Chapter Thirty-Three - Evie
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Evie
LUC DIDN’T COME back to bed until after dawn.
He’d left the bedroom for a little while, which meant he’d kissed my forehead, told me not to move, gone to make sure Topher was settled, and to make sure nothing else in the house was trying to become a crisis before breakfast.
A low bar, apparently.
By the time he returned, the city beyond the curtains had gone from black and neon to that strange gray-blue morning light that never fit Vegas right.
He came in quiet, his jacket gone, shirt sleeves pushed up, hair a little mussed in a way that made him look less like the ruler of Hell and more like an exhausted man trying to keep the seams of his life from splitting open with his bare hands.
He didn’t say much, and neither did I. He just stripped down and climbed into bed behind me and wrapped himself around my body like particularly dangerous bubble wrap.
His chest pressed against my back. One arm slid beneath my pillow, the other curved over my waist until his hand settled protectively against my stomach. His palm was warm through the fabric of his shirt, which I was still wearing, and he was still so careful it made me ache.
I should have felt trapped, and for a moment, my mind wandered to the last time He’d been in my room, in my bed. But I didn’t, not by Luc.
However, the IV was a different story. I know it made me feel better, but that IV could absolutely go fuck itself.
Malach wouldn’t be back for a few hours to check on me, which meant it would be a few hours before he could decide whether I was stable enough to get the stupid thing taken out.
He’d mentioned switching me to oral anti-nausea meds if I kept fluids down, and at this point, a pill sounded like a luxury and freedom. Like a spa day, and I couldn’t wait.
I felt better, though I didn’t feel completely normal.
I mean… I was pregnant with twins, so maybe normal had packed a suitcase and left a while ago.
But my stomach had stopped rolling. My head didn’t feel like it was filled with wet sand.
I could breathe without feeling like I might hurl on everything.
And after sleeping for what felt like three business years, I was wide awake staring at the wall.
Luc slept behind me, his breathing slow and deep. Every now and then, his fingers flexed against my stomach like even unconscious, some part of him was counting us. Me. Them. Still here. Still his.
I stared at the wall harder. But all I could think about was Topher. Luc had put him in the guest room, and my nurse was now pulling double duty for both of us while Az stayed with him. And I knew enough that I wouldn’t stop worrying, enough to make me imagine things I didn’t want to imagine.
I hadn’t seen him, and the more I lay there, the more that mattered. Topher had carried me into Hell when I had begged him to. He’d helped bring me back from Heaven. And we’d both lost Destiny.
Now he was somewhere down the hall, broken in ways no one would fully explain to me because apparently “bedrest” was ancient immortal code for “fragile little woman who must be kept away from the facts.”
The door opened softly, and the nurse came in with the kind of hushed professional movement that made me feel like I was either a patient or a haunted Victorian child. Possibly both.
She checked the IV bag first, then the monitor, and then came over to me. Her expression did that thing nurses’ faces did when they were trying very hard to stay neutral, but their entire soul had put on a clipboard.
“How are you feeling?” she whispered.
“Better.”
Luc’s arm tightened around me. I was sure he was still asleep. Possibly. With Luc, it was hard to tell. Sometimes he was asleep. Sometimes he was lying there with his eyes closed, radiating violence at everything.
The nurse checked my pulse, my blood pressure, and my temperature. Everything seemed to meet whatever secret nurse criteria determined whether I was a functional person or a beautiful disaster with a saline drip.
Then my bladder reminded me I’d been receiving fluids through a tube for hours, aggressively.
“I need to use the bathroom,” I whispered.
The nurse nodded and helped me sit up. Luc grumbled. Actually grumbled. And I froze. He shifted behind me, rolling onto his other side, facing away, his hair falling across his forehead. His hand slipped from me to the mattress, and then he settled again with a low, sleepy breath.
I stared at him. Was that a snore? No fucking way. Lucifer Morningstar did not snore. Except… apparently he did, very softly, like even Hell’s king could be betrayed by a blocked nostril.
I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from smiling. He’d never believe me if I told him. Which meant, obviously, I pulled out my phone and recorded him for 10 seconds. And, most definitely, I was telling him as soon as he did something arrogant enough to deserve it.
