Chapter 44
Ifollow the back of Amarah’s head as she disappears down the hall toward the living room. She doesn’t respond to me, nor does she look back. Just simply strides away with Zuhara at her side.
Swallowing roughly, I slowly turn my gaze to Kayn. He, too, is watching her walk away. The way he looks at her, like he’d do absolutely anything to keep her safe, makes my bones ache. It’s not jealousy; it’s the want to have that look back on me again.
I ruined that, and I’m fully aware of it. None of this is his fault, and while I’m angry he’s here, it’s only because of the danger he’s put himself in. I ran away from the best thing that has ever happened to me because I couldn’t fathom the thought of him being gone forever.
I’d hurt for eternity just to know he found love, was happy, and above all else, alive.
He finally turns, and every inch of me comes to life.
I’d met my Mark so many years before Kayn came into my life.
I loved her for her short existence as a Mundane—spent forty years with her before she passed.
Even though my mother swore up and down that she would be the love that transcended worlds, I knew she was wrong.
What I felt… feel for this man is more real, raw, and dangerous than anything I’ve ever known. Leaving him was harder than watching my Mark take her last breath in that hospital. And now, seeing him look at me like I’m a stranger who tried to kill him comes dangerously close to that same agony.
“Lucifer,” he says through a sigh.
Alright. I can do this. I’ve done it once, and while I took the easy way out before, now it shouldn’t be as hard. He has Amarah. Once I convince my father she’s nothing to be concerned about, I can send her back to him.
I can do that for them. I’ll suffer for a few years… and move on.
“Cor numquam movetur. Idiot.”
Without groaning aloud at my fucking Vigoro, I wet my lips and offer a smile. “Kayn. I’m sorry about having to throw you into the Phantasm.”
He narrows his eyes at me—and you’d think that someone like me, someone who could quite literally block out the sun, would have a backbone when it comes to him. Absolutely not. He’s always taken control, and I crave that like the very air I breathe.
“Why?”
I sigh. “My father was coming, and—”
“No, little deviant. Why did you leave over four hundred years ago?”
My heart clenches as I squeeze my eyes shut. “I told you not to get attached… that I could never be your home, Kayn. Don’t you remember?”
“Oh, I remember.” His voice doesn’t waver. “I remember every godsdamn second of us, Lucifer.”
I take a shaky breath and force myself to look at him again.
He’s still several feet away, but it feels like he’s breathing down my throat with how suffocating the distance is.
Not because I don’t want him close, but because if he steps into my space, I know I won’t be able to push him away again. I won’t survive it.
“You couldn’t have done me the decency of at least saying goodbye? To tell me you were done with me?”
The way he says done makes my skin prickle. I’d never, ever, thought I could be done with him. I’ve never wanted anything in my entire existence more than him. I just couldn’t allow myself to hope for eternity with him.
That didn’t mean I didn’t want it.
“You wouldn’t have let me go—”
“Damn fucking right, I wouldn’t have!”
Despite everything, I smile and I can’t help the breath of a laugh that escapes me. “Always the dom.”
“Tell me it was because you were done with me, Lucifer.” His voice is steady, but I know the exact moment he’s on the verge of breaking.
The right corner of his lip twitches, so slight it would go unnoticed by anyone else, and his jaw locks tight.
“Tell me that all our years together, you threw them away because you were fucking tired of me. That you wanted something—someone—else.”
I damn near shake my head, but I’m able to stifle the instant reaction to deny it. “It isn’t as simple as that.”
“It was pretty simple to just leave me in bed one night and never come back.”
Turning from him, I drag my fingers through my hair.
Telling him what happened will be his death sentence.
He won’t leave here willingly, and I’ll have to throw him out.
Then, the moment I send Amarah back to him, he’ll have her opening the gates again to try to retrieve me.
Now he knows where I am, and if he finds out my father has trapped me into servitude, he will get himself killed.
I didn’t suffer through these past four hundred mortal years without him just so he could die now.
“Leaving you was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, Kayn.” I turn just enough to see him still unmoving in the center of the foyer, rigid as stone. The sight pulls a pained sigh from my lungs. “But we were done.”
A sharp pain stabs beneath my ribs—my Vigoro rebuking me—and I barely manage not to flinch.
He nods once. “I see… but, little deviant, that’s where you’re so fucking wrong. We were never done.”
I throw my head back and shake it. “You don’t get a say in both our lives…
” Even if I want you to control every part of mine.
