Revealing the Monster (Playing with Monsters #4) - Amelia Hutchins Page 0,82

any other locale I’d visited.

“You’re nothing like Kendra was, Lena. You don’t see a monster when you look at me. What I can give you or promise you isn’t the first thing that slips from your tongue. You don’t want anything from me, and you’re not afraid of me. There’s a realness to you that your sister didn’t have. You’re pure and unafraid of me and what I truly am. You don’t care that I am the Devil and could give you anything you ever wanted with the snap of my fingers.”

“What did Kendra ask of you?” I pried, lifting my eyes to meet his piercing stare.

“She wished for power and magic. I asked if she would willingly pay the price for such a request. My offer was to end the life of Kendra Fitzgerald. She told me she was Kendra, which is how I found you, Lena. I then asked her for your life, and she refused me. She denied the Devil for you.”

“And you raped her for it?”

“I didn’t rape Kendra. Inside the abbey, that was an illusion for Lucian. I wanted him to think I had because it was part of the plan to make him lose his mind. I thought he loved you or her, rather. I believed I had misread his feelings, but I wasn’t wrong after all. I just had the wrong twin, and he knew it. Kendra, though, I asked her to be with me and formally courted her. She was easy to charm, and I enjoyed her in my bed. In fact, we spent an entire week there creating our daughter, Makenna. The thing was, Kendra tried to abort our child, and for that, I gave her to my men. She told me I’d planted a monster inside of her, and maybe I had. But she’s such a beautiful little monster, Lena. I was grateful that Kendra grew to love our daughter before she died. I suspected her feelings, but they were confirmed when she asked you to protect and watch over Makenna.”

“What is it you think you’re going to get from me?” I countered, unwilling to discuss Kendra anymore with the man that had allowed her to die.

“Who says I want anything?”

“Your eyes do,” I stated, cupping his cheeks while searching his gaze. His hands lifted, covering mine, while he closed his eyes briefly. “What do you want, Luc?”

“Can’t I just be a man, and you a woman?”

“No, it could never be so simple, Luc. You’re the Devil, and I am something—else.”

He exhaled, leaning closer as a smile played on his lips. “Do you know why my father kicked me out of Heaven? The real reason? Not the version I made up or created to make him into a sinner.”

I licked my lips, shivering at the heat his body sent pulsing against my form through the skimpy gown. His eyes lowered to the action, slowly lifting back to mine while he pressed against me, kissing my cheek.

“I don’t know the truth, Luc. I know you tried to say he’d slept with the Devil, but you’re the Devil.”

“No, he was too pure and saintly for that. It was a terrific rumor to make people think he wasn’t as good as he pretended to be.” His eyes grew distant, as if remembering the past. He shook his head, leaning back to peer at me through a guarded expression.

“Was he Adam?”

“No,” he laughed, a sparkle of mischief dancing in his gaze. “Adam and Eve wouldn’t have ever created life had he been Adam. My father wouldn’t dare soil her garden or taint his persona in the eyes of those for which he cared. No, but I was in the garden.”

“You were the serpent,” I stated, but he shook his head.

“No, I wasn’t the serpent. My mother, Lilith, was the serpent inside the garden. I was blamed for it, but I was only watching Adam and Eve. I wanted to know what was so special about humans. My father preferred them over us, and I needed to understand why. So I’d snuck into the garden, which was off-limits to our kind. It was forbidden to speak to or interact with them, but I needed to see for myself what he saw in his humans that would make them superior to us.”

“Emotions?” I guessed, watching his lips jerk up in the corners before his tongue slipped over the bottom lip, pinching it between his teeth as he laughed.

“It was more than just emotions. That was part