Meaning Asmodeus had fought him and driven him away.
And now Lucifer owed Asmodeus too.
The black-haired male held his hand out to him and Lucifer growled at it. He had already humiliated himself enough. He wasn’t going to add to it.
He carefully rose onto his feet and locked his knees when they tried to betray him and buckle beneath his weight. His shadow wings streamed from his bare back, shifting to counter each sway of his body and keep him steady as his strength slowly returned.
Lucifer flexed his fingers. They were pale and perfect, tipped with short black nails. His bare arms and chest were covered in scratches and lacerations, smeared with black dust and rivulets of red. A snarl tore from his lips.
Mihail would pay.
His snarl died and his head snapped up, his eyes fixing on his fortress.
What if Asmodeus hadn’t driven Mihail away?
What if Mihail had left, after taking Nina?
Lucifer stumbled forwards, managing a few steps before his right knee collapsed, sending him back down onto the black ground. He struck it hard and grimaced as pain shot up his knee and zinged through his bones. He couldn’t wait for his strength to return. He had to reach Nina.
He had to see that she was still there.
Waiting for him.
He shoved back onto his feet and fixed his eyes on the fortress, determined to reach it. The distance seemed enormous, an insurmountable obstacle between him and his little mortal when he was weak. He wanted to teleport there, straight into the room she had made her own, but no matter how hard he tried to muster it, he didn’t have the power to use that ability. His knee went to give out on him again but he managed to remain upright this time, merely staggering a few steps to the right instead.
“You are in no fit condition to walk.”
He ignored Asmodeus’s observation and kept trudging forwards, unable to deny the fierce need to see that Nina was safe and Mihail hadn’t stolen her from him.
When Asmodeus placed his hand on Lucifer’s shoulder, Lucifer turned on him with a growl and lashed out at him, backhanding him hard across the face and knocking him away.
Asmodeus snarled right back at him, his golden eyes flashing red and his fangs on show.
There had been a time when Asmodeus had known his place and wouldn’t have dared to touch him.
Lucifer huffed.
There had also been a time when Asmodeus had been more like a servant to him, a slave who did his bidding without questioning his orders. He slid his gaze to his right, towards the male, and hated the voice that mocked him by mentioning that he had attempted to do with Asmodeus what his master had done with him. He had made the male carry out atrocities without a thought to how it made him feel and had expected him to obey his every command.
He spat a curse at Asmodeus, one so dark that the ground shook beneath his feet, and instantly regretted it when the trembling caused him to lose his balance and he hit the basalt knees-first again. The small pebbles cut through the remains of his trousers, biting into his knees.
He should have paved every fucking path in his kingdom.
He slammed his fist into the ground, so hard that fault lines forked out from where he had struck and pain danced up his arm, a fiery heat that stole feeling from him for a brief second before he burned in agony all over again.
“Do you mind? Do you know how much of my power it took to remake those?” Liora’s light voice was laced with a sharp edge, and as much as Lucifer wanted to lash out at her too, he found he couldn’t.
He looked down at the hands she had repaired and realised that it must have taken most of her power to use such a spell. Suddenly, he didn’t have the heart to hit anything for a while.
What the fuck was happening to him?
He wanted to blame Erin, but he had the terrible feeling that this time the blame rested on someone else’s shoulders.
Someone’s beautiful, slender shoulders.
Shoulders that were part of a curvy body hidden beneath prim and proper clothing, and supported a head full of wavy red hair, a face made up of clear skin with rosy cheeks, soft shell-pink lips that he couldn’t stop fucking thinking about kissing, and the most stunning peridot eyes that entranced him.
Hell, he needed to see her.
He needed it so badly that he took the hand Asmodeus offered, hauling himself back onto his feet, and didn’t even grumble when the dark angel cast his other hand out, creating a swirling black maelstrom slightly taller than he was and broader.
Lucifer trudged into the portal, not quite able to believe he was relying on Asmodeus and allowing someone to help him.
That hadn’t happened in millennia.
Since long before he had fallen.
No one had ever tried to help him.
He stepped out of the portal in front of his fortress and looked back at Asmodeus and the little witch. She wisely busied herself with the hem of her black dress, fraying it with trembling fingers. The dark angel didn’t avoid his gaze. He held it instead, his golden eyes intense and focused.
“Mihail left when we arrived,” Asmodeus said, his deep voice suiting his appearance, and grimaced as his eyes darkened to red again. “I wanted to kill the bastard for what he did to Nevar and Lysia, but he fled the moment he saw us approaching.”
Lucifer had to bite his tongue to stop himself from asking whether the angel had been alone.
“You have…” He sucked down a deep breath and somehow managed to force the words out. “My gratitude.”
Asmodeus looked as if he had just sucker-punched him.
Liora’s eyes widened but she kept them locked on her dress. A dress that stretched tight over the swell of her stomach. Lucifer looked at the bump. It seemed his grandson would have a playmate soon.
Everything was going to Hell and he had the awful feeling he was going there with it.
Was nothing sacred?
For thousands of years he had lived for one purpose, to rule his realm and one day have his revenge.
