by Dianna Hardy
Darius had whispered words of torment, torn her open every time he’d touched her, even as he’d brought her to brink of pleasure over and over again. He had used her and abused her.
She had let him.
And she could regret none of it, because the most beautiful girl in the world had been given to her – a true gift, despite her recklessness.
Yet, without regret, there could also be no acceptance of her bad choices; no acknowledgement that she had made mistakes, and therefore, no forgiveness.
No. She had never forgiven herself – not even a little.
And now she was falling apart, outside as well as in, forgiveness demanding entry at the dark door she always knew she’d have to open one day.
“The air in here is black, Katherine. What on earth are you thinking?”
Startled, she jumped and turned to find Lucifer emerging from the shadows in the far corner of the bedroom. Just like Darius used to, she thought, ironically.
“I wondered when you’d show up again. Morgana not with you?”
“She sent me to find the son of Gwain.” He rolled his eyes, as if the task he’d been set was beneath him.
“Karl’s not here. I don’t know where he is. No one’s here but me, I’m afraid.”
“Are you?”
“I’m sorry?”
He stepped closer until he was no longer in shadow. “Are you afraid?”
Oh yes, there was the fear clambering up her throat. She fought it back down, refusing to acknowledge the monster she’d had a hand in creating. “Of you?”
“It’s not me you were thinking of just now.” His knowing eyes appraised her, sending shivers up her spine. This fallen angel was dangerous; she didn’t need any amount of her clairvoyance to see that.
“What I think is none of your business.”
“No. No it isn’t.” He paused. “Do you think she’s like him, Katherine?”
A scar opened. Her anger rose. “Maybe I didn’t make myself clear. When I said it was none of your business, what I meant was ‘get the fuck out’.”
“Do you know where Elena is at this precise moment?”
“She’s a grown woman; I don’t need to keep tabs on her.”
“She’s on a derelict building site, fending off four would-be rapists.”
All blood drained from her already pale face. “No.”
He waved away her shock. “Oh, don’t look so worried.”
She pushed herself off the bed. “Go and help her.”
“Believe me, Katherine, it’s not her I’m worried about. Those four, poor excuses for the male gender are going to have nightmares for a very long time. Which brings me back to my question: do you think she’s like him?”
Her hand rose to her chest, the pain in it exquisite.
“Or is she more like you?”
She couldn’t reply.
He studied her carefully. “Do you think she’ll fuck them, suck them ‘til they're shrivelled, then toss them to the curb with no remorse, or do you think that when she finally comes around, she’ll be so bereft at what she’s done there’ll be no coming back from it?”
A small sound of anguish left her, tears falling on dry skin.
“Are you beyond repair, Katherine? Or can you come back?” He came right up to her, blocking her against the side of the bed. “Is she like her father? Or is she like her mother?”
“You’re one cruel bastard,” she managed to get out.
He tsked with his tongue. “Everyone says that.” Then he took hold of her chin and locked his gaze with hers. “Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind – you know that. And sometimes, it takes a bastard to see it through.”
“You have to help her,” she pleaded. “Please.”
“She doesn’t need my help. But you do.”
She shook her head. “I can’t…”
“Can’t is not a word that suits you, my dear. You won’t. What a shining example you are to your daughter.”
She slapped him in the face, for all the good it did her.
He caught her wrist and smiled. “I’m an angel. I can give you back your youth, all you need to do is … open up – you know how it works.”
“I can’t—”
“Don’t say that.”
“I won’t…” But she didn’t really know the end of the sentence.
“This isn’t how you want to die – a shell of yourself. So let’s cut out the bullshit and get on with it.”
She closed her eyes against too many hellish years.
“Do you think you’re the first person to suffer at the hands of a lover? Willingly? Do you think you’re the first person to have asked for it? Look at me.”
She opened her eyes.
“Ask me.”
“No…”
“Ask me.”
“No!” She shoved him with her magic, and whether he let her or she took him by surprise, she couldn’t tell, but he landed against the wardrobe mirror she’d been staring at, luckily without breaking it. “You don’t know! You don’t! I was in there a month – a whole month and—”
“And you enjoyed every second of everything they took from you, and when their hands left your body you secretly begged them back, just like you did Darius; just like you’ve never been able to do with any man since.”
She stood there, shaking, as he strode back towards her. “How many men in your life have you said goodbye to? Three? Four? More? Because when they touch you with wholehearted loving caresses you feel nothing, yet the forceful stroke of a demon can split you between a million orgasms. How can anything compare, Katherine, to an incubus moving inside you? No other man, no other type of touch, will ever compare.”
“Are you done?” she croaked out.
He crossed his arms.
Exhaling a breath that had gotten stuck in her throat, she fell back down on the bed, exhausted. “Pleasure both repulses me and fulfils me.”
“I would wager that’s how your daughter feels, although for slightly different reasons, and I told you,” he added, as she frowned at Elena’s name, “not to worry about her.”
