Chapter 40
Forty
I had thrown together the best half-assed party I could come up with in less than a day to celebrate Raphaela. She had left me alone after I asked her, and I hadn’t seen her at all today. I heard she had taken her own tour of the castle, staring at all the lovely fucking things inside and out.
But something didn’t sit right with me. I didn’t know if it was her or if it was the lack of attention Eros had given me over the course of the past day. I didn’t go a day without seeing or at least talking to him.
This was … too damn long. Nobody ignored me for this long.
“Lucifer,” Everi purred, drawing her fingernails across my chest.
I stared at the door, eyes flickering to her for only a moment, and sipped on my drink. Heavens, this stuff wasn’t as strong as I needed it to be tonight. “What do you want?”
She curled up next to me, fingering my silver hair, acting dumb. I didn’t know why she did it. She could’ve been a helluva lot stronger if she dropped the damn annoying act. She could even lead a kingdom one day if she had enough envy to steal it from the current leader.
“I want you,” she whispered into my ear. “When are you going to give it to me again? It’s been too long.” Her hand drifted down my abdomen, lingering at my waistband. “I know you want me too.”
Nope.
Didn’t want her.
Hadn’t thought about her since that night.
I gulped down the rest of my drink and sighed through my nose, catching Raphaela talking to Tonia by the Fervor Crisps. Tonia leaned over the table, breaking a crisp and thrusting it into Raphaela’s direction as if it were the best thing in the entire world.
“Don’t want you,” I said, placing my glass on the bar and letting the bartender fill it back up.
“You ran away from that monster in fear the other day,” I said, remembering what had happened up in the Chapel Room, where the Drestha Triad had burst into green goo.
“I can’t waste my time on people like you. I need someone strong.”
“But, Luci, I—”
I clutched my drink harder, a growl ripping its way out of my throat. “Don’t call me that.”
Only Eros and Dani called me Luci. Nobody else.
“Matter of fact, leave me the fuck alone. I never wanted you. I never planned to make you queen, never planned to give you anything other than my dick. You were an easy fuck. That’s all. Go talk to your friends and get them jealous if you want to, but that’s all you are to me.”
She huffed, tossed her hair in my direction, and stormed off, a green mist trailing behind her.
Damn Envy, thinking I gave a single fuck about her.
Raphaela looked over at me, eyes sparkling with excitement, and I turned away.
I didn’t need her shit either—at least, that was what I told myself. But part of me—that part of me I had buried long ago—missed her. That I missed the idea of her.
Corrupting her. Hurting her. Ruining her.
Now that she was ruined, there was nothing else for me to play with. I had no use for her. I could see her every day, could be reminded all the time about what we had, what we could’ve had if I hadn’t fallen. But none of that shit would happen because I didn’t really want her anymore.
I knew that now.
Her beauty had blinded me yesterday, but never again would I become blind to someone I didn’t care about. Maybe to Eros. Maybe to Dani. But that was fucking it.
I sipped on my glass and let the drink burn my throat.
“Give me something stronger,” I said, throwing my empty glass onto the bar.
“Something stronger?” he asked. “The only thing I have stronger is blood from Wrath.”
I growled and glared at him. “Something fucking stronger. Can you do it, or are you that incompetent?”
He got the damn hint and poured me blood. It wasn’t what I loved. I hated the fucking taste, but it was enough to hurt. I wanted to hurt. I wanted to feel again. Since I had been down here, I had pushed that side of me away.
But Raphaela had brought it all back. I had been a dick to Dani and Eros yesterday. Letting them go. Pushing them away. Getting too caught up in Raphaela to see that I loved them.
Love.
Really. Truely. Loved. Them.
I’d never thought I’d ever feel that way again since I had fallen from Heaven. Told Eros to stay away from me. Broke our relationship for hundreds of years for selfish reasons—because I had known he was my weakness and that if I wanted to rule all of Hell, I couldn’t be weak.
I glanced at the grand entrance for Dani and Eros. They were never late—at least not this late. Dani loved the parties in Pride, and Eros loved me. They wouldn’t miss it. Eros had even told me they’d be here … so why? Where the fuck were they?
Raphaela continued to stare at me from across the way, giving me those seductive eyes that I’d never thought I’d see from her.
Fuck, this blood tasted bad. I didn’t know why the heavens anyone drank this shit.
“More,” I said to the bartender. “Make it stronger.”
Hurt. Pain. Love. Lust.
That was all I wanted to feel. That was how they had felt yesterday. That was how Eros had sounded over the phone. That was why they weren’t fucking here. I wasted—ruined—my chance at ever being with him and her without some heartbreak.
After finishing off the next one, I slammed the glass on the counter and struggled to stand up.
Fuck it. I was going to find them. Yet, just when I thought they weren’t coming, the double doors opened, and they walked in.
Dressed in her finest traditional Lust clothing, Dani had her arm curled around Eros’s, her chest up, her back straight, her eyes fixed directly on me.