by Cate Corvin
I sat up and stripped off the rest of the ruined dress, tossing it aside as Lucifer raised his hips and shoved down his pants, freeing his cock. He groaned and pulled me against him again, stroking my pussy along his length.
It felt like it’d been such a long time since I’d felt any good sensations that my body was starving for them, and Lucifer was my drug.
It was easy to forget everything but him, the taste of sunshine on my lips, his hot, silky skin all over mine.
“I will never leave you again,” he told me, his eyes gleaming in the dark. His light was brighter, shining over us both. “Never again.”
I didn’t want to see my own bruised and battered limbs, so I feasted my eyes on him, the hard muscles and the tattoos that were as beautiful as they were deadly.
“I trust you.” The heat of his cock sliding over my pussy was too much to resist. He drove his hips up again, the thickness of him grazing my clit and making me gasp.
I braced my hands on his chest and rose up on my knees, letting him slide over my wetness until the head of his cock pushed against me.
Sliding down on him felt like Heaven, even having to wriggle my way to the very bottom and bite my lip to hold back a loud moan. Lucifer drew in a sharp breath and arched his back, making another sexy sound when I tightened around his cock.
He reached up and gripped my throat gently, drawing me down to plunge his tongue in my mouth even as he thrust upwards, filling my pussy entirely.
I couldn’t stop the moans then, my hard nipples rubbing against his chest while he slammed into me. Heat built low in my stomach, a fire that scorched through my veins and made me feel like I might burst into flame.
When Lucifer released my throat to grip my hips again, forcing me to ride against him, I ran my tongue down the side of his throat. A shiver went through me when he growled, and I felt the reverberation of it against my lips.
All I wanted was for our bond to never be broken. For Ereshkigal to never take him, and if the worst happened, he would always remember that I was his and he was mine.
I sat up and ground against him hard, feeling the hard muscles of his Adonis belt against my swollen clit, the pleasant pain of an almost too-big cock buried deep inside me, and Lucifer was the one who put a hand over my mouth when a cry escaped me.
“Don’t stop fucking me now, angel,” he gasped, his voice barely more than a rough growl. “I want to feel you come.”
I complied, undulating against him as his hands ran down to circle my nipples, lightly pinching me.
“Lucifer—” I started to say, and my shaking muscles tensed up.
He let out a satisfied groan when he felt my pussy clamp around him. I leaned forward, still fucking him hard, and sank my teeth into his shoulder to muffle the sounds I wanted to make so badly.
Pleasure burst through me, the orgasm drawn out from the sensation of Lucifer’s cock pumping into my wet pussy, and his muscles tightened under me.
He buried his face in my neck, kissing and sucking the soft skin at my throat when his cock hardened. He exhaled raggedly, several hard thrusts making him moan when he came, filling me with heat.
“I love you,” he gasped in my ear, a litany that made me feel like I held the sun inside my chest.
Afterwards Lucifer wrapped his arms around me, holding me tightly against him.
“I thought I’d never feel you again,” he finally said. “I thought… that was the end. And you would be safe and go on living.”
I had my head nestled under his jaw, feeling the soft, steady thump of his heart under my cheek. “You know I can’t leave well enough alone. I would never, in a million years, not come after you. And when the Chain brought me to you, I knew there wasn’t a chance I was going to stand back and do nothing.”
“The Chain brought you?” he asked, his tone odd.
I told him about the Chainlings and their temple, and some of the things I’d seen. Most of it was a fog in my memory, but I remembered Lucifer so clearly.
He was quiet for a long time. “I think I remember seeing you, too. When I wasn’t myself.”
I stroked my fingers over his chest, tracing a little whorl of ink with my pinky finger as I told him about Dis, the devastation of the lower Circles, the election of the Minister, and the alliance we made with Michael. I even told him about the Sin Eaters and the one who followed me to the Between, and Lucifer chuckled.
