Chapter Twenty-Seven - Evie #2
I pulled back just enough to breathe, but he followed me, lips brushing the corner of my mouth, my cheek, the line of my jaw.
“Here?” he murmured.
I nodded.
“Here?”
Another nod.
His mouth moved to my throat, so soft I felt the ghost of it before the kiss itself.
My breath caught, and Luc froze immediately. I hated how fast he stopped.
His mouth hovered over my skin. “Too much?”
I shook my head, but my fingers tightened in his hair. He lifted his face anyway, searching mine.
“Words, Love.”
That word almost ruined me.
“No,” I whispered. “Not too much.”
His gaze held mine for another second, making sure I meant it, and then he lowered his mouth to my throat again.
This time, I was ready. This time, the warmth of him sank into me. His lips moved over the places where fear still lived under my skin, not claiming, not taking, just replacing. One kiss at a time. My pulse fluttered beneath his mouth, and he breathed me in like I mattered.
His kisses wandered down my neck, slow enough to ruin me. A ticklish little current sparked beneath my skin, spilling down my lower back like warm lightning.
I tugged him back up, needing his mouth again, and he understood before I said it. He shifted onto his side beside me, one arm curved around my waist, his body angled close but not trapping me.
His mouth kept finding places that made me forget language. Each kiss sent another wave through me, warm and electric, until ecstasy washed over my whole body and left me clinging to him like he was the only solid thing in the room.
When his mouth found mine again, this time, I let myself fall into it and remember that desire could be gentle and still burn the whole world down.
Luc kissed me until my thoughts blurred at the edges. Until my body stopped waiting for punishment. Until the room came back around me in pieces, soft sheets, his hand at my waist, his mouth against mine, the faintest tremble in his fingers every time I pulled him closer.
When I finally broke away, I was breathing too hard, and so was he. His forehead rested against mine again, his eyes closed, his control visibly hanging by a thread.
“Did it help?” he asked, voice rough.
I swallowed. The honest answer was complicated.
It hadn’t erased Him, completely, and maybe nothing ever would.
But Luc’s scent surrounded me, and his mouth was warm.
His hands were careful. His body shook at everything he refused to take unless I gave it to him.
And that mattered. That mattered more than forgetting.
I brushed my thumb over his lower lip. “A little,” I whispered.
His eyes opened, and I gave him the smallest smile I could manage.
“Do it again.”
So he did.
Softer this time. Slower. Like he was afraid too much wanting might break me, and maybe it could have, if it had belonged to anyone else.
But this was Luc, and even his restraint felt like worship.
His mouth found mine, then the corner of it, then the edge of my jaw, each kiss careful and devastating in a way that made my body go loose beneath him.
I forgot everything for a minute. Forgot the nausea, the IV in my hand. I forgot the ache in my bones. I even forgot the terror waiting in another realm with teeth and wings and too many names. There was only him.
His hand slid over my stomach again, reverent and trembling a little.
The kiss slowed and then stopped. His forehead rested against mine, his breath uneven against my mouth. For a long moment, he didn’t move. He just stayed there, his palm spread over me, like he was listening for something only he could hear.
Then his expression changed as awe broke through him so quietly that it almost hurt to look at.
“Two,” he said under his breath, like he still couldn’t believe it.
“Yeah.”
He looked down at me again, smirking. “Only you would manage to make this as dramatic as possible.”
I smiled sleepily. “Excuse you. This feels like a very joint effort.”
That earned me a real smile, small and crooked and wrecking. He leaned down and kissed my forehead.
“I like… Daddy better,” I whispered.
And then I let my eyes close again, and I stayed quiet for a while after that.
Luc’s hand was still warm over my belly. His body curved around mine like he could build a wall out of himself if I needed one. But one thought had already started circling, and it wouldn’t leave.
“Do you think He knew?” I asked finally.
Luc’s hand stilled. For one second, I felt the whole room focus on us.
He lowered his head slightly, his mouth close to my hair, and whispered, “I’ve been asking myself that very thing.”
I turned just enough to look up at him. His expression had gone tight again, not angry yet, just braced.
“Did He seem strange?” he asked. “Before. While you were still there.”
I thought about everything. The way He had spoken to me, like He was always a step ahead. The way He always looked at me, really, like I was something precious and already half-owned.
“I don’t know,” I said slowly. “He found our bond.”
