“I don’t know. I don’t know what the fuck is going on anymore. One moment I’m with this great guy and the next I’m feeling like an extra in a zombie movie and I don’t know what the heck my body was doing, but it wasn’t doing what my mind told it to do. There was an angel, and I swear to God that—”
Lucifer roared at her, his eyes blazing crimson, and she paled and tensed.
“Who are you?” she whispered but he wasn’t sure how to answer that.
He wasn’t sure he could think to explain it, because he was still stuck on what she had said when she had been babbling.
This great guy.
Him?
It didn’t really seem plausible, but he had been the only male with her during her entire stay, and he had shared things with her that he had never shown to anyone. He had felt close to her in that time, and the hurt surfacing in her eyes and in her feelings said that he wasn’t the only one who felt betrayed.
He stared into her peridot eyes, seeing the pain in them and the suffering, the agony that he felt in his heart.
“Nina,” he murmured and reached for her, wanting to pull her into his arms and comfort her, needing to feel that she was still the woman he had fallen in love with and that she hadn’t betrayed him.
Just as he hadn’t betrayed her.
They had both been played.
“How do you know my name?” She shoved the knife towards him and he kept his distance, aware that if he harmed Erin’s body, he would never hear the end of it.
He was never going to hear the end of it as it was.
“Because… I am Lucifer.”
Her jaw dropped.
She rallied and shook her head. “No. I think I remember what he looked like. If that was even what he really looked like. He’s a liar, right? He manipulates people and makes them do stuff. He made me—”
“No,” he interjected and stepped towards her, deciding to close the distance a little at a time so he didn’t scare her. “I never seduced you, Nina. I never used you. Whatever Mihail told you, it was a lie. He was the liar.”
“Mihail?” she whispered, a distant look in her eyes, and then dropped the knife and clutched her head.
Her whimper tore at him and he couldn’t stop himself from reaching for her, catching her arms and pulling her into the safety of his. She curled into him, shaking like a leaf, and he stroked her back and pressed a kiss to her ear when he had wanted to kiss the top of her head. Erin was too damned short too.
“I have you now. I will never allow anyone to hurt you. I swear that, Nina.” He went to kiss her again and she jerked out of his arms, shoved him in the chest and pushed him away.
Lucifer gritted his teeth and rubbed his chest. Damn, that had hurt. Female bodies were strange. They experienced pain in places he normally didn’t. They were weak.
The ground rocked again, and he couldn’t curse the weakness of Erin’s body. It was the only thing stopping that gentle trembling from becoming a devastating quake that would tear everything asunder, destroying the city.
“I told you, I don’t know who you are.” She clutched the sides of her head, her face screwing up, and then glared at him. “Leave.”
“No.” He wasn’t leaving without her. He was staying where he was until she believed him and heard him out. He had to convince her that while his body was feminine, he was the man she knew inside.
How?
He didn’t have much time. By now, Heaven would know he had escaped his containment and angels would be coming. Mihail would be among them, and he wasn’t strong enough to fight the bastard and keep Nina safe, not in this body. He had to get her back to Hell. He smiled as it hit him.
“I can prove to you that I am Lucifer. I can tell you things that only you would know.”
She stooped, scooped up the knife and scowled at him. “I highly doubt that.”
“I made a valley, and I took you there when you were unwell. I wanted to make you feel at home.” He drew down a deep breath and sighed it out when she looked sceptical still. This had to work, even when he knew it was only the first step. Even if he convinced her that he was who he said he was, it didn’t mean she would return to Hell with him. “You complained about how static it was, and I said that it had changed you.”
Her eyes slowly began to widen.
It was working.
“If you’re Lucifer, then tell me what you said to me when I asked if it could grow dark?” she said and stared deep into his eyes.
He nodded. “Why would you desire to see the darkness?”
She looked away from him, beyond him to the window, her green eyes gaining a distant look. “At the time, I thought it was strange that I wanted to see it too. I thought about it a lot after that, and I realised that it was because you seemed to belong in the darkness. Now I guess I understand why that is.”
You.
She was beginning to believe him.
“Nina,” he whispered and she frowned at him.
He knew it sounded odd, that his voice was whiny and female, but he couldn’t stop himself from saying her name. Hell help him, but he would kiss her if she allowed it.
“You really expect me to believe you’re the Devil?” She looked him over, a confused crinkle to her brow.
He remained still when she closed the distance between them and shook her head, her gaze skimming up and down.
“I do not expect you to believe it, because I know you already feel it in your heart, Nina. We share a connection, one that runs as deep as blood, forged in that cramped bathroom. I did not seduce you, Nina.” He lifted his hand and brushed his knuckles across her cheek. “You seduced me.”
Her wide eyes halted on his, realisation shining in them together with something else, and she covered her mouth.
“Oh, God, you’re a cross-dresser too.”
Lucifer growled at her, unable to stop himself on hearing that word, and she didn’t flinch away this time. She remained where she was, no trace of fear in her scent as she stared at him in disbelief. He struggled to rein in his anger again, wondering at the same time whether she would ever learn to not use that word around him. When he had managed to calm himself, he found her standing closer to him.