The nurse helped me maneuver the IV pole, and I rolled it into the bathroom with me. The wheels whispered over the floor, blessedly well-oiled. Somewhere, some maintenance employee had earned my undying gratitude and possibly a fruit basket.
The nurse stepped back into the hallway to give me privacy.
I peed for what felt like an unreasonable amount of time.
When I washed my hands, I caught my reflection in the mirror and almost didn’t recognize myself.
My face was still so pale. My hair was a mess.
My eyes looked too wide. Luc’s shirt was falling off one shoulder, and I looked bony.
I’d never been accused of being too skinny, but now I looked like someone who had survived.
My hand went to my stomach, and I turned sideways first left, then right, pulling my shirt tight. There was still nothing to see. No one would know I was pregnant. I stared at my middle, willing to feel those bubbles again. But nothing moved.
Still, I whispered, “You two are grounded, by the way.”
I opened the bathroom door carefully. Luc was still asleep on his side, facing away from me. His breathing stayed slow and even. And then a soft sound escaped him. Another snore. Oh my God. I was going to cherish this forever.
A thought moved through me, sudden and certain. Go check on Topher.
I told myself I absolutely shouldn’t go down the hallway and check on him, but the thought just grew louder and more insistent. I’d just go check, a minute tops.
So… I rolled the IV pole forward an inch. Then another. I never took my eyes off him. The wheels made almost no sound. Right up until one of them caught on the socks I’d kicked off earlier because Luc’s idea of protective cuddling apparently involved slow-roasting me like a rotisserie chicken.
The pole jerked, and I lurched forward, grabbed it, and barely stopped myself from eating the floor. The plastic IV line swung and smacked lightly against the pole. It was a tiny sound, practically nothing, and obviously loud enough to wake the dead or an immortal devil.
I froze, every muscle locking. Luc shifted in the bed, just slightly. One shoulder moved. His hand flexed against his pillow. I stared at him like my will alone could keep him unconscious. He made one low, sleepy sound, rolled his face deeper into the pillow, and settled again.
I looked down at the socks. Of course, the one fucking thing that nearly ruined my stealth mission wasn’t Heaven or Hell or the terrifying man asleep in our bed. It was laundry.
“I will burn you later,” I whispered at the socks.
I looked back at Luc, still asleep. One more soft snore. Bless him, the exhausted, terrifying love of my life. I held my breath and tiptoed toward the bedroom door, rolling the IV pole beside me with the precision of a jewel thief and the stamina of a damp napkin.
The door opened with only the faintest click.
I slipped into the hallway and pulled it shut behind me.
The nurse was at the small desk outside the room, typing something into her computer.
She looked up, and her lips flattened into a line, the universal medical expression for, What the hell are you doing?
“I need to check on a friend,” I whispered quickly. “I’ll go right back to bed.”
Her eyes went to the IV pole. Then back to my face. “Miss Grace—”
“Evie,” I whispered.
“Evie,” she corrected, which I appreciated. “You’re supposed to be resting.”
“I rested so hard I saw the future. I’m done for a minute.”
She didn’t laugh. Tough crowd.
“I’ll be careful,” I promised. “I’m not going far.”
She glanced toward the bedroom door. Then down the hallway. Then she sighed, the weary sigh of a medical professional who had clearly decided this entire household was above her pay grade and probably beneath several insurance categories.
“Ten minutes.”
“Five.”
“Seven and you can come with me.”
Her mouth tightened again, but this time it almost became a smile.
“Five.”
“Fine.” I rolled the IV pole down the hallway before she changed her mind.
The penthouse was dim and hushed, all soft shadows and expensive silence.
Dawn pressed faintly against the windows in pale blue strips, turning the marble floors cold beneath my bare feet.
I passed the closed door to Luc’s office.
The hall table with the black vase Luc hated but refused to get rid of because I’d once said it looked like something a vampire would buy at Target.
The half-open door to another empty bedroom.
Topher’s door was near the end. I stopped outside it. My pulse started acting stupid. I listened, but there was nothing.
I glanced back down the hall. The nurse had returned to her computer, though I had no doubt she was also counting the seconds until she could narc on me to the Devil.
I turned the knob quietly and opened the door. The room was dark except for the faint line of morning at the curtains and the small lamp left on near the bed.
Topher lay beneath a thin blanket, too still. For a second, my heart stopped. He looked dead.