Now he found himself living for visits with his grandson, seeing his daughter, and even the rare visits that Asmodeus made that he knew weren’t habit or about the business of tracking the princes of Hell. Asmodeus was losing his fear of him, just as the others were. They were coming to view him as an ally.
A friend.
Hell help him, but he was beginning to view them as something other than enemies too.
Something other than lowly beings put on this planet to amuse him, and sometimes infuriate him.
He waved Asmodeus away and turned towards his fortress. He had made it up the first of the curved polished black stone steps when Asmodeus spoke.
“So who is Nina?”
Lucifer froze.
He could feel the amusement running through his creation’s blood, knew the bastard had been ready to gauge his reaction and he had given himself away by stopping dead and tensing on hearing her name.
“A female Mihail brought to me. I am using her as bait for the angel.” He schooled his features and looked back at Asmodeus.
The amusement he could sense in him shone in his golden eyes. “Right. She is nothing more than bait. Understood.”
Asmodeus turned away, casting another portal at the same time. He ushered Liora towards it and through it, and paused at the threshold.
The black-haired male looked back at him. “You sounded a little concerned about your bait being taken from you when Liora was patching you up… in fact… you seemed a little like you were worried she would be gone… and you look worried that she might be.”
Lucifer scowled at the insubordinate bastard. If he’d had a fragment of his power left, he would have had the angel on his knees and pleading him for mercy. As it was, he could barely knock him on his backside and Asmodeus knew it. He was pressing his advantage.
Just as Lucifer had taught him.
Asmodeus waved him away and backed towards the portal, a smile curving his lips. “She is safe. I had Liora c
heck with a spell.”
He tried to hide his relief but the chuckle that left Asmodeus’s lips said he failed. Lucifer raised his hand, willing to weaken himself a little to knock the angel on his backside after all, but the portal swallowed Asmodeus and disappeared.
“Maggot,” Lucifer grumbled and steadily climbed the steps to his home, trying to ignore the fact that the weight on his chest seemed a little less now that he knew Nina was safe.
A diagonal slash above his hip split open as he lifted his left leg to climb the next step and he grunted and covered it with his hand. Warm wetness coated his palm and he pressed harder, stemming the flow of blood. The toe of his left shoe caught on the top of the step and he almost fell, his wings shifting and fluttering to restore his balance.
Lucifer grunted and managed to make it up the remaining steps without falling or reopening any more wounds.
He slowly walked towards the imposing tall twin doors of the fortress and they opened for him, parting to reveal the vestibule and the floating staircases that criss-crossed the vast room.
The candles in the gilded-bone chandeliers flickered as he entered and he walked a little taller as one of his men came out of the corridor across the room from him. The young Hell’s angel studied him warily, his crimson eyes darting over his wounds before shooting off to the wall behind him. The male wisely chose to head back into the room he had exited, leaving Lucifer alone in the great hall.
Had the male attempted to help him, Lucifer might have been tempted to send him back to Heaven for his insolence. He wasn’t in the mood for company and coddling.
He managed to make it to the first floor of the castle, carefully ascending the steps so he didn’t fall off the open sides. In his current condition, he wasn’t sure his wings would hold his weight. The last thing he needed was to fall flat on his face and have one of his men witness it. It was rare enough that he came back from a fight with injuries.
Normally, he could heal any injury instantly.
Because normally, he hadn’t been expending a vast amount of his power to make day into night in order to impress a human female.
Tonight, he would have to patch them up and allow them to heal at their natural pace.
He couldn’t remember the last time he had been forced to do such a thing but he definitely remembered how uncomfortable it had been in the times he’d had to wait for his heightened healing abilities to repair his body.
He was going to be in a sour mood for days.
A sliver of his strength slowly returned, enough that he could walk without fear of collapsing and making a fool of himself. His wings shrank into his bare back and he rolled his shoulders, grimacing as his bones cracked and his body ached. He had never thought he would miss his power to heal instantly, but he would have traded half his kingdom to have it back right now, and not only because the pain was already driving him crazy.
He feared that Mihail would return while he was weakened and snatch Nina from him.
He ascended the stairs to the second floor and followed the balcony that ran around the vestibule to the other side where his quarters were located. Nina’s weren’t far from his and he had to pass her apartment in order to reach his own one.
He slid a glance at her door as he passed.
It opened and she stood there before him, her peridot eyes growing enormous as they ran down him and took in every inch of his chest.
“What happened?” She stepped forwards before he could tell her to remain in her room, her hands coming up to flutter in front of her as if she wanted to touch him but feared what might happen.
He feared it too.
He wasn’t sure he would be able to control himself if she placed her hands on him.
“The man who took you returned. I made sure that he left.” He went to turn away but she caught his left arm.
A bolt of electricity shot through his veins from the point where she touched him, burning up his blood and leaving him breathless as he fought to master his urge to turn back to face her, slide his free hand along her jaw and dip his head to kiss her.
He managed to tamp down that need but couldn’t stop himself from looking back at her.