Prodding his breasts.
“They feel so real.”
Lucifer gently slapped her hand away. “They are real. I borrowed my daughter’s body.”
Nina snatched her hand back and held it to her chest, her eyes wide again, locked back on his. “You possessed her?”
“In a manner of speaking.” He shrugged. “She is not happy with me. Hell only knows what she is doing to my body right now. I may return to find myself a eunuch.”
“I hope not,” Nina murmured, strengthening his hope that he stood a chance with her, and then seemed to realise what she had said and set her pretty face in a black scowl and glared at him. “It would serve you right. Do you often body-swap with your daughter?”
She froze.
“You have a daughter?”
Lucifer smiled.
“I do, but it is a long story and not for now, and no, I have never swapped with her before… but you left…” His smile faded and he frowned down into her eyes, losing himself in the sea of pale green perfection that he had thought he would never see again, not like this anyway, with her so close to him and looking at him as if she wanted to be with him, despite everything she knew. “You left and I cannot leave Hell. This was the only way I could reach you.”
“Why?” she whispered and edged closer to him, her eyes searching his.
“Because the gates seal me in Hell and I cannot leave unless I—”
She pressed the tip of her finger to his lips, silencing him. “No… why did you want to reach me?”
Lucifer caught her hand, drew it away from his mouth, and pulled down a deep breath, filling his lungs with air that tasted too clean before expelling it slowly in an effort to calm himself as he tried to find the right words.
The ones that would make her come
back with him.
The ones that would win her heart.
“I want you to return,” he murmured softly and furrowed his eyebrows as he looked into her eyes, hoping she would see in his that he meant every word he was saying, even though he looked like his damned daughter. He had hoped he would be back in his own body when he confessed all of this. “I do not want to be in that place without you, Nina, because without you it is Hell. I believed my daughter had turned me into a sentimental fool, but now I know differently. You came along and showed me just how deeply I could care about someone… just how strongly I could love someone.”
A blush crept onto her cheeks and her smile wobbled on her lips.
“Perhaps it was all of you. You… Erin… and Dante.”
Her smile faded. “Who’s Dante? Your son?”
He shook his head. “My grandson, and another long story, one I will happily share with you when we are safe back in the fortress. Angels will be coming to fight me, Nina. I cannot remain here. I must return, but I will not go without you.”
“Back in the castle.” Her tone turned distant and he feared he was losing her again, until she lifted her eyes back to his and smiled. “Is it weird that I miss that place?”
Lucifer thought about that. She had called it a prison, and he had once felt that way about it too, but now he knew it to be his home. Was it possible Nina was coming to see his fortress as her home too?
Her nose wrinkled as she looked at him. “It’s not as weird as looking at you when you’re in a woman’s body.”
“I hope it is not ruining your attraction to me, because it is a one time event. I find it strange and irritating. Weak.” He frowned down at his body. “Everything feels wrong. Besides, I think Erin will, as she crassly puts it, tear me a new one when I return as promised.”
Nina grinned. “If she hasn’t already torn your body a new one.”
Lucifer paled. “Perhaps I should have thought this through more, but I was not thinking. I needed to reach you and make you see that whatever Mihail told you, it was a lie. He brought you to me, and he took you away from me, but he did not make me fall for you.”
Her smile softened and he drank the affection that filled her eyes as she looked at him.
He held his hand out to her but she still didn’t take it.
He sighed and looked down at his feet, feeling a tug in his breast that he hadn’t experienced in a very long time. He was being pulled back to Hell, but it wasn’t Heaven’s doing. It was Erin. He could almost feel her fury and rage, and could definitely sense the violence she was unleashing in his domain.
“I do not think I will be allowed to see Dante anymore after this.”
He didn’t realise he had said that aloud until Nina’s hand slipped into his and she squeezed it, her voice soft and soothing.
“I’ll go with you, but only because I want some answers and I don’t think I’ll get them if you’re busy fighting angels… and I don’t want you to have to fight them… I don’t want them near me… and I don’t want your daughter to be mad at you.” The serious edge to her eyes when he met them told him that he hadn’t won her yet.
His battle for his little mortal female was only just beginning. He glanced down at her cream sweater, at the flat plane of her stomach. He wanted to press his hand to it and use his power to sense whether she bore his child, even though Mihail’s taking her was the only confirmation he really needed.
She didn’t want him to fight the angels, but it was inevitable. Heaven would want her in their hands, and that meant he would have to fight for her.
Nina spoke again, the steady tone of her voice drawing his focus back to her and comforting him. “Maybe if she sees that you wanted to leave Hell because of me, she won’t be mad?”
That touched him.
He shifted his hand in hers, linking their fingers, and focused on his domain and his fortress that towered in the centre of it. The colourful world around him twisted into darkness and then disappeared, revealing the courtyard of his home.
A huge black blast of energy careened towards him.
Lucifer tugged Nina behind him and threw his free hand forwards, deflecting the orb before it could strike him and Nina. It shot off to his right and crashed into the spires of rock there, causing them to explode.
Lucifer growled and straightened his spine, trying to ignore how strange it was to face himself in a battle. “Behave yourself, Daughter, because you almost hit our guest.”
