Chapter 16 Maeve
MAEVE
Adrian doesn’t bother with a greeting—just storms into my bedroom like he owns the oxygen in the room.
Typical.
Another reminder of why I never missed his gilded fucking prison.
Lucifer hums under his breath, perched on the couch with a smug smile on his face. “Someone’s grumpy.”
His uncle doesn’t even turn. Instead, Adrian’s stern expression is trained on me.
Asshole.
“We’re not negotiating this, Maeve,” he says, standing in the middle of the room like a marble statue someone carved out of arrogance and entitlement. “You have refused to attend her office. Fine. She’s coming here. Now.”
No hello. No how are you.
Not an ounce of care about the shit night sleep I had here.
Just straight into his dictatorship.
I blink at him slowly. “Good morning to you, too.”
“No,” Adrian says firmly. He slices through the air with his hand, and I avoid looking at the chuckling imp lest we’ll both be getting told off. “Not this time Maeve. You’re going. No distractions.”
I level a glare at him. “I don’t need therapy. Not from her. I need distance from the person who tried to break me for six years.”
My chameleon’s rage builds, and I have to fight to keep control of her.
He rolls his eyes, dropping the facade of being in control. “That’s what is worrying me, love. You’ve had a hellish few days, and you need to talk to someone.”
My chromius bares her teeth inside my chest, and I swallow the instinct to do it out loud.
“Adrian,” I say sweetly, “I would genuinely rather stick my hand in a demon portal and let whatever’s inside chew it off than sit across from Sonia Jones again.”
“Well, it’s a good thing I’m out of demon portals at the moment, isn’t it?” He runs his hand through his salt and pepper hair, blowing out a huff of air.
Lucifer leans over the back of the sofa like he’s watching a live comedy special. He raises a brow at me, and I shake my head.
I don’t know what he was asking, but it’s not worth the trouble he’ll cause to agree.
Adrian sighs the sigh of a man who thinks he’s being patient. “Maeve. You will attend the session. You’ll sit there. You’ll answer her questions. And… you’ll not set anything on fire.”
Like that’s a thing I’ve ever done.
Lucifer chokes out a laugh, and I frown at him. What the fuck?
Does Adrian actually think I’ve set something on fire before? Is this a lie she’s told or does he really think I’ve become a pyromaniac in the time I’ve been free from the compound?
I blink before a smirk takes over. “I make no promises on the last one. But don’t worry—if something burns, it won’t be her.”
Lucifer’s laughter is freer now and lovely to hear. “Oh, Uncle, I’d be worried if I were you. I think that might have been a threat.”
“I don’t think it was,” he mutters. “I know it was. Let’s hope that Helen’s hidden all of the lighters.”
He really does think I’m going to set shit on fire, doesn’t he?
Fuck me dead.
Please, whoever is fucking listening to this shit, do me a favour and save me from idiotic men who believe their own delusions.
“I’m sure she’s creative enough to do without them,” Lucifer teases.
While Luc’s being nice to his uncle, it’s clear that he’d much rather light Adrian on fire and watch the light fade out of him.
Unhinged.
But I like it.
“I am. If I wanted you dead, Ades, trust me when I say your body would never be found.”
He grimaces. “The taunts aren’t going to get you out of this appointment, love. She’ll be here in a half hour. You’re due your next heat in six weeks. That’s something you need to discuss.”
The appointments with this woman bring out the worst in me.
They always have.
Well, for the majority of the time.
Adrian gives me that ugly, pompous look—the one that says he knows exactly how much I want to tell him to fuck off, and he’s waiting to see if I’ll do it.
I don’t.
Not because he doesn’t deserve it, but because I’m not foolish enough to give him exactly what he expects.
But if he thinks I’m going to talk to that psychotic cunt about my heats ever again, he’s got another thing coming.
“Fine,” I snap. Lucifer’s eyes narrow, and I avoid looking his way.
He’ll be ashamed of my weakness. Of how quickly I acquiesce.
Of how little I can truly fight against the dictator of my life.
Adrian nods once, clipped. “Good.”
Lucifer flips his uncle off. “Off you fuck now, you horny little wet—”
“No,” I interject, shaking my head in horror. “Just no.”
I don’t even want to know how he was going to finish that insult, without sounding sexual towards his uncle at all.
I’m going to throw up, and it has nothing to do with my impending doom.
“Fine. I need a better name.” He hums thoughtfully, and I’m surprised that Adrian stands to wait for whatever insult Lucifer’s dreaming up.
“I’ve got it. Off you fuck, you bargain-bin Brutus,” Lucifer says cheerily.
He’s so proud of himself, and I moan in embarrassment. That’s not one of his better quips, no matter what he thinks.
