Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
Some things, Lucifer thought to himself grimly, you simply are never prepared for. It was a sentiment he often expressed, and he found it to be inherently true. The birth of your first child, the death of a loved one, and of course, seeing your ex after a traumatic breakup.
He loitered in the archway that led out into his Garden, pretending to take in the lush scenery while he fought down the panic that crawled stubbornly up through his torso to strangle him.
The bewitched sunlight beamed down into the atrium, lighting on upturned leaves and delicate blooms and the golden curls of Michael’s hair where he bowed before the statue of… himself.
“Normally people know better than to intrude on my personal space,” he finally forced himself to speak, pleased by the level, slightly sardonic drawl that came out.
He had been afraid of sounding like a nervous preteen, the way his pulse was jumping under his skin.
“Or at least they ask my permission first.”
Michael lunged up with that predatory swiftness that made him so lethal on a battlefield, yet somehow managed to fall back in hesitation.
His beautiful face was guarded, anxiety laying across high cheekbones and pulling down the corners of his full lips.
Luce’s chest constricted with the need to kiss and strangle him simultaneously.
He settled for leaning back against the doorframe with his arms folded tightly across his chest.
Michael opened his mouth, then closed it, unsure of how to even begin this conversation.
“Oh no,” Luce snapped. “You’re on my turf, so you have no excuse not to explain what the fuck you’re doing here.”
Michael visibly started but quickly schooled his features into mild annoyance. “I didn’t come here willingly.”
“I know,” Luce sneered. “If you’d wanted to be here you would’ve come years ago.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Life isn’t fair.”
Michael scoffed. “You were never this cynical before.”
“I was a different man before,” Luce retorted, tone sharp and laced with warning. “A lot has changed between then and now.”
“Yes, now you kidnap people after you brutalize them.”
“No, I interrogate spies.” His eyes narrowed. “We both know why you were on that rooftop, and we both know who sent you.”
“Your brother has cause to be concerned. That book contains knowledge of powerful artifacts, and he does not trust you.”
“I’m well aware of that.” Luce shifted off the wall, advancing slowly on the other man with gold sparking dangerously in his dark eyes. “I was the one who was cast out, after all. Denied access to my rightful place and all of the artifacts within it.”
“Of course I know this,” Michael was getting irritated, his pulse jumping in his veins.
At least he told himself it was due to annoyance and not fear or—Saints forbid—longing that stirred in him as Luce stalked closer, radiating power and dominance.
“I never said that I disagreed with her actions, for the record.”
This made Luce pause. He blinked slowly, frowning. “Well, that sounds borderline heretical, Michael.”
His name from that mouth after all this time... it sent a tremor through the blond that he hoped didn’t show on the surface. This was rocky ground; they needed to tread carefully here.
“Perhaps sometimes… what is right and what is easy are not... congruent.”
A wry smile tugged at Luce’s lips against his will, one corner quirking up. “You and your damn doubletalk.” He shook his head. “Always saying what people want to hear and never what you really want to say.”
“It got between us in the end, didn’t it?”
Luce abruptly closed off, face slackening into a bland mask of disinterest. “We’re not talking about that.”
“We should,” Michael pressed. “I need to—”
“This is not about what you need,” Luce hissed. “I don’t want to talk about it, and as a guest in my home you will respect my wishes.”
“An unwilling ‘guest’,” Michael threw up air quotes with a sneer, “should not be bound by the laws of courtesy.”
“You’re right,” Luce agreed readily. “And since you’ve already intruded on my hospitality, you would do well to remember what I do to those who makes themselves my enemies.”
“You’re threatening me, after I just told you I agree with you.” Michael scoffed. “This is why you struggled to lead.”
“I do not, nor have I ever, ‘struggled to lead’.” A tangible feeling of cold swept the room as his tone turned icy.
“I rescinded control to my brother because he wanted it more, and my subjects here find me quite an amicable King. You have some nerve to speak of threats when you’ve done more harm to me than I ever inflicted upon you. ”
Michael tensed. “We hurt each other.”
Luce snorted. “Maybe so, but only one of us still has his wings.”
He spat the word like it was something foul, and he might as well have struck Michael for the way he recoiled.
For a moment Luce looked at the closed off form—the hunched shoulders, the bowed head—and he almost felt guilty.