His body’s left eyebrow quirked. Lucifer kept pace with it as it moved side to side, his daughter attempting to peer past him.
Erin huffed and folded her arms across her chest. Behind her, the walls of his fortress began to repair themselves, the huge cracks in the black stone sealing shut. His daughter had been busy while he had been gone. Many of the spires that surrounded the courtyard were ruined too, laying in rubble, their broken remains spewing lava as they attempted to rebuild themselves.
“I want my body back.” It was odd hearing himself say those words. Whenever he thought he had a grasp on things, that he was used to seeing his body and hearing his voice and could comprehend that it was Erin inside it, and Erin talking, it all felt weird again. She planted her hands on her hips. His hips. Weird. “Unless you intend to feed Dante come my little hellion’s dinner time?”
Lucifer looked down at his breasts and pulled a face. “I think not. You can have your body back. I have what I wanted.”
He focused on his hand and on his body, and black lightning leaped the gap between his palm and his body’s forehead. Pain exploded inside his skull and he flinched away, pressed his hands to his head and growled as he tried to tamp it down. It slowly faded and he opened his eyes, exhaling a sigh of relief when he saw his own flat broad chest and a suit rather than breasts and a summer dress.
Lucifer turned to face Nina, and saw only the castle.
He spun on the spot, coming to face Erin where she stood right next to Nina. He hadn’t thought about the fact he would leave Nina near his daughter when switching back into his own body. Fear lanced him, turning his blood to ice in his veins, and he lifted his hand to reach for Nina, convinced that his daughter would steal her away from him, teleporting her beyond his reach once more.
Erin just looked her up and down. “Did he kidnap you too?”
Nina flicked him a curious glance and then looked back at Erin and shook her head. “No. I think an angel did.”
“Mihail. He’s such a bastard.” Erin snorted and then shrugged. “Pops kidnapped me once. I figured he kidnapped everyone he liked.”
Lucifer arched an eyebrow at that. Nina looked at him in a way that left him feeling she was trying to put the name “pops” together with what she knew about him and was failing to make them fit.
Erin pointed at him, a corona of red surrounding her golden irises. “You’re banned from seeing Dante for a month, and if you try that shit again, I’m telling Veiron. It freaked me the fuck out.”
Lucifer nodded in agreement with that. “It was not pleasant.”
He held his hand out to Nina.
“Lucifer…” She started and Erin’s eyes almost popped out of her head, her lips twitching into a wicked smile that made him growl and glare at her in warning.
“I have something extra juicy to tell Veiron and the Scooby gang,” Erin singsonged and Lucifer advanced on her.
She didn’t relent. Her smile only grew wider, more wicked.
“Oh, they’re going to love finding out your real name.”
Lucifer gave up attempting to threaten her. It wasn’t any fun when the person you were threatening wasn’t afraid of you and knew they could match your power blow for blow and come out of a fight with you unscathed.
He looked at his daughter, seeing for the first time just how strong she truly was. She had held her own against angels and demons, had taken on the world more than once, and always came to the aid of her friends and family, but her true strength rested in a part of her he had never wa
nted to acknowledge before.
Her heart.
She loved deeply, unconditionally, and as he looked at her as she spoke to Nina with a smile on her lips and laughter in her eyes, he had the feeling that it wasn’t something she had somehow inherited from her mother, because her genes were a perfect match for his.
He had bottled his memories of the time that had come before his tenure in Hell, had closed himself off to the male he had once been, but he could no longer shut out the past.
Because the very image of the man he had once been stood before him.
His daughter.
He had laughed like her once, had cherished those he had considered family and friends, and would have done anything to protect the ones that he loved with all of his heart.
His gaze slid to Nina and she stopped giggling, her expression turning serious as she slowly brought her gaze to meet his.
Perhaps that male wasn’t dead and gone.
Perhaps he had only been buried and the catalyst of his resurrection was looking at him with love in her eyes.
Erin made a gagging noise.
Lucifer sighed and scowled at her, but it lasted only a second before his temper faded and concern filled his heart. She was strong, but that didn’t make her invincible, and he wasn’t sure he could cope if he lost her or his grandson. Her features shifted, her grin fading and expression becoming uncomfortable.
“Do not trust the angels of the apocalypse, Daughter.” Lucifer took measured steps towards her and placed his right hand on her shoulder as he looked down into her eyes. “Mihail delivered Nina to me and Mihail took her back to the mortal world. The male has issues with me, and I would not put it past him to take those issues out on you now that Nina is back within my realm. Be careful.”
Erin huffed and glared at him. “Spoilsport. Now I don’t feel like taking the piss out of you over your name. I’ll be careful. Always am.”
He didn’t like the flippant way she said that. She was dealing with more than mere angels and demons now. Mihail and his cohorts were dangerous, and so were their originals, the princes of Hell.
“Promise me, Daughter. Take every precaution and do not lower your guard.” He gently squeezed her shoulder and her look turned even more uncomfortable.
Dark and Damaged: Eight Tortured Heroes of Paranormal Romance: Paranormal Romance Boxed Set Page 57
