I live with knowing I’d condemned him to a fate he’d fallen from Heaven to escape? Would he rather be killed by the Spear than live with no hope?
I dropped lower. My boots brushed the top of a mound of ashes. “You’re a slave, Lucifer. Nothing but a mindless puppet, living under someone else’s thumb. Why don’t you get down and lick the ground at his feet, since you like being his dog so much?”
If love couldn’t get through to him, maybe his pride and anger would.
He looked down at me, dead silent.
Then he crashed downwards, and his hands wrapped around my throat.
27
Melisande
We went tumbling to the ledge, Lucifer straddling me, his wings spread wide to block out the gray sun.
I jammed my elbow into the crook of his, loosening his grip.
But he wasn’t trying to kill me. He wasn’t squeezing tightly enough to cut off my air.
Lucifer smiled when he saw my quizzical look. “Oh, I don’t want you dead yet. Not when we have so much fun ahead of us.”
Anger flared deep inside me, despite the desperate urge to save him. “Why do this? None of this is you.”
I pulled on the mate mark between us, searching for him on the other end of that gleaming little link of Chain, but there was nothing at all even though he was only inches from my face. Trying to get through to him was like repeatedly running into an impassable wall.
A harsh rasping noise caught his attention. He went deathly still, even with his hands still around my neck and pinning me to the ground. Only his head turned to watch as Nergal began shaking on the ground, his limbs flopping.
Satan’s essence had completely filled the demon king’s body. Rough puffs of air blew from his lungs as Satan began adapting to the shell.
And once he did… he’d be so much smarter and slyer than before, no matter what Lucifer said about Nergal’s original intelligence.
I needed the Spear before he could rise, but the Spear was buried under the ash.
I reached outwards, searching blindly with my fingertips and praying I’d feel the heat of a fresh burn.
Lucifer slapped one of my hands away and shifted his knees, pinning my arms in place. “Don’t get ideas.”
“That’s the problem with me,” I gasped, dragging in air as his fingers temporarily tightened. “So many ideas, so little time.”
A glint of humor shone in his silver eyes. “All the damn time.”
Hope and horror twined through me. Was that him?
But the humor faded, and he shook his head like he was shaking off flies, his brow creasing. Streaks of light pulsed through his crimson tattoos.
Satan might’ve been distracted, but the soul-bond was still in full effect, and he was clinging hard to keep Lucifer under his sway.
I remembered what Azazel had said about soul-bonds… it was hard and painful, but they could be weakened until the original binder was dead.
All I needed to do was cut through them, even if it meant hurting Lucifer. He’d rather deal with the pain than be a mindless slave.
My eyes traced the crimson swirls over his body, up his muscular shoulders and over his torso, until I found a point where several of them converged right over his heart.
That’s where I would strike him as soon as I got the chance.
I realized he was staring back at me, his handsome face still carved in a deep frown. “What are you staring at?” he asked abruptly. “What’s going in that pretty little head of yours?”
I needed him off of me. My arm was pinned too tightly to reach the only knife that would cut deep enough to disrupt the soul-bond. Not flesh deep, but magically deep, cutting away the ties between them.
It was time for a new tactic. “You’re so beautiful,” I said, my voice toneless. I let my head fall back into a pile of ash, no longer resisting. “Maybe I was wrong.”
His head tilted as he looked over my face, examining every single feature like he could find the one little tic giving away my lie. “Wrong about what?”
“I think… this is you.” I carefully pulled on my dark fire, keeping it under my skin and forming a shield around my abdomen. The shield would have to be constant, and I’d need to keep as much magic in reserve as possible. “I just didn’t see it before.”
Lucifer was so painfully still, his expression impossible to read.
He leaned forward, bending down until our lips were only inches apart. There