Chapter 53 – Asmodeus #2
Her stomach fills in, no longer concave under her ribs, and her thick hips flare, rounded and the perfect place for my hands to pull her over me, onto me. How I remember those nights with her, how I yearn to have them again.
Right now, the divine blood fills her. She looks the same as the first time I saw her in the Garden before Asherah’s blood changed her forever. Tears fill my eyes for how she’d been cursed. If only she had wanted me. If only I could have protected her. Maybe we’d still be there now.
I climb onto the stone altar and kneel between her legs.
My wings flare out behind me as I hover above her, imagining our life together.
The Light allowed me to witness the creation of Lilith.
I was nearly new myself at that time, but from the moment I saw her form take shape, I knew she was meant for me.
The Light hadn’t breathed life into her yet, but they knew what I felt.
They were proud of me for the love I had in my heart.
My maker was proud of me and my love’s creation meant it was one of the best days of my life.
I lower myself against her cool skin, placing my ear on her chest and wait.
The first beat of her heart isn’t loud. In fact, it isn’t a true beat at all.
It sounds more like rushing water, but then, like magic, there’s a soft pump as the muscles contract.
It hasn’t yet filled with blood, so I wait for another and another.
Soon it beats so fast, every thump strong, furious. Lilith will be furious with me.
I hear her deep, crackling inhale, opening her airways wide.
The blood flows and suddenly her scent floods the room around me.
She smells of Eden, a place long lost to the both of us.
She smells like astringent herbs mixed with honeysuckle and violets.
The musk of her skin is earthy, woodsy with hints of sweet vanilla.
But all that is nothing without the jasmine that wafts from her hair, mingling it all together, tempering the herbs, making her scent softer, sweeter.
I breathe her in the way humans inhale drugs.
My entire body awakens. Her scent is an aphrodisiac for my angelic body.
Lilith wouldn’t like me hovering above her, so I grab her body and flip mine below hers, letting her arms and legs sprawl out around me.
I make myself smaller, the size of a human male.
Her head falls at my shoulder, and I wait some more.
Why isn’t she awake yet? She’s healed. She’s alive.
She breathes. Her heart beats wildly, echoing in the tomb around me like a marching drum.
“I don’t know if you listen while you sleep anymore, but I often come to speak with you, to tell you about our children and our grandchildren.
Today, I witnessed a miraculous thing, my love.
I saw Ashmodai bond with his mate. Her name’s Vale.
She’s a beautiful Angel Killer who got lost between worlds.
I brought her back for him, for his happiness.
They’re beautiful, so full of love.” He smiles once more.
“I saw them, and I had to come. I’ve missed you so much, but our world . . . it needs you. Our children need you. Will you fight with me once more?”
I sit up on my elbows the moment I feel her limbs jerk awake.
Her breathing picks up, her heart speeding up.
I hold my breath as I watch her come back to life.
Her body jerks as if she’s having a seizure, but I know she’s just stiff from being on her back for centuries.
Her head swings back on her neck with an audible crack, and it’s gruesome.
I run my hands over her back, her arms, and the base of her neck.
I try to comfort her because I know how much it hurts.
She screams into my chest, her vocal cords not yet able to speak. She cries in pain and tries to lift her head, but she can’t. Her hissing breath is frequent against my chest. Her limbs flail against me, kicking and scratching at my skin. She’s fighting so hard to come alive.
“Be still, my love, it will pass. I assure you, this pain will pass,” I whisper as I continue to rub my hands over every muscle I can reach.
The agonizing cry that escapes from her lips is horrifying.
I know what she thinks. I’m bringing her back to torture her once more, but that isn’t my intention.
We need her. She must know that we’re destined to fight together or fail.
If we fail, our children will die. All the beautiful immortal lives will die along with them. She had to have known.
I hold her for over an hour, massaging her skin as she twitches in spurts and fits on top of me.
I wish I could take this pain away. I wish I could end the pain for her, but I can’t.
The Light cursed her for her unholy desires.
She’s the only immortal who can’t truly die because she’s not, and never has been, the same as any of us.