Adrian finally leaves, muttering about a call he “absolutely must take” and reinforcing the fact that I’m expected in the library when Dr Jones arrives.
Asshole.
He acts like he’s the master of the universe and it would collapse without him personally holding it up.
The door clicks shut, and I blow out a huff of air, turning to Lucifer expectantly.
He whistles, shaking his head. “He’s a fucking cunt.”
“Sorry I caved,” I murmur, looking away from his intensity. “He always makes me feel… weak.”
Pliable. Vulnerable.
Worthless.
“If you weren’t so averse to touch, princess, you’d be getting a pillow to the face for daring to apologise to me.” He comes to sit on the bottom of my bed. “You fought, and then took the right path for you.”
“Did I?” I scoff humourlessly.
Sharp irritation presses against my ribs as my chromius mentally paces. A restless energy washes over us, the prickling making me very uneasy.
“Yes, you did. He’s a domineering knob end who causes so much shit. He’s already made it clear you must attend this appointment—all he did was speed it up.”
“I hate her.” I look to the locked door and feel a little more comfortable being sort of vulnerable.
Who would have thought I’d be so content being open with the devil as witness.
“I stand by my promise to stop this,” he says carefully. “But I think maybe… if you can handle it—”
“Don’t doubt the shit I can handle,” I snap.
He leans in, invading my space without touching me, a deliberate, respectful pressure—the kind that makes my lungs expand instead of seize.
Fucker.
“I’ll never doubt what you can handle, pretty princess. But this woman is fucking psychotic and, as we’ve surmised—has been drugging you for years,” he hisses.
I meet his icy gaze, a shiver overtaking my body at the feral energy within.
He’s so dark. So chaotic. So… nope, I am not going there.
My chameleon can fuck off. The lies she seeks to convince me are getting ignored.
And my body has always betrayed me—why should I trust it now?
“I know,” I whisper.
“We’re not going to be allowed in, no matter how badly I want to be there,” he continues, voice low and razor-soft, as if I didn’t say anything at all.
“So, listen to me, Maeve. If you need me to end it—if she pushes you too far, if she tries anything, if she so much as breathes wrong—you say the word. I don’t care how. I’ll know. And I’ll tear the session apart before she realises she’s in danger.”
My breath stutters. A full name. A threat. A promise.
His doesn’t even waver.
His glacier blue eyes burn with a viciously protective edge. We talked about Helen, and while I wish I could hold onto the resentment… I can’t.
From the day we met, Lucifer has annoyingly been on my side, and I trust him.
Mostly.
“But if you want to do it yourself,” he murmurs, “if you want to walk in there and control the bitch the way she tried to do you? Do that. You owe the silly cow nothing. Slit her throat, spoil her illusions, destroy the entire fucking house if you choose.
“It’s your battlefield, pretty princess. You choose how it goes. Personally, though, I think you should introduce her to your darkness. Let her see the crown you hide and watch her kneel.”
My chromius has gone quiet as he talks, and I can’t say I blame her. He’s so fucking intense. So terrifyingly confident.
He tilts his head, a faint, dangerous smile twitching at the corner of his mouth. The pull is magnetic, and I can’t argue against the beauty of it.
The beauty of him.
“Either way, princess… don’t you dare call yourself weak. Not to me.”
I swallow hard and lean back a little. Now that we’re talking about me, it’s not as alluring.
“You’re the strongest woman I’ve ever met,” he finishes, voice dropping to a growl that hits low in my stomach.
My throat tightens. I look away before he can see the crack in my demeanour.
Lucifer rises from my bed, his movements fluid and predatory. If I were Dr Jones, I’d be worried.
“Now,” he says lightly, as if he didn’t just rip my heart out, do his best to fix it, and shove it back inside, “go to the library. Make the bitch regret showing up at all.”
He pauses at the door, glancing back with a wicked tilt of his mouth.
“And if you do end up setting something on fire?” He shrugs. “My lips are sealed, princess. I know how to cover a crime scene.”
I moan, getting off the bed to follow after him.
“I don’t know where the fuck that shit came from. Fire isn’t my idea of fun,” I mutter.
“Nor is it mine,” he says cheerily. “Fire complicates things. You can never tell if they’re screaming because of you… or the flames.”
A shudder wracks my spine, but the smile on my face is too wide to grant me anything but an insanity diagnosis alongside him.
The second I step into the library, my chromius curls her claws into my spine, a deep-seated anger pouring through our connection.
She’s extremely unsettled, and I don’t blame her. Dr Jones has the kind of face that some people politely call ‘striking’.
Personally, I think it’s more ‘punchable’.
She looks the exact same as I remember in my nightmares.