He didn’t stop running until he hit the invisible barrier at the end.
He pressed his palms to it and tried to reach through it with his shadows, but the light drove them back, the boundaries of his imprisonment stopping them from seeking Nina.
“Nina!” Lucifer banged his fists against the barrier, sure that she would hear him if she was in the valley.
He bellowed her name at the top of his lungs until he was hoarse and the sky in the valley had turned black, heavy clouds rolling in to pelt the land with hail the size of his clenched fists. Lightning forked the sky and he clawed at the barrier, his long black nails raking down it as he breathed hard. The river surged, the boiling water crashing over the wooden bridge and carrying it away.
Snow cracked on the mountaintops with a boom and tumbled downwards, picking up speed as it thundered towards the valley. The air filled with the groans and snapping of the trees as the avalanche ploughed through them, ripping them from the hillside.
Lucifer snarled and his wings burst from his back, his short obsidian horns emerging and protruding through his black hair as they grew, flaring forwards from behind his ears to beyond his temples.
He bared his fangs as his eyes blazed crimson and lightning struck the highest peak.
Stone exploded and rained down on the valley, huge chunks of it carving up the earth and the grass. A massive boulder bounced off the peak of the hill and hit the fortress, shaking the walls.
“Nina,” Lucifer whispered and pressed his palms to the barrier, his heart on fire and burning with a need to see her.
He needed her back.
He closed his eyes, lowered his head and teleported back to the entrance hall of the fortress.
He wasn’t alone.
Lucifer lifted his head and pinned deadly crimson eyes on the wretched creature standing opposite him.
One of his men.
The larger male shifted foot-to-foot, his skin paling as he looked at Lucifer.
Not because he was witnessing a side of Lucifer that he worked hard to keep hidden—his true appearance.
The male feared because he knew why Lucifer was angry.
He knew Nina was gone.
Lucifer roared at him, every single one of his teeth sharpening into vicious points. The male stumbled backwards, hit the wall near the door rather than the space he had clearly aimed for in an attempt to flee, and quickly held his hands up.
“I did nothing wrong, Master.” The male fell to his knees and lowered his head.
The bastard should beg for his life.
Lucifer raised his hand, ready to strike him down and send him back to Heaven for what he had done. He had frightened Nina away. Lucifer knew it. The imbecile had been careless and she had seen him for what he was.
“I was bringing her food as you requested, Master,” the male stammered into his knees and then dared to raise his head and look directly at him. Lucifer sneered and flexed his fingers, and the male flinched away and rushed out, “My wings were concealed! I didn’t break the rules. I swear it. When she saw me, she became pained. She had some sort of episode and I tried to help her. I tried to stop her.”
Lucifer lowered his hand on hearing that and the male whimpered, curling into himself, obviously anticipating death.
He stared at the male, sifting through his memories until he found the one he wanted.
Lucifer flexed his clawed fingers. He hadn’t lied. The male had hidden himself, using a glamour to alter his appearance, and his wings had not been out.
Nina had seen through the spell somehow.
There was only one way that was possible.
Mihail had done something to her that Lucifer had failed to detect. He had altered her memories and implanted something in her, something that had been triggered on seeing someone other than Lucifer, allowing her to witness the Hell’s angel in his true appearance and granting her the ability to leave the fortress.
Lucifer still wasn’t sure what her orders had been, but he knew one thing.
He couldn’t let her go.
He needed her back.
The space she had filled inside his chest was already hollowing out again, turning blacker than before, and now he didn’t want to return to how things had been. He didn’t want to be without her, even when he knew that he didn’t deserve her.
Even when he felt certain she could never love a monster like him.
Lucifer slowly walked towards the Hell’s angel, who cowered as he approached, and then beyond him, out onto the steps of his fortress.
He stared across the distance to the plateau, rage burning in his heart as his shadow wings fluttered from his back, itching for him to take flight and decimate the forces of Heaven who stood guard there.
But his enemy was not here.
Mihail was gone, and had taken Nina with him.
Lucifer had failed to protect her from the angel.
He tipped his head back and looked at the cragged ceiling of Hell.
But he wouldn’t fail to take her back.
His gaze darted from one spot to another across the black vault above him, easily leaping from each invisible seal to the next. Need filled him, a terrible urge to break every one of the seals that kept him locked in Hell. He growled through his sharp teeth and reined in that desire. It would only spark Heaven into sending angels to stop him, and even if they didn’t, it wouldn’t work. It wouldn’t bring him what he desired.
By breaking every seal, he would free himself but he would also end the world.
As little as people thought of him, he wasn’t a heartless bastard.
He didn’t want to bring about the end of this planet.
He loved his realm as it was, in one piece, and himself as he was, alive.
If he was to reach Nina, he would require a more covert way of crossing from his realm and into the mortal one.
There was only one way.
Lucifer closed his eyes and reached out to his daughter, easily locating her on her island paradise.
