Chapter Thirteen
Silas
There is so much more work that goes into a bonding ceremony than I had thought. Since this is pretty much a wedding, I want Serenity to have anything she wants. She doesn’t have friends, and her family is gone, so if there is anything else I can do to make her day special then I want to do that.
Right now, my main focus is that Serenity wants to practice her healing power.
She had told me she almost forgot about it until she accidently burned herself cooking yesterday.
Now, she wants to practice healing other people so that she can be ready to help the other brides if it comes to that.
I know that is her main concern, considering what Furcas did to her.
She is worried he’s going to leave them all like how he left her if he finds them before we do.
It would be easy for my dad to give up where the brides are, but he said they needed to be found when each bride’s soul will be open to acceptance of the sin.
“I need someone to practice on,” Serenity says, and everyone avoids looking at her.
“Why can’t you practice on yourself?” Leopold suggests.
“Why?” she asks and looks at him like he’s slow.
“What if we find your bride, and she has her guts hanging out and is seconds from death? Then you will have to wait until her soul recycles and she’s reborn, comes of age, and that is, of course, only IF her soul is ready to be tied to yours in this lifetime,” Serenity states.
My brothers all take in what she says. I can tell that they understand where she’s coming from. We spend most of our life already being hard to kill, so we didn’t deal with many injuries.
Each bride will be vulnerable.
“You make a good point,” Fredrick says thoughtfully.
“That means she will have to touch us though, and we don’t know how to block her yet,” Gareth says nervously.
“Got something you want to hide, brother?” I ask with a smirk.
“Of course not,” he says and immediately looks away.
Let’s face it, we all have our secrets; we have been around for centuries. The thing is that Gareth just made himself a target for Serenity. She will be determined to find out now.
“Then you can go first,” Serenity says, standing in front of him and grabbing a blade out of one of her hiding spots.
“Why would I go first?” he asks, crossing his arms and sitting back in his chair.
Serenity smirks at him.
“I’ll tell you which bride is next,” she says in a singing tone.
Everyone stills. “You don’t know,” Lorenzo states.
Serenity looks at him.
“Papa Lucifer was vulnerable and some information accidentally slipped,” she says with a shrug.
Lucifer looks at her with surprise.
“I guess my blocks were down for a minute or two,” he admits.
“Like I said, I wasn’t searching for any information beyond learning more about Furcas, but I can’t help that the bride’s information was exposed to me,” Serenity says.
“As long as you don’t tell the person who is next until it’s time,” Lucifer says, having complete trust in her.
“When will it be time?” she asks, looking at him.
“After your bonding ceremony,” my dad tells her.
“Yes, since I have no women to toss a bouquet to, I can toss information on the next bride. This will be fun,” she says while rubbing her hands together with excitement.
“Then we’ve got to get working on your ceremony,” Gareth says, trying to distract her.
“We need to be prepared. Sorry brother,” Otis says while looking at Gareth before nodding at Serenity.
Serenity throws the knife before anyone can stop her. Gareth yelps a very high-pitched scream and looks down at his thigh.
“That fucking hurt!” he says loudly.
“How did you get your voice to go that high?” Otis asks with a laugh.
“Let her stab you and let’s see how you react,” Gareth says through clenched teeth.
“You have been stabbed before,” Leopold says with a laugh.
“Her blades are enchanted with some voodoo shit dad put on them,” Gareth reminds everyone.
I forgot about that part. I wince at Gareth.
“Can you come heal it now?” Gareth asks Serenity.
She nods her head, kneels in front of him, and pulls her blade out before wiping his blood on his pants.
“Close your eyes and place your hands over the wound,” my dad says, guiding her.
She does what he says. It takes her several minutes before we see his skin stitch back together.
I feel proud knowing that’s my woman. I can already see how powerful she is. She has two powers that she has been able to use to help the family, and she grows more confident by the day.
Once she’s done, she opens her eyes and looks down.
