven, on our wedding night, when we were together for the first time.
She reached her hand out to me. And for some damn reason, I found myself leaning down to her and gently letting her stroke my cheek, like she had done so many times before. Something about her was different—really, really different—yet I couldn’t seem to put my finger on it.
Maybe it was my attraction to her. When I had fallen from Heaven, I had thought I had lost all feeling toward her, but even after all these years, even after eternity in Heaven, sneaking around with Eros, I still found her beautiful.
I tensed and took a deep breath. But what if this was some kind of godly magic that made me like her? What if it wasn’t really real?
She smiled at me, her smile alone melting the snow around us.
I grabbed her hand, feeling the soft skin. “It’s really you.”
She laughed, the sound of her voice like pure silk.
“You fell from Heaven?” I asked, confused.
She brushed her fingers against the scars in her back, and her lips quivered. Part of me didn’t want to believe it. Raphaela was always too good. She would never fall, but here she was, with me, in the Kingdom of Pride.
What could she have done that was so wrong that she disobeyed Mother? Did she fall for me? Did she miss me?
“Leave,” I said to all the bystanders.
Everyone from Pride, everyone I had come to know on a personal level, slowly started to depart from the edge of my kingdom until they were out of sight.
Raphaela stood, stumbling a bit on her feet to try to readjust to life without wings. She grasped on to my hand for support, holding it tightly.
After a few moments, she gazed behind me and nodded to Eros. “Eros, it looks as if you’re doing well.”
Eros didn’t say a word to her, just gave her an awkward, boyish smile, like he used to give her after she came home from worshipping that forsaken woman in the sky. And though he smiled, I could sense the tenseness behind it. The pain. The hurt. The betrayal.
Raphaela’s gaze drifted to Dani, who had pursed her lips together and was staring at our closeness. I could feel the wrath coming off of Dani in waves, and Raphaela tried to ignore it, but Dani’s intensity was stronger than anything I had felt before.
“And this is?” Raphaela asked, trying to keep her fragile voice steady.
Dani stepped forward, confident and protective. “Dani, commander of Lust.” While Dani usually kept quiet in times like this, being in Hell had changed her. She tilted her head toward Raphaela’s hand in mine and took my other, smiling sweetly at my ex-wife. “You’re the woman who haunts his dreams.”
Raphaela tried to keep her gaze steady, but I could see the hesitation in it.
From the stories I had been told from other fallen demons, Raphaela didn’t fear demons.
She always had that innate urge to change them into good monsters.
Maybe that was because she had been married to the most frightening one of all.
But Dani … was more than a demon. She was an angel, too, and that made her frightening to Raphaela. I could see and feel it, even though Raphaela was putting on the biggest front of her life. Raphaela was terrified of Dani.
Dani continued to smile sweetly at her, knowing that her words were getting under her skin. “A coward. Too scared to actually face Lucifer on Earth.” She shrugged her shoulders and gave her an envious scowl. “You had to use his dreams to try to destroy his mind.”
Raphaela’s eyes filled with tears. Dani let out a protective, threatening growl. Eros, sensing the tension, grabbed her hand and pulled Dani away from us.
“We’ll see you later,” he said quickly.
Though Dani didn’t want to go, she followed Eros back down the pathway and down to the cities.
They disappeared over the hills, not looking back once.
And I didn’t know what scared me most—Raphaela appearing in hell or how hurt I felt from the saddened expression Dani and Eros had shared before they left.
I gazed at Raphaela, Dani’s words still strong in my mind. Something wasn’t right about her … but I didn’t know what it was. I hesitantly nodded to my castle and walked a distance from her to it. She wiped her tears from her cheeks and smiled.
“So, this is Lucifer’s grand castle?” she asked. “I didn’t expect anything less.”
“What are you doing here, Raphaela?” I asked, opening the doors for her.
“I fell.” Her voice was quiet. “Mother cut off my wings.”
“Why?” I asked, brow raised. This wasn’t the Raphaela I had known. “What did you do that was so wrong?”
She paused for a long moment, another tear rolling down her cheek. “Loving you,” she said, voice soft. “I couldn’t stop loving you.”