“They never had a chance.” He ran his hands through my hair, twining a lock of it through several fingers. I tried not to think about Satan doing the same thing only hours ago. “Melisande… you have to leave, you understand? Even if it means leaving me behind. For her sake as well as yours.”
“I can’t as long as I wear this damn collar,” I said shortly. “And don’t say the word. I’m not convinced the soul-eating cunt queen doesn’t have ears in the walls.”
If Ereshkigal hadn’t been feeding me, I would’ve worried that Sarai would be hurt, but with the majority of my magic going towards shielding her from blood loss and physical pain, and the decent amount of food I was given, she was fine. I would bear any pain to keep her safe and hidden.
I hadn’t felt anything out of the ordinary, outside of the pain inflicted on me, and sometimes, when I was caught in a light sleep, I felt her moving around in my abdomen. It was reassuring, almost like a sign that I carried the blood of Wrath in me, and there was little that Wrath couldn’t burn down.
Lucifer huffed out a short laugh. “You’ll know shortly if she heard that.”
“Let her come and have a tantrum. She really doesn’t like being humiliated, does she? What does drive her?” I propped my head up, looking at him. “She could’ve kept me in a cage and beaten me to death without a second thought, and yet, here I am in silk and jewelry. She offered to make you a king.”
His lips turned down in a considering frown. “I have no idea, and if I did, I wouldn’t tell you. You’ll just go out there and antagonize her.”
I lightly touched the plush center of his lower lip. “You know me so well. But realistically, is it possible to bargain with her?”
“No.” He was shaking his head before I even finished the question. “She’s a Prime power. Everything she has, she wants. We play by her rules, not the other way around.”
“We can’t just give up.”
“We’re not giving up.” Lucifer caught my hand and pressed my knuckles to his mouth. “We’ll play the game exactly the way she wants, search for her blind spots, and when she’s comfortable enough to think we’re broken, we’re going to come at her.”
I smiled at him. This was what I needed; a plan, a bit of hope.
Lucifer was mine, and all was not lost.
“I like it when you say ‘we’ like that. I’ll be the first one in line with the knife for her back.”
“And I’ll be right behind you.” Lucifer pulled me down against him again, shifting onto his side and draping a dark wing over us like a blanket. “Now sleep with me, please? I missed holding you at night.”
After a beating and sex, he was probably exhausted. I snuggled against him, his bare skin warming me better than any blanket, full of relief to touch him again and make sure he was alive.
We drifted off to sleep together.
Just two angels, plotting another downfall.
5
Melisande
Dreams plagued me all through the night.
The golden-haired woman, stripped of her clothes and jewelry, stood at the entrance to Kur, looking down into the abyssal mouth of the city with an unreadable expression.
Several demons surrounded her and knelt. “Don’t go, my Queen,” one of them implored.
The corner of her mouth twitched. “I have to. Love is my dominion, and if I turn my back on it now...”
She shook her head, then took a step down, and another, her back straightening as she descended.
The screams started later.
I woke up with a gasp as icy water splashed over me.
My first incoherent thought was Gabriel. I’d screwed up my training, and now he was punishing me, tossing water littered with shards of ice over my face to teach me a lesson.
But my surroundings were dark; there was something soft beneath me, and an irritated sound coming from my breathing mattress—
Lucifer shifted under me, swiping water off his unusually pale face and breathing rapidly, and it all came back to me.
Gabriel was dead. I wasn’t in my cell in Heaven, but in a cell in Kur.
“Nice try, faking your death,” the Irkallan guard in the Ivory’s doorway sneered. “They always leave more of a mess behind.”
I clambered off Lucifer as several more guards stepped into the cell of ribs and surrounded us. Several of them gripped my arms and lifted me to my feet. Another two did the same to Lucifer, dragging him with much more force.
“Don’t bruise the slave.” The guard who’d thrown water over us scowled at his comrades. “That’s the Queen’s jurisdiction.”
The hands clamped around my upper arms loosened fractionally, but they showed no mercy in dragging me out of the cell after Lucifer.