“I did it!” she cheers.
“Great job, baby,” I say, smiling at her.
“Again?” she asks while looking around.
“What did you find out about Gareth?” Fredrick asks.
“I can’t share everyone’s secrets,” she says with a smirk.
Gareth looks at her with pleading eyes.
“Don’t worry, they won’t hear it from me,” she says, patting him on the leg.
After that, my brothers all continue to make excuses so that she won’t find information on them, and it became a show of watching her chase my brothers around the palace with a blade in each hand.
“This feels like we are in some sort of horror movie,” my dad says with a laugh.
“It’s not everyday you watch your bride try to stab your brothers so she can practice her powers. It’s not helping that you are playing ominous horror music loudly as they all try to escape from her,” I tell him.
“This is actually the freest I have seen my children in a long time. If you guys were mortal, then she would be holding a water gun or something tame but, since I know she doesn’t want them dead, it’s quite hilarious to watch,” he says.
“I feel like the blades should be bigger though. It would make it more intense,” I tell him.
He snaps his fingers.
“You’re right,” he agrees.
He calls Serenity over, and two big ass knives appear in his hand.
“These might help,” he says, and she puts her daggers back.
“Thanks Papa Lucifer,” she says with an evil grin.
“I shouldn’t find that evil smile cute, but I really do,” I whisper.
“Why aren’t you attacking Dad or Silas?” Otis asks as she corners him.
“I have the info I wanted on Papa Lucifer, and I touch Silas all the time. I know everything about him,” she remarks.
“How come we aren’t immune to her powers?” Lorenzo asks.
“That was the way Lilith wanted it,” my dad states.
We won’t ever really know why she wanted it that way; hopefully, one day, we can ask her. I’d love to ask why my woman has two powers when my father had said she would only be getting one.
Maybe we will find out one day.
Serenity
Learning how to control my powers has made this a good day. I have had lots of good days lately, and I know it’s because of this family that has come into my life.
I don’t have to worry about being alone anymore. They are all trying to hold back laughter as I chase them around with knives. This would probably seem crazy to normal people but, for beings who pretty much can’t die, this seems just about right.
“I’m going to make everything pitch black. Hide so they don’t know where you are coming from when I turn the lights on,” Lucifer says inside my head.
I smirk at him and, a second later, all the lights go off causing all the brothers to shout.
I pick a place to hide. Since I spend a lot of time in the common rooms, I have gotten to know them pretty well.
When the lights go back on, the brothers are all in the room looking for me.
“Where the fuck is she?” Lorenzo asks, looking around frantically.
“It’s six against one, so she really needed some help,” Lucifer says helpfully.
“What does that matter when she’s chasing us around like a serial killer in a horror movie?” Leopold asks.
“Well now we can see who would survive one. That was one question Jasper had asked once,” Silas says with a smile.
“I didn’t think I’d actually be in this type of situation,” Jasper exclaims while throwing his hands up in the air.
“Why do these rooms have so many places a tiny being like her could hide?” Otis shouts.
Someone is slowly moving closer to where I’m hiding, and I bite my lip to keep from laughing out loud.
This feels kind of perfect.
“Boo,” I whisper and my brother freezes before I stab him in the thigh. He bites his lip to stop a scream from coming out.
I smirk and twist the knife, and a scream comes before I pull back.
“Fuck!” he shouts.
“Let’s get you healed up,” I say as he falls to the ground.
“What the fuck did you spell these blades with?” Leopold shouts.
I shake my head with a laugh.
“I can’t believe I caught Pride,” I tell him.
He rolls his eyes.
“Just heal me already,” he says through pained breaths.
“Say please,” I request. After he rolled his eyes at me, I think that’s the least he could do.
He glares at me, and it’s one of those ‘if looks could kill’ moments which really makes me want to laugh.
“Please,” he mutters.
“That looked like it hurt more to say than the stab wound itself,” Gareth says with a laugh.