“Daughter, come to me,” he whispered the words into her mind, keeping his voice calm and even so she couldn’t detect the turbulent emotions churning inside him—the desperation to have her standing before him in Hell, the urgent need to see Nina again and ensure she was safe, and the fear that he would be unable to make either of those things happen.
What the fuck do you want?
His daughter had a little too much of his sassiness and viciousness at times.
“I require you…” Lucifer grimaced, swallowed his pride, and huffed. “I need your assistance.”
Holy fuck. Did you just say what I thought you did?
Lucifer snarled at her. She laughed in his head.
No need to get grumpy, Pops. What’s the deal? You got a pest problem?
He smiled at that. His daughter viewed angels with the same disdain as he did after all they had done to her, her maggot of a husband, and her son, and those she deemed family.
The concern that edged her voice in her last question told him that she considered him part of the latter, despite her best efforts to hold him at a distance and hate him.
“Come to me and I will tell you.”
Silence again.
She wasn’t going to fall for it. The darkness inside him pushed, roaring to the surface and trying to break free. He contained it, unwilling to let her sense it in him or those who were in the vicinity see how upset he was. He refused to surrender to the black voice in his heart that pressed him to do whatever it took, born of his desperate need of Nina, because he feared that if he did, he would break the seals and destroy all three realms.
“Daughter,” he said.
“What?” she snapped.
Not in his head.
Lucifer opened his eyes and fixed them on Erin where she stood a few metres from him, on the lower section of the courtyard, her hands planted on her hips over her short black summer dress and her golden eyes filled with irritation.
“So where’s this invasi
on?” She looked around her, causing her short black bob to sway with the motion, the sense of anger and annoyance flowing from her growing in strength as she realised that there was no invasion.
He had to act quickly before his opportunity teleported right back beyond his reach.
An unfamiliar sensation squirmed in his stomach.
Before it had a chance to overpower him, he teleported in front of Erin and pressed his palm to her forehead. Wide golden eyes leaped up to meet his.
“I am sorry,” he whispered and they only grew wider. “I need to borrow you as a vessel.”
Fire blazed through him and he cried out in time with Erin. Black lightning zinged through his bones, crackled through the link between his palm and her brow, and then consumed him. The darkness faded and he opened his eyes.
He stared right back at himself through wide eyes.
“What the fucking hell?” His body snarled the words in his voice and turned on the spot, horror crossing his face.
Mortified was not a strong enough word to cover how Lucifer felt, especially when his body turned back to glare at him, his eyes glowing crimson as he snarled and his black horns flaring further forwards like twin dangerous daggers.
“What the fucking hell, indeed,” Lucifer muttered and covered his hand with his mouth when his words came out in Erin’s voice.
He hadn’t anticipated that she would swap places with him too, occupying his body. He had thought that she would remain in her own body, her soul subdued by the strength of his.
“You took things too far this time, you bastard!” His body went from glaring at him to looking down at itself. “Oh, God, this is wrong. So… so… wrong.”
Lucifer roared on hearing that word and lashed out. His arm moved ridiculously slowly, feeling sluggish and weak, and he stopped before he was even close to hitting himself across the face. Nothing seemed quite right.
He looked down at himself and his eyebrows shot up. He should have considered that he really would be inside Erin’s body. She was right.
It felt wrong.
So, so wrong.
He shuddered and considered switching back with her, but Nina popped into his head. His beautiful Nina. He had to see her again and explain. He needed to know that she was safe.
“I am sorry.” He was heading for the world record on the number of times he had apologised in one day but Erin looked as if she was considering grievous bodily harm and it was his body that she was occupying. “I will explain when I return.”
“When you return?” she screamed in his voice and lurched forwards, towards him. “What the fuck? Don’t you bloody dare!”
She snagged his arm before he could teleport to London, and he could only stare at her as he remained where he was rather than disappearing from her grasp. She had grown more powerful than he had ever expected, because no matter what he tried, he couldn’t teleport while she was holding him. Or perhaps it was because she occupied his body, and he hers. It was weak, and he could feel it inhibiting his powers, dampening them to a degree. It would have irritated him if he hadn’t been about to venture to the mortal realm, where his powers normally caused havoc even when he tried to contain them. With Erin’s weaker body inhibiting them, there was a chance he could reach Nina without causing mass destruction.
If he could convince Erin to let him go that was.
He looked down at the hand on his slender bare arm and realised she wouldn’t release him unless he did things her way.
He would have to explain things to her now, but it was going to be the short version of events. He wasn’t sure where Mihail had taken Nina, but he needed to find her before something happened to her. There was every chance that Heaven would order her death if she had already fulfilled whatever purpose they had given her.
He couldn’t let that happen.
“Mihail left a mortal female in my courtyard and I believe she was meant as bait.”
His body raised an eyebrow at him. “Why?”
Lucifer wished that he had an answer to that question. “I do not know.”
His body folded his arms and frowned, a very unlike him huff leaving his lips. “Did you do anything with this woman?”