All I could do was breathe a sigh of relief that I was finally out of the Ivory. The dream of poor dead Inanna, determined to walk upright and proud into Kur, seemed to have filled my head with fog.
I still heard her screams so vividly in my mind I could almost imagine they were happening now.
Lucifer didn’t struggle against his captors this time. He turned to look at me over his shoulder, his hair dripping into his wings. “I’m sorry, Melisande. I should’ve told you everything before we ended up here.”
One of the guards elbowed him in the ribs, but Lucifer barely winced.
“You’re forgiven. All that matters is that we’re together—” The guard hauling me along drove his knee into my thigh, shutting me up as pain lanced through the leg that had been injured yesterday.
Fucker. I glanced up at him, taking in the blue dots tattooed on his cheekbones and the scar across his lip. If— when— I got my hands on a weapon, I’d be sure to repay him in kind.
They dragged us back to the upper levels of the palace, not stopping until we reached the throne room.
Ereshkigal and Satan were already seated on their thrones. He looked us over with eyes of two completely different colors, one as black as night and one as blue as sky.
But Ereshkigal’s eyes flashed murder as she crossed her scaled legs.
Silk and jewels dripped from every inch of her, from the lace gloves spiraling up her arms to the onyx drop that pierced her lower lip and sat there like a tear that refused to fall.
Disgust crossed her face as she looked me over, dripping water, crusted with old blood, and my silk shift torn to shreds.
“I give her jewels, and she raises her hand against me.” Ereshkigal rested her hand on Satan’s. “I hope you enjoyed your nightmares, the two of you.”
Lucifer said nothing, and I kept my expression blank.
I supposed the dream of Inanna qualified as a nightmare, but… it hadn’t nearly come close to breaking me. Mostly I’d felt a terrible sadness in knowing what was coming next for the goddess, an eternity of being hung on a wall like a prize.
“Tell me, what did you dream?” she asked, leaning forward. She sounded genuinely curious, her head cocked to the side.
Lucifer’s lips flattened to a thin line. “I dreamed the people I loved the most were murdered in front of me, and I could do nothing.”
A cat-like, satisfied smile crossed Ereshkigal’s face as she began to wizen, the lace and jewels suddenly covering a near-corpse. “Ah, your worst fear. And you, songbird?”
Tell her nothing.
A thrum of power that was no longer unfamiliar swelled in my chest and vanished. Sometimes it felt like Inanna’s power was actually speaking in words.
Carefully avoiding looking over at Inanna’s body, hanging only twenty feet away from where I knelt, I told her, “I dreamed my wings were cut from my back and I was pushed from Heaven again.”
She tapped a long nail against her lips, considering me thoughtfully. “And yet it doesn’t seem to have disturbed you nearly enough.”
“What can I say, my Queen?” I was going to regret this. “I’m a resilient bird.”
We stared at each other across the throne room, and as Ereshkigal’s long hair became black again and the wrinkles in her face smoothed, I had the oddest sensation of déjà vu.
Like I’d stood here once before and stared her down in the exact same way.
Her brow wrinkled and smoothed just as quickly, and she sat back in her throne, one clawed foot contracting and stretching. She was more bird-like than I could ever hope to be, a vulture in a beautiful body.
“Put my songbird in her cage,” she ordered. “The arena is prepared for the son of dawn. By the end, I’m sure you’ll no longer be laughing.”
With a thin smile, she waved a hand at the balcony behind her.
I got a brief glimpse of something horrendous out on the arena pillar, a patchwork of scales, hair, and skin, but the guards hauled me to the ebonite birdcage before I could get a closer look.
They shoved me inside and slammed the door behind me. The cage began to rise into the air before they’d even locked it.
My breath caught at the sight of Lucifer marching grimly down the gangway to whatever was waiting for him, but then the cage was cranked higher than ever, bringing me into the dark recesses of the ceiling and out of sight.
