Court of Sunder (Age of Angels #2) - Milana Jacks Page 0,39
too, and it was the most joy I’d felt in a long time. So many things she’d left unsaid, but I would give her time, however long she needed to do the thing mortals do: fall in love and trust me with her secrets.
I pulled up her torn dress, and it fell back down. I tried again, but Nevaeh took my hand and kissed it. “I dream,” she whispered. “I dream of horrible things I’ve done in a life I don’t remember. I know you know, because you know everything.”
A cold wind brushed my soul. “I can’t tell you about your dreams because Lucifer will mark you.”
“He won’t.”
I tilted my head. “Why not?”
“Because that was the deal we made.”
The cold wind froze my soul, and my chest tightened. Dread. Dread felt this way. “You made a deal with him?”
“He asked me to feed you. That’s all. I’ve completed my end of the deal.”
I took her face between my palms, feeling her still-warm body connected with mine. I pressed our foreheads together. “What were the exact words he and you used while conversing about this? Tell me every detail, word for word.”
“The dreams first came after the battle at the Court. A few nights after you healed me, first only glimpses, then full terrors of me and a man I don’t know. We kept arguing. He…sometimes he hit me. Sometimes he beat me hard.”
In an effort to control my anger, I ground my teeth.
She stroked my jaw. “It was around two in the morning one night when I sat up in bed and found Lucifer there.”
“There where?”
“At the foot of my bed.”
Michael should know this. He should. But I wouldn’t fucking tell him. “And?” I prompted.
“I grabbed my weapon, and he vanished.” She snapped her fingers. “Just like that.”
As Lucifer grew stronger, his illusionist powers returned to him. He’d projected himself into her mind. He had her already, her mind completely opened to him. My soul weighed heavily, frozen in terror.
“Are you cold?” Nevaeh asked.
“Continue,” I bit out.
“I thought I was crazy and tried to forget about it. Well, he kept coming, appearing at the foot of my bed, and I figured, this is how it starts. The marking, you know. Then, one night, he spoke. He said, Feed the prisoner, and I’ll spare you the mark.”
“Was that all he said?”
“He asked if we have a deal. I refused. But the horrors became a mark of their own, my shields thinned out, and I knew when they collapsed, he’d take me. I feared what I’d do to my mom, my squad, the people I care about. I could slaughter them all while they slept,” she kept whispering as if she was afraid Lucifer would hear her. “I could hurt the commander’s mate. Lucifer owns the Marked. Death is better.”
“Go on.”
“Eventually, I told him we have a deal, but I wanted to know which prisoner.”
“Excellent. And?”
“He said, You know which and kept coming. Eventually, I agreed.” She hung her head.
I lifted her chin. “You cannot hope to outwit him in a game where he holds all the cards.”
“Can you?”
“At a cost.”
“Kill him, my lord. Kill him.”
“He cannot die.”
“Ariel died, and she was immortal, so there is a way.”
“Lucifer is no Ariel. A deal with Lucifer cannot be broken. ‘Feed the prisoner’ implies any prisoner. There are thousands of them behind the Veil. You could be in his service for the duration of your life.”
Nevaeh’s chin quivered, and tears spilled.
I hugged her, offering her serenity. “It is what it is. We cannot unsay it or undeal it, but we also cannot be enslaved to him.”
“It’s not we. It’s just me.”
“You are mine. Our souls are one.”
She wiped her face. “Does that mean we have one brain too?”
I laughed. I loved her and everything about her. Especially her resilience.
Chapter 15
Bodies connected in the same way our souls intertwined, Raphael and I sat in the gardens until the undead rose and Raphael’s wings shimmered under the light of the full moon. Sharing my dreams and the deal I made with Lucifer took a weight off me, which was great. But I felt like I’d just put the weight of my problems onto Raphael, which didn’t feel good. He had bigger issues, the burden of the realm on his shoulders already. The commander and Raphael must stand together. What can I do?
Raphael patted my back, and I slid off his hardness that’d filled me for what felt like hours, my channel instantly missing it. My lord