She is wholly different, a unique being who could never be recreated, a failure in the Light’s eyes.
Lilith’s body is still, her breathing calm, her heart slowing. I sit up with her in my lap, holding on to her hips so she doesn’t fall to the floor. I lean forward to see if she can hold her head up yet, but she presses her face into the crook of my neck, hiding.
“Will you not look at me, my love?” I ask and lean in to place a kiss at the juncture between her shoulder and neck.
Lilith tenses at the touch of my lips and it feels like a knife to the heart.
She hates me, I know she does. She’s told me many times, but I wish so much that it wasn’t like this between us.
“I—” Lilith gasps with a cough. She tries to clear her throat. “I cannot.”
“Have you listened to me at all over these centuries when I’ve visited you? I’ve cared for our children. They’re safe.”
Lilith curls into herself, sinking lower to my sternum, her back bending as she tries to get smaller in my arms. Her stuttered breaths scare me. I don’t want her to cry.
“Everything you say is a lie to prey upon my heart. You’re worse than Lucifer,” she growls as her shoulders tighten with rage. I should have known it wasn’t her tears she’d offer me, but her hatred.
I grab her shoulders and lean her back. I lift her chin, seeing her gorgeous, healed face finally. Her eyes are still sealed shut. She’s punishing me, rightly so. I deserve all her ire.
“I’m not like Lucy. If I were, I would have finished my task already. I would have been rewarded, but I haven’t because I love only you. I want only you. No other being will do. You must listen to me, Lilith. Hear the truth in my words.”
I see the tightening of her eyes right before she opens them. I can barely take in air for the beauty they behold. Those emerald eyes that glow with power, doom me every time. They’re filled with such a painful desire that I can’t fathom the hunger there.
I grip her face in my hands as she watches me warily.
I lean in closer; I can’t stop myself, I need to kiss my woman.
She licks her lips as we stare each other down.
I get closer with every second that passes.
I lick at her sweet lips. “I love you, Lilith. I want you to belong to me, the way I’ll always belong to you. ”
My beautiful Lilith, how sweet she tastes. I breathe her in as I lick at her lips. I watch as her eyelids close, but her lips don’t move against mine. She doesn’t touch me back. She sits there, and I can’t take it.
My jaw tightens and my heart throbs painfully in my chest. “Will you never kiss me again?” It hurts so badly that she doesn’t want me. I’m the embodiment of lust but there is nothing I can ever do to make her want me again.
I pull away. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have kissed you.” My shoulders slump in defeat.
“You should be sorry, Asmodeus, but your kiss is inconsequential. It matters not. You wake me to a world of pain, of hunger. You hurt me so by bringing me back. You promised you would not this time. You promised. I, who have only asked you for this, and yet you deny me with your broken promises and selfishness. You are a deceitful being who chooses yourself in all things,” she says in a hateful tone as I shake my head in denial.
“Deny it all you want, but I know why you wake me now. It is not to fight at your side, to protect our child. It is for the lust you have at being denied my body for too long. You run out of mortals to play with and so you need me,” she spits as if anything I want is so simple.
I wish it were. I shake my head vehemently, and she laughs.
She grabs my throat between her hands and squeezes.
She’s not trying to kill me, she can’t, Asherah never gave her that fire.
“Our children!” I yell back. “The two children we have! Not just one. Tiberius isn’t the only child we have, but they both need to be protected now. I swear that to you, Lilith. I won’t deceive you about them.”
The skin beside her lips twitches for a moment before she grins sadistically. “I do not know this other child. I do not know her. You took her from me! You stole Lais! You stole her from my womb! You deceitful creature!”
I don’t deny it. I did it. I stole her from the womb. “I would not let his wrath pollute them both.”
She laughs, letting my neck go. “Samael was kind, beautiful, and sweet. He loved me. He sacrificed his Light for me,” she whispers, pained by the thought of him.
There it is. Even though I’ve sacrificed my light, pieces given to our offspring and their offspring. “You covet a being whose apathy was the same as his love. He left you. Samael was not built for love, he was built for death,” I yell back. That’s who she always wants. That’s who she would love.