The look in his golden eyes said that Erin was thinking badly of him, and that she believed that he had mistreated the female. He hadn’t, but her question did make him realise something.
Something that chilled him to the depths of his soul and ignited a fear that he knew why Mihail had brought the woman, and why he had taken her from Lucifer.
Lucifer had played his part.
And the angel had played him well.
But he wouldn’t get away with it.
Lucifer wouldn’t allow Heaven to get their hands on his unborn child.
It explained why Mihail had returned to Hell, only to leave again when Lucifer had attempted to destroy him and had almost destroyed himself in the process. Mihail had believed that Nina had been with him long enough to be seduced by him. The angel must have had a way of discovering whether she had slept with him or not, and had left her in Hell when he had realised that Lucifer hadn’t seduced her.
Because he hadn’t wanted to seduce her.
Because she was more to him than a mere conquest.
He clenched his fists, Erin’s longer nails biting into his palms, and stared at his body, trying to shake the other fear that grew inside him.
Fear that Nina had played him too.
What if it had all been an act and she had been in league with Heaven and their plans?
The darkness in his heart exploded as those words rang in his mind, filling his chest and bleeding through his veins. It seeped from his fingers and lashed at the black ground around him, snapping and cracking as it struck like lightning, sending shards of rock flying in all directions.
He gritted his sharpening teeth and snarled, his eyes blazing crimson and a red veil descending.
Poisonous words whispered in his head, driving him onwards, until the darkness had consumed him and he could think only of seeking out the mortal female and making her pay for what she had done to him.
She had betrayed him. Played him.
For the first time in millennia, he had trusted someone again and they had turned on him.
His chest ached, the fragile organ that he had fought to protect for centuries shattering within his breast.
His body reached for him, the compassion in his golden eyes only worsening his need for violence, his urge to lash out at everyone and everything around him until he was so exhausted that he was numb to the agony writhing inside him like a living thing.
Devouring him.
He tore his arm free from Erin’s grip.
“You dare disappear with my damned—”
Lucifer teleported before she could finish, reappearing on a rooftop in London. It had changed dramatically since the last time he had set foot in the mortal realm, but he wasn’t here to sightsee. He was here on business.
Somewhere in this city was a female, a viper that had poisoned him with emotions and then used them against him to get what she wanted.
He threw his head back and roared, the sound more beast than the feminine body he occupied, and shadows streamed from him to blanket the city, driving it into darkness as they devoured the light. Shrieks rose from the streets far below him, a cacophony of fearful cries that only delighted him. He grinned as he sensed their fear, tasted their despair, and struggled to focus on his target.
Just the sound of her name in his head was enough to have him moving.
He spread his shadow wings and beat them hard, following his ribbons of darkness as they homed in on the mortal female.
His grin widened as they found her.
The angel had been a fool to leave her unguarded.
CHAPTER 13
Lucifer teleported to a small terraced Victorian house in a quiet street, landing outside under a lamp that glowed orange. It flickered, crackled and exploded. Along the street in both directions, the ot
her lamps did the same, causing darkness to race outwards with him at its epicentre.
He stared at the only light remaining in the street.
The light in the white sash window above him.
He growled and teleported inside the room.
Nina gasped and whirled to face him, her hand coming up fast in a silver flash. A knife. She stared at him in silence, her shock echoing through him. She stood in the middle of a group of beige couches in the centre of a cream drawing room, her back to an open door that revealed a tiny kitchen. A flicker of curiosity bolted through him. Why did she have a knife when she was far from the kitchen? Did she feel she needed protection?
That tempered his anger a little, making it fade a touch as a need to ensure she felt safe raced through him. Before that need could take hold, the darkness within him surged back to the fore, reminding him why he had come. He hadn’t come here to protect her. He had come to make sure she knew the full extent of his wrath.
The ground trembled with it, sending her staggering back a few steps and struggling to retain her balance.
Fear washed across her face.
“Who the hell are you?” she snapped and brandished the knife.
It seemed the little mortal had already forgotten just who she had betrayed.
He stepped forwards and the awkward jiggling of his body dragged his focus downwards. To breasts and flared hips. Perhaps she hadn’t forgotten who she had pissed off, but he had definitely forgotten that he wasn’t himself.
The knife shook in her hand. “If you’re with those angels… you can leave me the hell alone too. I’m warning you. Get out.”
Lucifer canted his head, his short black bob brushing his neck in an irritating fashion.
She was trying to protect herself from the angels? Had she fought Mihail and that was the reason the angel had left her unguarded? Had he been wrong about her?
“I am not with the angels.” He held his hand out to her, slender and feminine, tipped with long black nails. This would have been so much easier if he had his own damned body. Nina regarded it with cold eyes that burned in their depths, lending her a defiant and dangerous air that he found too damn alluring. “You know me.”
Dark and Damaged: Eight Tortured Heroes of Paranormal Romance: Paranormal Romance Boxed Set Page 56
