Chapter 24 Galilee #2
do? Come to think of it, if they knew about Michael and how some of his power might have trickled down to Gali, that could
put them in Michael’s crosshairs. Secrets like that needed as few people in the know as possible.
All these calculations clattered through Gali’s mind as she looked at the empty bathroom. “Will you keep me company?” she
found herself asking.
Leviathan raised an eyebrow. “In the bath?”
Gali rolled her eyes. “I’m not asking you to get in with me, Leviathan. I just—”
She broke off. The bathroom was large, with stone tiles on the floor and a black porcelain tub.
The shower was a large glass enclosure. There was no one there, and the house was warded against Deziel.
Gali would be safe. If Leviathan said it was safe, then it was safe.
Probably. Her nervous system simply didn’t believe any of that, unfortunately, and she desperately did not want to be alone.
Visions of Deziel’s smile kept flitting through Gali’s head.
Would she return to punish Gali for spoiling her plans with the hellgate?
Would she hunt Gali down, smash a bathroom mirror, and slice Gali’s throat like she had Gifty’s? Would Gali even see her coming?
Leviathan was watching her face. Gali didn’t bother picking up the rest of what she’d been saying, but he nodded anyway and
entered the bathroom ahead of her, starting the water both in the shower and the tub. He pulled a stack of thick white towels
from a closet and placed them on a teak bench, then passed her a washcloth.
“Get in the shower,” he said, turning his back. “I’ll run the bath.”
From the steam already fogging the glass, Gali could tell the shower water was scalding hot, exactly how she liked it. Levi
shook bath salts into the tub, and Gali surreptitiously watched the corded muscles of his forearms. She had only vague memories
of his other form back in the vault; he hadn’t held it for very long before returning to the human form he wore now. Gali
had so many questions about how it all worked—how many times had Leviathan abandoned this human form and reclaimed it? Did
he choose the details himself—the vitiligo, the build—or was it modeled after a vessel? Could princes even take vessels the
way that angels did?
She tugged off Lucifer’s tunic and stepped into the shower, sighing with relief as the water burned a path over her skin.
Leviathan paused at the sound of her sigh but didn’t turn around.
Gali ducked her head under the spray and soaked her hair.
It felt both illicit and thrilling to be naked in the same room as this prince of Hell, even if his back was turned.
Wiping the water from her eyes, she looked at the products on the bathroom shelf and choked back a laugh at the number of bottles lined up.
He had soap, shampoo, conditioner, shower oil, scrubs and face wash, mud masks and even a body serum.
“Levi,” she said, trying to keep the amusement out of her voice. “You be having spa showers in here or what?” The prince nearly
turned his head before he caught himself, but Gali could swear she glimpsed a flush on his cheek. “I thought you nonhumans
didn’t need all this.”
Leviathan kept staunchly looking away from her, watching the water filling the tub instead. “I find there’s something in the
rituals of the flesh,” he replied. “Tangible comforts, exercises in care.”
It was soothing to be wrapped in the scent of his body wash while steam rose and the heat loosened her muscles. Gali soaped herself
down with the washcloth, then worked some conditioner through her hair, detangling the curls with her fingers.
“Thank you,” she said softly.
“It’s just a shower and a bath.”
“Not for that.” She rinsed her hair and wrung it out. “I remember what you did for me back at the hellgate, protecting me
from the others.” It was hard to admit Leviathan had done the one thing she’d wanted Lucifer to do from the start, but Gali
forced the words out anyway, because they were true. “You drew your sword on them,” she said. “I never thought you’d do that
for me.”
The prince shrugged, still with his back to her. He was resting his arms against the lip of the bathtub, and his pale hair
fell in ropes down his back. Gali found herself wanting to see his face, his yellow eyes, as she spoke to him. He’d chosen
her and Lucifer over his own team. That had to mean something.
“Leviathan,” she said, bracing one hand against the shower glass. “Look at me.”
He stilled, his head bowing. “Galilee.” Her name spilled like a warning prayer out of his mouth, but Leviathan didn’t turn around, didn’t look. Gali closed her eyes.
She had dematerialized at the hellgate, and it felt like she had turned into someone, something, else.
Sure, her flesh had been slapped back together, but Gali didn’t feel like who she used to be.
She felt like she was both the haunted thing and the haunting.