“That’s a little difficult for a mother to do.”
“Evidently. Fine,” he knelt down in front of her, “worry about her if you must. I’ll worry about you instead.” He placed his hand on her thigh and she flinched.
“Within five minutes, you can feel and look your forty-four years again. Or you can stay as you are, dying of old age, a victim to regret because you refuse to accept the needs of your body and mind.”
Her shoulders slumped forward. “If it’s like this for me, it’ll be ten times worse for Elena.”
“Maybe, but she’ll figure it out. Possibly after four dead bodies,” he added.
She glared at him.
“Does she know?”
“Know what?”
“That your refusal to have her rejuvenate you is because sexual pleasure disgusts you so much you’d rather die than have her be your saviour?”
She grimaced, the raw truthfulness of his words spearing her like a lance.
“Does she know she’s part of what made you that way?”
“She is not.”
“She’s a succubus – she is.
“She knows nothing! And you need to go help her, now.”
“I need to help you. And I can. I can even make it painful, if the pleasure is too much. So, pick your poison: pain or pleasure? My personal preference is pleasure, by the way.”
“You call this help? Why on earth do you want to ‘help’ me?”
“It’s convenient,” he shrugged. “I know what you crave – what you’re addicted to – and I get a kick out of witnessing human degradation.”
Her laughter came out forced. “You have got to be kidding me.”
“Honest to a fault, aren’t I?”
“Only when it suits you, Lucifer.”
His lips curved upwards. “Indeed.”
“My struggle amuses you?”
“God, ye
s. When humans rip themselves apart so thoroughly, it exposes them in a way nothing else can. Vulnerability is beautiful, but more than that: gnothi seauton.”
“Know thyself?”
“It’s only through the degradation of the soul that you can know who you really are; when all else is stripped away, leaving you bare.” Somehow, his black eyes darkened, the venom in his words more deadly than a viper’s bite. “Let me degrade you, Katherine.”
His hand climbed higher, and that familiar sense of desire and repulsion – each fuelling the other – invaded her along with his stare.
“Let me strip you piece by piece, exactly how you like it. Let me watch you shine through your brutal revelation.”
One word. She just needed to say one word and yet it stuck in her throat, guilt clutching at it, unwilling to give up its prisoner.
Lucifer leaned forward, his movement smoother than silk, and licked along the length of her collar bone.
Dear God…
With his thumb, he pressed up between her legs, finding the seat of her underwear … finding much more than that…
A raspy moan left her, but the word that sought escape remained trapped.
His lips reached her ear, his whisper caressing the white wisps of her hair. “One of the greatest lies ever told is that there’s no power in vulnerability. You have permission to take what you need.”
The next moan that left her was encased in a sob; relief, self-loathing and gratitude rushing out of her, carrying the word she had spent all of her adult life despising… “Pleasure.”
“Good girl.”
He tilted her head back and she opened her mouth.
He sealed it with his own, and breathed.
Chapter Eleven
They were back in the waiting room.
Dr Jefferson had told them he would speed them through all tests and procedures, magically if necessary, so they’d gone around the corner for lunch and then hung around window-shopping – which had been sort of morose since she couldn’t fit into anything anymore and he’d be dead soon.
They’d made their way back to the surgery for five o’clock, the night already upon them as the sun had set just after four. Usually, the area would be busy at this time with the stirrings of Christmas in the air, but no one was celebrating this year. The streets were deserted, the frequent tremors from the earth keeping most people indoors.
Amy stole a glance at Paul.
He hadn’t said anything much since his breakdown earlier, after which they had divulged pretty much everything about the pregnancy to Dr Jefferson. They needed more insight and he could potentially provide it. They’d both agreed that confiding in him had been a risk worth taking. The only thing they hadn’t revealed was their real identity.
She reached out and took his hand in hers.
He jumped in his seat as if he’d been far away. “All right?” He asked, apprehensively.
“My feet are swollen and I feel like someone cut me open and stuck a bowling ball inside me, but other than that, I’m great.”
He stared at her, brows furrowed. “I actually don’t know if you’re being serious or not.”
She smiled, apologetically. “I haven’t made it easy, have I?”
“You want me to answer that?”
“No.”
He laughed for the first time since this morning. “Come here.” He tugged at the legs of her joggers. “Swivel around and lie back on the chairs. Put your feet up.”
I’ll be fine in a minu—”
“Just do it.”
She conceded, and groaned with relief when all weight came off her ankles.
Paul planted her feet firmly on his lap.
“I hope you’re not expecting me to ever get up again.”
“I’ll let you explain that to the doctor,” he smiled. He pulled the laces of her trainers undone before slipping the shoes off her feet.
“What are you doing?”
“Just relax.”
“You don’t have to … Oooooohh!”
“Good?”
“Oh, it’s heaven!”