“It did,” Leopold says lowly.
I chuckle before closing my eyes and concentrating on healing his thigh.
I picture what I want to do. I see the blood stopping and the skin knitting itself back together.
Leopold’s secret doesn’t seem so bad. He just likes to read romance books. He has a hidden wall in his section of the palace where he has a giant shelf filled with them. I’m feeling pretty jealous right now. I would like to get my hands on some of those books in his collection.
Once I don’t feel anymore injuries on Leopold, I open my eyes and smirk at him.
I plan to find out at least one secret about everyone.
I’m getting better at controlling that power, so I don’t need to read them if I don’t want to.
I’m sure if it was a high stress moment, it would be a different story.
“Now let’s take a break. I’m starving from chasing all of you around,” I tell them.
They all move to the kitchen. Lucifer must have told his staff that we were ready for food because they all start coming out and serving us once we are all seated.
Silas puts his hand on my thigh while everyone converses.
I look at each of my new family members. A feeling of peace and home comes over me.
I started planning my bonding ceremony, but I feel sad that I can’t share it with any friends. The brothers talk about taking Silas out before the ceremony; kind of like a bachelor party, but they said they weren’t seeing strippers or anything like humans do.
A girls’ night would be perfect, but I will have to wait for the other brides to start coming in before I can have a night like that.
Lucifer must have been reading my thoughts because he tells me that we have plans that night.
I have no idea what he has planned, but I’m sure it will be fun.
One thing I have learned about Lucifer is that he likes to play jokes on people and just have fun in general.
When he’s in the palace around his kids, he’s free to be like that.
If anyone else comes around, he is much more serious and intimidating.
After we eat and plans are made, Silas and I head back to our side of the palace where we can spend the evening alone together.
“This was a good evening. I think everyone needed it. I have a feeling that something is coming,” Silas tells me.
“It has been quiet for a long time, so I think you might be right,” I tell him.
“I will protect you,” he tells me.
I look at him and sigh.
“I know you will try to protect me but, if this person is after the throne, we are all in danger here. I will protect you too.”
His eyes soften at my words.
I can only hope we have all the brides bonded in time so they aren’t killed.
“I want to wait until after the bonding ceremony to have sex,” I blurt out.
He freezes at my words before replying, “Okay we can wait. I don’t want you to feel pressured to have sex with me.”
“I don’t feel pressured. I want to have sex but, since it will truly be my first time, I want it to be special. The bonding ceremony is like a wedding, so it feels right that it will be that night,” I tell him.
“Okay baby. That sounds perfect,” he says.
I smile and feel relieved, but he’s been pretty understanding so far so I can’t say I’m surprised. Part of me did worry he would be upset, but I think that’s just my own insecurities.
“We can still have some fun in the meantime,” I tell him with a smile.
His eyes instantly turn heated.
“Let’s have some fun then,” he rasps.
He grabs my hand as we walk into our bedroom and sit down on the bed. I immediately climb onto his lap.
I kiss him softly at first, but I quickly feel addicted to the taste of him and slide my tongue into his mouth. He kisses me back with the same intensity.
Being with him doesn’t make me freeze or panic anymore, which is a good thing. I find myself seeking his touch and wanting him more and more.
I’m starting to feel safe for the first time. I can hug the other sins and Lucifer but, if anyone else tries to get near me, I freeze up.
Being with Silas has felt right. I find myself craving him and wanting to feel his skin on mine.
We haven’t had sex, but we have had showers, baths, and given each other massages. We have seen each other’s bodies naked almost every day.
The acts are intimate in a way that I can’t quite explain. Sharing your body with someone, even if it’s not about sex, is still a big thing.
We have used our hands and mouths on each other. I find myself addicted to kissing him, and we end up making out and grinding against each other pretty much every night.
I know for a fact I have fallen hard for him. It’s scary for sure, but it is also the best feeling I have ever experienced.
This is something I won’t let go and will protect at all costs.