Then he remembered Glory’s concerning message, and simmering anger slipped back around him like a shawl.
“I have been sorry for that since the day it happened.”
“You say that like it matters,” Luce murmured darkly, turning away. “You were brought here for Uriel to be healed, and so I could gauge what my brother plans to do. I don’t need an admission from you to know what he plans for Mags.”
Michael stared at those broad shoulders, taught with restrained emotion. He felt a flare of anger that Luce would turn his back on him again, but it died quickly. What had he expected? A warm reception? A tearful reunion? Apologies and forgiveness?
He was a fool.
“You are not prisoners here,” Luce’s voice drifted over his shoulder, softer but still carrying a chill. “You’re free to leave at any time. But you will not take Mary Magdalene. She comes and goes of her own will, and I don’t permit manhandling of my family.”
Michael wanted to shout but kept his tone controlled through great effort. “I had no plans to take Mags anywhere. I am not some mindless drone for your brother.”
"Could’ve fooled me,” Luce called as he stalked from the Garden without another word or glance.
Mags lay on her back, fingers skimming plush carpet as she stared up at the vaulted ceiling of her room.
The hand-painted stars glittered back at her, wavering in the film of tears that ran steadily over her cheeks and into her splayed chestnut hair.
There was a chance, once Jehovah got his hands on her, that she would never see these stars, this room, this Kingdom again.
But she had known the risk. She had made the choice.
These were the consequences of her actions, and she could live with them.
A quiet, firm knock on her door interrupted her musing, and she lifted a hand to swing the door open. Footsteps approached, and Luce sank into a crouch beside her.
“Hi,” he said quietly.
“Hi,” she murmured, trying to dredge up a smile for him. He clicked his tongue and pressed a slim finger to the corner of her mouth.
“Stop that,” he chastised gently. “No pretenses between us.”
The tears redoubled, and he settled down cross-legged, pulling her head into his lap.
“Let it out.” He ran his fingers along her brow, then wove them through her hair slowly.
The motion was calming, and his presence made her feel safe.
Mags released the tension coiled tightly within.
She bawled openly, tears spilling hot and fast as she curled into Luce’s embrace, a damp patch spreading along his slacks where she pressed her face to his thigh.
He continued murmuring soothingly as he stroked her hair over and over, nonsense ramblings in Enochian just to fill the space between the silence and her sobs.
“I have to go back,” she finally whispered what felt like hours later, voice hoarse from a throat stripped and raw. She levered herself out of his arms and into her loveseat. A blanket drifted off the bed and settled around her like a shroud.
“Absolutely not.” His rejection was immediate, in a tone that implied no argument. “That’s insanity.”
“I can’t escape this.”
“Of course you can, your home is here.”
“But Christos is there.” Mags curled into her chair and leaned her head against the arm, fingers gripping the blanket tightly.
“He could come here,” Luce offered.
“He won’t leave his mother,” she countered.
Her continued rebuttals were going to drive him mad. “My brother could very well have you killed for this!”
“I know!” The flash of pain and fury in her eyes took his breath away. “I knew that, and I chose this anyway, because it had to be done. And now this has to be done. Actions have consequences, Luce.”
“No.” He gripped his own knees tightly, as if to prevent himself from grabbing her and either shaking sense into her or spiriting her away to some secured room. “This is the overbearing whim of my idiot brother, not some plan laid down by the cosmos.”
“I can’t run from this, you know that.”
“I refuse to allow it.”
“It’s not your decision to make.”
“Like Hell it isn’t!” He sprang up quickly, long limbs unfolding so he could pace impatiently before her. “You did this for me, for my son. I cannot allow you to take the punishment for actions that are my responsibility.”
“It’s not,” she insisted tiredly, burrowing deeper into her blanket swaddle as the stress settled into her bones like lead and sapped her strength. “For an advocate of free will, you sound unbearably controlling at present.”
This stopped him in his tracks. “That’s not fair.”
“Life isn’t fair, it just is.” Mags sighed. “You faced this choice once. Tell me, why didn’t you run?”
He stubbornly avoided her measured, probing gaze. “That was different.”
“How?”
“Because no one was going to miss me.”
“We both know that is not true, Lucifer Morningstar.”
He swallowed harshly. “Mags, please. Don’t put me through this. You and the Fallen are all I have left.”