“I’m sorry… but this could never work. But look—” I gesture toward the hallway where Amarah disappeared.
“You have her, and I’m so happy for you.
Let’s not make this any more difficult than it needs to be. Let’s not open old wounds—”
“My wound never CLOSED, Lucifer!” he explodes, and I swear the whole world shakes with his voice. “I’ve just been patching it, covering it so I could survive! Just because I’m still fucking alive doesn’t mean I’m living. Stop lying to me and tell me the godsdamn truth!”
Shaking my head, I stand in defiance. I only told Amarah the truth because I needed her to trust me. Before she gets the chance, I’ll take the memory of why… and I won’t allow her to speak it to Kayn.
“Tell me to leave then. I’ll take Amarah and go if that’s really what you want.”
What I want…
As I hesitate, I see the flicker of hope ignite in his crimson eyes.
“Is that what you want? Look at me and tell me it is. This is your chance to convince me that’s what happened.”
I meet his deep-set gaze—framed by thick brows, slightly arched—and I hate how easily he sees through me. He knows I can’t lie to him. If there’s anyone in all three realms who can see me, it’s this gorgeous asshole.
“Why’d you have to show up…” My temples throb as I clench my hands into fists. “Back into my life. And not alone, either. What did I do to that bitch, Fate, that she’d fuck me over so badly?”
His chiseled cheekbones twitch, and even beneath his full beard, I see his jaw flex.
“You’ve forced me to have to lose you a second time, Kayn. Fuck you… You don’t get it.”
“You never lost me, little deviant. I was always there. And at any point, you could’ve come right back into my life. I’d have punished you, but I never would’ve turned you away. I was the one who lost you.”
I step back, and as if on instinct, he advances forward. His gaze drops to my feet, then snaps back up.
“Tell me to leave because it’s what you want and I’ll go. I’ll walk away from you just like you did to me.”
I don’t have the strength to do this, and I wish he’d never come here. I’m going to kill whoever told him I was here. This cannot be my nightmare. It just can’t.
“Lucifer!”
“No!” I shout so quickly it takes a heartbeat to register the implication of that word. “I can’t, and you fucking know I can’t! Because I don’t want that. But it’s what needs to happen. I can’t be with you.”
I swear I’m not even halfway through a blink before he’s in front of me, the cool press of wood hitting my back. His hand wraps around my throat, and I gasp, shaking my head even though I don’t want him to stop.
“Your time to convince me has ended, little deviant. When has a Demon of want and need ever given a fuck about can’t?”
Lightning rips down my spine as every buried need I’ve ever had for this man surges up at once, igniting my skin and threatening to make me do something I’ll never recover from.
“Kayn… please, don’t…” Stop. Don’t stop. Please, bloody Beyond, don’t stop.
He leans in, his body pinning mine to the wall. His breath ghosts over my cheek as he whispers, “Our little Amarah warned me that anything you told me about why you left is bullshit.”
My breath snags.
“What?” I hadn’t heard a damn thing—and I would have. My hearing is just as good as his, if not better. “How?”
“That isn’t important right now. Do you know what is?”
My hands fist into his shirt, and I’m torn between pulling him closer or pushing him away for his own damn safety. Meanwhile, my cursed Vigoro is already reaching for him like he’s the only thing I can survive on. Like I’ll die without him.
His knee nudges between my legs and I groan, friction dragging across both my cocks.
I swallow hard, then grit through my teeth, “Kayn…”
“What’s important,” he murmurs against the space between my neck and shoulder, “is hearing you beg me to stay, beg for my forgiveness. Then beg me to take you with us because that’s what you want. That, little deviant, is all I need to hear come from that lying mouth of yours.”
The sensation of his fangs brushing against my skin has me freezing. Fear detonating through my veins. “Don’t… don’t bite me.”
“Why’s that?”
I’m in way over my head. I could summon my shadows to subdue him, wipe this moment from his memory along with Amarah’s, and throw them both out.
I could try to convince my father that the Witch was more trouble than she was worth and that I’d investigate what happened to his Grimhorn.
Then go back to everything I’d done before leaving him the first time.
But I’m a fucking fool for this man—and for that girl.
So, I don’t lie.
“My father will smell you on me, Kayn, and he will kill you.”
A heartbeat passes in silence and stillness. All that’s between us is a thousand questions and my breathing, which I can’t seem to control.