Luc let out a low sigh through his nose. “Don’t remind me.”
“But…” I started, then stopped.
Because suddenly I wasn’t sure I wanted to say this. Not because I wanted to protect The First Light. Because I knew exactly what it would do to Luc, and I hated myself for it.
Before I could even get it out, his entire body changed anyway. He felt the hesitation before I even found words for it.
“But what?” he asked.
I looked away. My heart had started beating faster for no good reason except that memory was mean and never needed permission.
Luc’s arm tightened around me. “Evie.”
I swallowed.
“He never hinted at me being pregnant,” I said. “Not once. But He did…”
I let the sentence die there, but Luc caught it instantly.
His hand left my belly slowly, like even that movement had to fight through rage. “What did He do?” he asked, each word low and deliberate.
I shifted in the bed and looked up at him, already regretting it before I’d even answered. This was going to kill him. Or kill someone else through him.
“Remember when you found me on the bridge?” I asked quietly.
He swallowed once and nodded.
“Well.” I looked down at the blanket. “I ran because…”
Because what? Because I was scared. Because I didn’t know what to do. Because I woke with His arm around me, His hand too low, and the cruel, unmistakable evidence of what He wanted pressed against me, and I needed out before I lost my mind.
I could feel Luc waiting for my answer with all his violence pulled tight and leashed for my sake.
“He came to check on me,” I said finally. “In my room. When I was sick.”
Luc went very still.
“And then He asked me…” My voice faltered.
Luc’s eyes locked on mine. “What did He ask?”
I forced the words out. “He asked if He could lie with me.”
Everything in him locked.
“He what?” He was out of bed before I even registered him moving.
One second, he was around me, warm and solid and trying to be careful. The next, he was standing three steps away, pacing, one hand dragged through his hair, the other flexing open and closed like it needed a throat.
“That goddamn sanctimonious Bastard,” he muttered. “That self-righteous, gilded—”
“Luc.”
He kept pacing.
“Luc.”
He turned on the second one, and his eyes—they were on fire. Blazing. The gold-ringed blaze in them had gone molten, bright enough to turn his fury into something visibly alive.
I reached for him from the bed. “Please come back.”
He just stared at me for one beat too long. Then, through his teeth, “Tell me what He did.”
I took a breath that shook on the way down. “He said nothing else would happen,” I said quietly. “He said He just wanted to lie in the bed with me.”
Luc made a sound low in his throat that didn’t belong to any language I knew.
I kept going because I had already started, and there was no safe version of this now.
“He lay down behind me,” I said. “And I thought maybe that was all it was going to be. But then…” My throat tightened.
Luc’s fists flexed at his sides. “Then what?”
I looked down at my hands. “His hand slipped lower,” I whispered. “It rested on my belly, but it didn’t seem like He noticed anything.” I swallowed. “And then His hand moved lower and brushed my…”
The word wouldn’t come. It didn’t need to. Luc understood anyway. His whole body went so rigid it frightened me more than if he’d shattered something.
Then he said, very low, very clear, “I’m going to kill Him.”
I looked up, but he wasn’t looking at me anymore. He was looking at some point far beyond the room, beyond the building, beyond the city, like he could already see the shape of that future with awful, holy clarity.
“Before this is over,” he said, “I’m going to kill Him.” His voice had gone colder now. More certain. “And I’m going to do it slowly.”
He turned back toward me then, and the fire in his eyes had become something almost worse, not wild, but focused. “And I’m going to enjoy every second while He begs for mercy.”
Neither of us moved, but then I reached for him again.
“Luc.”
He came back to the bed this time, but he wasn’t calm. I reached for his wrist and wrapped both hands around it.
“Look at me.”
His gaze snapped to mine, still burning. But it was on me now, not on whatever vision of murder he’d already started building for The First Light.
“I got away,” I said quietly. “Before it went further. I jumped up and ran to the bathroom.”
His jaw flexed. “That doesn’t change anything.”
“I know.”
“No, Evie.” His voice had gone low and ragged. “I don’t think you do.”
I let that sit for a second. Because maybe he was right. Maybe I didn’t fully understand what it had done to him, knowing that while he had been tearing Heaven apart to get to me, The First Light had still found those moments to get too close and put His hands on me.
I nodded, but the words barely settled because another name kept rising like something drowned that wouldn’t stay under. Topher.