She felt like her skin was a lie, like her body was a lie, and the power whispered to her that only the storm was real, was true, and everything else could be sloughed off.
“I don’t know if I’m real,” she admitted, her words slow and careful. “I’ve been in this body all my life, and then this angel
shows up and sets me off like I was nothing but a bomb. Not a person.” The water beat against her skin and steam rose around
her. “I lost control just like y’all thought I would. Shit, I lost myself.”
“But you found yourself again,” Leviathan said, his head bent as he looked into the swirling bathwater. The tub was almost
full.
Gali wondered if that was true. “I mean, you walked me back from the edge and all, but I still feel like a shell,” she said.
“Is there a reason why you won’t look at me?”
The prince laughed, and it was a bitter sound. “You know why, Galilee.”
She tipped her head back, thick curls wet and heavy on her neck. “Tell me.”
Leviathan shook his head, and she saw his hands clench the edge of the tub. “What do you want from me, Galilee? What’s this
game you’re playing?”
Gali slammed her palm against the glass, and the sound slapped through the air. “It’s not a fucking game,” she snarled. She was so tired and so angry, and it felt like she was scrabbling on the edge of something, a yawning mouth
beneath her.
Leviathan scoffed. “You don’t know what you want. Is this because you’re mad at Luci for that shit about your soul?”
Gali took a step back, and water crashed over the side of her face. She ducked her head away from the spray. Leviathan turned
then, his yellow eyes cold as he met her shocked gaze.
“You want to notch off both the Devil and his prince? Will that make you feel better?”
“I didn’t say nothing about—”
“Oh, don’t lie to me, Galilee.” He rose in a swift glide and stalked a step closer to the shower. “You want me to look at you like this,
naked and wet and just an arm’s reach away, for what? For comfort?”
He took another step, and Gali had to force herself not to back away.
Leviathan grinned, his canines showing, then he dropped his voice. “Just say you want to be touched,” he said, and the words
crept under the pounding water and licked against her skin.
Gali bared her teeth in response. “And what did you do in the garden?” She knew she hadn’t been imagining the looks he’d given her, the loaded conversation, the deftness of
his fingers as he’d uncovered his chest for her. “You wanted to be touched just as bad. You probably still do.”
Leviathan laughed, and it echoed through the bathroom. His eyes warmed as his gaze dropped to her mouth, then trailed down
her neck, following the water as it ran down her body. Her nipples tightened, and Gali almost regretted inviting him to look.
She wanted him to lower his gaze. She wanted him to never stop looking.
He flicked a forked tongue out against his lips. “I did want to be touched,” he murmured. “Hell watch over me, I still do.”
Gali’s heartbeat was louder than the water, thundering in her ears. “Didn’t think you’d admit that.”
Levi stepped into the doorway of the shower. “Your turn,” he said, and Gali blushed. He gave her a look. “Is it really that
difficult to admit what you want?”
It shouldn’t have been. Gali didn’t know why she was vacillating between anger and shyness, between certainty and hesitance.
This wasn’t the Galilee Kincaid who had thrown a leg over Lucifer’s shoulder at the Onyearugbulem party. That girl had thought
she was human, for one.
This Galilee reached out and tugged at the top button of Leviathan’s shirt without answering his question. The prince watched
her quietly, her hands dripping water that pooled quickly on the linen over his chest.
“Luci will return,” he finally said, before she finished the buttons. “You two will mend what’s been hurt between you.”
Gali shook her head. “You don’t have to say that.” The grief rang tart and sharp in her cheek. “I hurt him every time I touch
him, and that night I didn’t stop.”
Levi’s breath caught for a second, but then he exhaled, and Gali kept talking.
“I need to touch someone I can’t hurt,” she explained. “I need to feel real, and I don’t wanna be alone in this skin.” The
last button worked free under her fingers, and Gali paused. He’d walked over, but maybe she was being presumptuous. “Unless
you’d rather not?”
The Devil’s favorite prince slid a hand behind her neck and dragged her body against his.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said, then he crushed his mouth to hers, and Gali damn near whimpered with relief. Heat radiated
off his body, like there was a furnace neatly layered under his skin. She wanted to flay him and climb inside. She wanted
to drop her own skin and make a small cave inside his ribs, curl up in the space where his mortal heart should’ve been.
Leviathan wrapped his other arm around her, ignoring the water still pounding out of the shower and falling off her skin,