She stared at her hand on his arm, her eyes wider than before and her lips parted. He thought she would take her hand away when he moved his arm. She released him, but their skin was only apart for a second before she was touching him again, her fingers lightly dancing over the lacerations on his arm, following each one upwards towards his shoulder.
Making him burn for her.
He bit back a growl born of pleasure not anger and tried to evade her by moving his shoulder back.
It didn’t stop her.
It only made things worse.
She stepped fully into the hallway and pursued him, her fingers tracking across his bare chest now, making his heart thump painfully hard against his ribs.
“Did the man do this to you? What did he want?” she said, her stunning gaze filling with a flicker of fear but also concern as she stroked the line of a deeper wound that darted across his left pectoral and over the first set of abdominal muscles.
Her fingers paused.
Her eyes lifted to meet his.
A touch of colour stained her cheeks.
“He wanted you,” Lucifer murmured.
Her eyes went a little wider, the colour on her cheeks a little darker, as if she thought he was talking about himself and that he desired her.
His gaze dropped to her sweet lips, parted and open to him, begging for a kiss.
Hell, but he did want her.
And Hell, he would have her.
CHAPTER 9
Nina gasped as Lucifer’s lips descended on hers and his hands clamped down on her hips, drawing her towards him. Her arms looped around his neck on instinct, tugging him closer to her as she lost herself for a moment in the heat of his kiss.
The taste of ash and blood on her tongue was a stark reminder of his injuries that threw a bucket of ice on the fire of her desire.
She reluctantly pressed her hands to his shoulders and eased him back. He broke away from her mouth with a soft huff that spoke volumes to her, telling her that he was as happy about stopping the kiss as she was.
Nina looked up at his face, dirty and bloodstained, no longer smooth pale perfection, because of her.
Because he had wanted to protect her.
Golden eyes searched hers, the heat of passion still burning in them, calling her to surrender to the fire that raged inside her too.
She wanted to give in to it.
Heaven help her, but she wanted this man who stood before her, and not only because he was beautiful on the outside.
He was beautiful on the inside too.
She could see beyond the barriers now. A single look into his eyes revealed everything to her. His guard was down, stripped of him as his eyes darted between hers, seeking something unknown, something that she felt sure he was looking for to relieve himself of the feelings she knew he was experiencing.
Because he was just like her.
He didn’t want people to see him as he was now. Hurt. Suffering. Bare.
He protected himself with a shield of perfect image and power, but that armour was gone and a different man was looking back at her, one who touched her deep in her heart because he wasn’t turning her away. He was letting her see him like this.
He was letting her see him vulnerable and weakened.
She slid her hand down to his and clasped it, and when she stepped back towards her room, he eyed their joined hands with mild surprise in his gaze and then raised it back to hers. He followed her into her apartment, his eyes still darting between hers and a touch of nerves filling them as she led him towards the bathroom beyond the four-poster double bed at the far end of the room.
Part of her expected him to pull away, to bring his shields back up to protect himself.
It humbled her when he didn’t.
He allowed her to manoeuvre him into the black-ti
led sumptuous bathroom, bringing him to the wide obsidian marble sink that occupied a large section of the vanity unit in front of the huge gilt-framed mirror.
Nina released his hand, reached for the sponge on the dish and ran it under the warm tap. The water grew hot quickly so she switched to filling the bowl with it and adding cold to keep it from scalding her hand as she worked.
Lucifer watched her every move like a hawk, his gaze following her hand as she dipped it into the water, lifted it and squeezed out the sponge.
She brought it towards him and he tensed.
Nina paused, giving him a moment because she could sense that he needed one.
Because she could see that he hadn’t accepted help from anyone in a long time and she could relate to that.
When the taut muscles of his chest and stomach relaxed, she gently took hold of his left hand and carefully ran the sponge over it. She kept her eyes fixed on her work as she cleaned away the blood and dirt, revealing smooth pale skin and tiny streaks of red. They were small on his arms, barely scratches, but there were others on his torso that looked as if someone had taken a knife to him.
What had taken place during the fight?
Had Lucifer used his mysterious powers to battle the man?
If he had, did that mean that the man also possessed powers of some sort?
The man had been able to fight Lucifer, had wounded him, badly in some places. That had to mean that he also had powers. It was too much for her to comprehend. She was only just becoming accustomed to the idea that Lucifer might be able to create things with whatever power he possessed. She didn’t think she could handle the idea that he also had the ability to use his powers to fight another person.
Another person who was like him.
Lucifer had mentioned that he had driven the man away again, and that caused a heavy feeling in the pit of her stomach because it told her something that terrified her.
Whoever the man was, he was as powerful as Lucifer.
He had been able to stand his ground against him.
And he was after her.
Nina pushed those thoughts away, bringing her focus back to Lucifer and using her work to keep her mind off the man and her predicament. Lucifer had protected her again and she was safe here in his castle. She was sure of that. Once she had him patched up, she would ask about the man and make him explain what was happening.
Dark and Damaged: Eight Tortured Heroes of Paranormal Romance: Paranormal Romance Boxed Set Page 52