All I could do was listen and watch the rulers of Kur below, a unique sort of torture.
Ereshkigal shivered with delight as something out in the arena roared, the sound ending on a wet gurgle, and Kur’s cheers for blood and death drowned it out.
What the Hell was it? Was Lucifer being torn apart? Were those awful sounds his last breaths?
I scrambled around inside the cage, trying to find any angle that would afford me a better view, but there was nothing. All I could see was the thrones far below, and a hundred other cages hanging around me.
Some were like mine, almost decorative, and others were broken and twisted. Whatever had lived in the cage opposite me had managed to burst through the bars, and many of them still contained dark lumps, the corpses of their previous occupants. A skeleton was draped across the floor of one, arms and legs still dangling through the bars.
The thing below roared again, and I settled in a corner of my cage, bringing my knees to my chest and wrapping my arms around them, stewing in my useless fury.
The cage next to mine swung gently, and then the lump inside it shifted and moved.
I was instantly on my feet, as far as I could get from whatever was inside it. If it was a prisoner, it’d likely be hungry, and I was putting myself in easy reach. I wasn’t about to become a snack for another of Ereshkigal’s doomed playthings.
An ancient face appeared from the bundle of rags, peering at me.
My breath caught in my throat. I’d seen him before, in my dream in the Ivory. One of the demons who’d knelt at Inanna’s feet and begged her not to descend.
God, how ancient was his prison sentence?
“The death of the light,” he said, his voice rasping like sandpaper.
I gripped the bars of my own cage to keep my balance, daring to take a step closer. He wasn’t moving anymore, just staring at me owlishly from the bulk of his robes. “What is that supposed to mean?”
The demon looked down at the rulers on their thrones, and a deep, impenetrable sadness came into his gaze when it swept across the room and he saw Inanna’s form.
“Love and war are forever connected.” He sighed, the sound full of complete hopelessness. “And the light has died.”
I gave up on all pretense of caution, getting as close to him as I possibly could. Three mere feet separated our dangling cages. “Who was the light? Inanna?”
Her sad voice from the dream echoed in my head. Love is my dominion.
The demon settled in
to his makeshift nest of rags, seemingly pleased that someone was listening to him. “She loved to wage war. She warred to save love. All were under her domain.”
I felt another thin pulse of power in me, Inanna’s consciousness still living, even if her body wasn’t.
But I was just an angel. There was nothing I could do for a dead goddess.
“So Inanna was the goddess of love and war, and her sister is the goddess of death and despair.” I kept my voice pitched low. “Two sides of the same coin, two Prime powers to balance each other out.”
The elderly demon nodded once, his reptilian eyes fixed on me. “And the balance was destroyed by jealousy. The darkness swallowed the light.”
More like hung the light like a slab of meat. I flinched as another roar echoed into the throne room and up into the vaulted ceiling, bouncing off the walls until it was magnified a hundred times over.
Below me, Ereshkigal gasped and laughed.
I sat back on the floor of my cage, hoping Lucifer was giving whatever the thing was a run for its money. “Who are you? Who did she come here for?”
“I was…” He frowned. “One of her mourners. After her death. She came for—”
His words were abruptly cut off as the chain overhead creaked, and my cage suddenly plummeted towards the floor.
It drew up short, sending me sprawling across the bottom. My stomach lurched at the sudden shift from falling to stopping so quickly.
Ereshkigal looked down into my cage, her eyes snapping fury. “Did I ask for you to sing, songbird? Did I ask for so much as a single peep to leave your mouth?”
I shook my head, sure that I was treading on very dangerous ground.
She held up a hand, her claws catching the light, and one of her faithful guards was at her side in an instant. “Withdraw the archangel. We’re going to teach my dear little pet the value of keeping her mouth shut. If you’re so determined to bring pain down on your head, then you may go out and enjoy every second of it.”
A tremor of excitement went through me, and I gripped the bars of the cage to pull myself upright, deliberately keeping my shoulders slouched and head bowed.