He chuckled. “Remember all those treks we used to take up and through the mountains?”
“I do. You were foot masseur extraordinaire.”
“Were?”
She giggled. “Feeling a little confident, are we?”
“Of my ability to massage feet? Yes. Yes, I am. Armageddon’s here and the one thing I know I can fall back on is my knack for bringing podiatric pleasure.”
Her giggle turned into a laugh.
“No demon or fallen angel will harm me because once they get a taste of this, they’ll all need my expert touch for relief after long days in battle, or whatever the hell it is they spend their days doing.”
She guffawed. “Stop! Oh, God, stop … I’m getting a stitch…”
“They’ll take moulds of my healing hands and sell them in Ann Summers, right next to the massage oil and the frolicking bunnies.”
“Oh, fuck,” she hiccuped, barely able to talk for laughing so hard. “They’re called Rampant Rabbits!”
“Aaaah… Well, I knew it had something to do with bunnies. You’ll have to excuse me – I’m not so up-to-date with such things. Shall I go on?” he grinned.
“Nnnnn…” was all she managed as she shook her head vigorously.
“Because I can, you know.”
She reached up to grab his arm in protest, her body still shaking from both howling and hiccuping.
He responded by leaning over and wiping the tears falling down the side of her face. “Hell, it’s good to hear you laugh.”
Amy clasped his hand before he could pull it away and pressed her face into it, just before she hiccuped again, and fought to suppress another onslaught of giggles.
They settled into a comfortable silence, her eyes resting on his. “It’s good to laugh… Can I tell you something that scares me?”
“Of course you can.”
“This baby’s grown so fast … I don’t feel … I don’t feel like a mother. I mean … what if I can’t bond with him? I was trying to feel all ‘mothery’ when we were out walking about and I felt nothing except heavy. It sounds so bloody awful to say this, but what if I don’t love my baby?”
She was relieved to find that he didn’t look reprimanding in any way – more surprised than anything else. “You’re seriously worried about this? Amy, I can’t think of anyone who would make a better mother. When Eleanor…” He hesitated. “Do you mind me talking about her?”
She shook her head and ignored the twinge of jealousy that arose out of nowhere at the mention of his other wife.
‘Other’ wife, Amy?
Shit.
Yes, somewhere in the past month she had accepted, even fallen into, her role as his wife, despite all attempts to the contrary.
Previous role, Amy. Previous.
“Eleanor had a hell of time when Katherine was born. I remember her struggling with breastfeeding – and she was determined to breastfeed – convinced she wasn’t bonding with her daughter, but she was, I could see it. And I see it with you now.”
“You do?”
“Definitely. The way you stroke your bump, the way you’re so protective over him … you’ll be a fantastic mother. I have no doubt about that.”
She wasn’t so sure, but it suddenly didn’t matter because the brown of his familiar eyes warmed her up through and through.
Don’t get close! There’s nothing to get close to… Panic flared.
“Now can I ask you something?”
“Mm-hmmm.”
“Your mother hasn’t come down here to see you because of me, am I right?”
Amy let out the breath she hadn’t realised she was holding. Crap it. She was hoping this wouldn’t come up. She had been to the Cotswolds once more since discovering she was pregnant to break the news to her mum who she had only just reunited with after twenty-three years.
There had been no way to avoid telling her about Paul being th
e father (or one of the fathers), and consequently, her history with him in her previous life had also come up – something which she had resisted explaining to her before, given the delicacy of the whole situation.
And delicate it still was for her mother. She had phoned Amy almost every day to check in on her, but had refused to come to London to stay with them.
“I’m so sorry. I tried to explain it to her, but—”
“Please don’t apologise. It should be me apologising. I don’t blame her at all after everything… I wouldn’t want to see me again either.”
His vague attempt at humour belied his sorrow. She affectionately tugged on the sleeve of his shirt. “You know that’s forgiven on my part, don’t you?”
“Yes,” he smiled at her, “but I don’t know how. I haven’t forgiven myself.”
The door to the waiting room swung open. “Excellent. You’re here. Come through, come through.”
Paul swung her legs down and helped her up.
They made their way into his office for the second time that day.
Dr Jefferson sat down after they did. The guy looked exhausted, as if the past few hours had taken their toll on him somehow.
“Thanks so much for doing this,” said Amy. “We can’t tell you how much we appreciate it.”
“After what you both filled me in on earlier, how could I not? And to put your minds at rest, none of what you told me has been recorded under your names.” He looked at them, inquisitively. “Although, I suspect I’m not privy to your actual names.”
They said nothing and he didn’t push.
“Very little has been recorded at all in fact – I’ve merely taken down the aspects I need to remember for tests and so on, and committed everything else to memory.”
Paul nodded his gratitude.
“Right, good news first: the baby is healthy and currently in human form.”
She exhaled in relief. “And the bad news?”
