Everybody Rise #2
“Tell me something true,” he says, leaning back in the flower-patterned yellow chair. I lick the inside of my lips, stalling. I don’t want to talk. I’d rather sit here in peace, order food, and get the hell on with this sham of a day.
“Not happening, princess. This is my day.”
I grumble under my breath.
“A truth for a truth?” he offers, and I motion for him to go right ahead. He chuckles, but consents to go first. “I spent an entire human lifetime here on Earth.”
My eyes widen at his admission.
“Who ran Hell?”
He grunts. “The same demon who is currently threatening my reign.”
“Oh, snap,” I say, and his lips form a thin line.
“You sound like a human when you talk like that,” he says, and I roll my eyes at his barb. “Anyway, Nolda is an idiot. He’s gotten further in his quest than I thought possible, but he doesn’t have the brains to carry it all the way to the end.”
“If you know who it is, why haven’t you dragged him back to Hell and tortured him?”
“Oh, don’t you worry your pretty little head over the details. He’ll have centuries of torture ahead.” Luke folds his hands together, placing them on top of the yellow-checkered tablecloth. “Right now, I’m allowing him to earn every bit of his punishment.”
“You’re not at all concerned that a coven is helping him? Even if he isn’t smart enough to bring war to your doorstep, they could.”
His eyes are two impenetrable screens keeping me out of his internal thoughts as effectively as bars on a prison cell. The stony glare he directs at me has unease sweeping through me. Luke shakes his head, and the hard glower disappears.
I want to ask him what that was all about, but something tells me he’s done with the conversation around witches and his demon traitor.
“Why did you decide to leave Hell for a time?” I ask, steering us back to safer pastures.
His shoulders relax, indicating he likes the new direction. “Why not?” he answers my question with one of his own, but I don’t take the bait.
“Fine,” he says, relenting. “Like I said before, I wanted to feel.”
The honesty gives me pause.
“How so?” I question, not entirely understanding his reasons.
He bites out a harsh laugh. “Victoria, you know as well as I do that our father doesn’t allow his children to experience what he’s gifted to humans.
Even when he banished me to Hell, he kept me in metaphorical chains.
I could rule and cause intense emotions for others, but I myself couldn’t enjoy those same pleasures.
Even pain is better than feeling nothing.
I just got to witness others enjoying the perks of Earth. ”
Wow, I thought to myself. The great devil, who governs sin and desire, wanted to feel. It was almost poetic justice that the very thing he unleashed on the world was the one thing he himself was deprived of. It was kind of sad in a sense.
“What our dear old dad forgot was that on Earth, his rules for us don’t apply.” A grin spread out over his face. “So I found the loophole and took a holiday.”
“What did you do?”
He smirks. “Do you really want to know the dirty details, love?” he asks, but jumps right in without so much as a second for me to answer. “Drugs, booze, gambling … sex,” he whispers, with a raised brow.
I grimace, my mind conjuring up all kids of scenarios, and he is right, I don’t want any more details. He smiles at my discomfort and I glare in response. Jealousy slithers in uninvited, making my skin crawl and my fists clench and unclench under the table.
“There’s no need for jealousy, love. I never cared for any of them.”
“That’s even worse, Lucifer. Using women isn’t a sport.”
“Every one of them gladly participated and knew their part in our time together,” he explains. “There was so much I hadn’t experienced, and they were eager to show me. I chased every high I could …” He takes a deep breath. “And then I saw you.”
My eyes fall away from him, needing to look anywhere but at his gorgeous green eyes that threaten to pull me under his spell. I don’t want to hear any more. I am about to tell him as much when he continues on.
“I wanted to know you, Victoria. I’d enjoyed so much of the time I’d spent on Earth, but that night—” He smiles to himself. “Those few minutes with you made me feel more than I had felt in all the years I’d spent here.”
The weight of his admission cloaks me like a thick wool garment, threatening to pull me to the ground. I don’t have words. I can hardly think past all the voices in my head, screaming for me to run while I can.
“Can I get you two something to drink?” a woman croons, bringing my eyes up. She doesn’t look my way at all. Her focus is solely on Luke.
He clears his throat, looking down at the menu the woman has placed in front of him.
“Excuse me,” I say, as snarky as possible. “Can I get one of those too?”
“Mmmhmm,” she says unintelligibly, never looking my way but nearly throwing the laminated menu at my chest.
My mouth drops open in righteous outrage. Luke covers his mouth with his own menu, stifling the smile at my reaction to the waitress’s blatant flirting and outright dismissal of me.
“Do you two need a room?” I bark. Luke chokes and the bleach-blonde waitress with the gaudy mauve lipstick fans herself while mustering up an artificial look of mortification.
Luke pulls himself together, sitting taller and clearing his throat. “We’ll take two Cokes and two bacon, egg, and cheese croissants to go, Marcy.”
She beams in his direction, nodding enthusiastically, as though he’d given her some kind of earth-shattering praise. She saunters off, swinging her hips more than is necessary.
I scowl. “Marcy?”
He shrugs. “She was shouting it in her head, like she wanted me to know.”
“Disgusting,” I blurt, pulling a face that says, I might throw up.
I shouldn’t be surprised by Marcy’s reaction. The poor woman can’t help herself. He is the devil, and, in all fairness, he radiates sexuality. If he can affect a fallen angel like he does, surely a poor mortal can’t help herself.
I mentally slap myself for making excuses for the woman. Plenty of people turn their backs on Lucifer. Those that don’t find themselves burning for eternity, and if I don’t pull myself together, I might just meet that same damned fate. I don’t put anything past God at this point.