by Dianna Hardy
Her hand trembled as she read the prophecies again, her words stuttering, “And what about this love that will wake eternal sleep, and this final quake?”
“I don’t know. Sounds like the Earth’s gonna get extra loud and rumbly to me. Maybe the final quake will be when the Dragon rises, judging by that last line.”
She frowned. “The last line says ‘dragons’, as in plural.”
“Don’t know about that either. I just know I need to keep you safe before my time runs out.” Her tone softened, and this time when Elena looked at her she was staring back … lovingly. Her eyes shimmered.
“Katarra,” said Elena, quietly, “you don’t have to keep me safe.”
She hesitantly reached up and gently ran a finger down the length of Elena’s nose – an act of such care and affection she would never have associated with the Brujii queen.
Brujii blood will run humane.
Her own eyes welled up with feeling.
“I do, Elena,” she whispered. “I really do.”
Chapter Fourteen
She could see the light above the surface of the water, the water itself a murky brown. But reaching it was taking forever. She was going to run out of breath.
Her lungs were just starting to burn, heightening the panic and she tried to swim faster, kick harder – the top was so near; she was so near her goal…
Five seconds … ten seconds … and the seconds were getting longer with each beat. The burning became monumental and spread from her lungs throughout her entire body, making her legs and toes tingle. The tingle, in turn, travelled back up towards her stomach until it settled around her pelvic area, and then the tingle turned into a delicious heat that had her bucking under the waves as she strived to break the surface – when had the water come alive? When had the ocean’s tendrils begun to tease and stroke…
“No,” she protested, forgetting where she was, and the murky sea invaded her mouth.
She was out of time. Even as that wild fire between her legs rocked her into ecstasy, the tearing pain in her lungs signalled her failure to find freedom. The light was there – the sun over the waves – she just couldn’t reach it, her frantic breaststroke doing nothing to propel her upwards.
Oh, God, no! She needed to breathe … needed to…
Losing her battle with her mind, her body reacted on survival instinct alone, her diaphragm expanding, seeking oxygen. Water filled her mouth, filled her lungs. She choked, or tried to, but there was no room to choke – no space at all – just water everywhere, outside her, inside her, squeezing her like the muscled body of a giant Boa constrictor … and the water tasted of apples…
Katherine tore herself awake on a gasp that was muffled by Lucifer’s tongue plunged into her mouth, his movements demanding, but erratic. And it was odd how she knew.
She recognised the desperate edge to his being straight away – it was the desperation of addiction. The desperation that came from being ripped open inside and not knowing how to heal the gaping hole that was left; instead, you reached for the fix. The fix was easy – temporary, but easy.
Darius had been her fix for two years.
Somewhere along the vague line of reality that marked the end of the world, she had become Lucifer’s.
“Katherine,” he wrenched out; hoarse, raw…
Raw indeed. Her eyes met slitted, opaque ones, and that was all she could make out in the darkness of her room. Her hands told the rest of the story: they gripped his back as he thrust inside her, smooth and scaly to the touch, every muscle pronounced; the one that filled her just as defined, and it filled her completely…
…Jesus Christ…
His tongue, now near her ear, flickered against the side of her neck and she could feel it was forked.
“Katherine,” he uttered again, in that same naked way.
Exposed.
Lucifer was exposed, and without him needing to say more than her name, she understood that she was witness to a secret he kept hidden. And she understood exactly what it was he needed from her.
He grabbed her hair and slammed her head against her pillow, facing left. “Look in the mirror.”
Through the shadows of the room she made out the deprecative sight, and because Darius had moulded her well, the vision flooded her with wanton heat and she moaned.
He grew harder inside her at her obvious lust, his own groan sounding through the dark.
But Lucifer was not Darius. Where Darius had been in total control, Lucifer was as damaged as she – her ruination fed his. It was a self-perpetuating, tangled web of destruction that would sink her to the bottom of the ocean and permanently hold her there. She needed to free herself of it.
“What do you see?” he hissed, and his voice shook with the effort to free himself. A freedom they both knew would not be within reach tonight … for either of them.
Against the force of his hand holding her to her own reflection, she told him the truth. “Your brutal revelation.”
He froze, and she knew her words had hit home.
His grip loosened and she turned back to face him, then reached out for the light on her nightstand and flicked it on.
His snake eyes were wide and wild with both shock and need, and some ancient despair that haunted him.
No … she didn’t need a mirror to see her reflection.
She widened her legs, squeezed her ache around him and drew him further into her, his vulnerable gasp, her reward. Her whisper seemed to fill the entire room. “You have permission to take what you need.”
A strange membrane flickered over his slitted pupils and it looked like he’d blinked in bewilderment. Inside her, he thrust once – hard – and then with a moan that felt wrenched from his soul, he fell on her.
Lips crushed, wrists pinned, she bore his unravelling.
A scarlet glow emanated from his body.
Silent screams sang from the depths of them both amid frenzied grunts, violent plunges and the final, furious, shared release; pleasure ever the nurturer, and the destroyer.
Ragged breaths…
A movement, barely there…
He raised his head and stared at her, no longer animal, but angel, fallen. His eyes, now human, held some semblance of balance once more.
Had she imagined it, or had he left her alone just hours before, after breathing life back into her body? What had happened between then and now to wound him so ferociously?
And still he stared – maybe no one had ever stared at her for so long.
What else was there to see? They had seen everything of each other already.
His words caressed her skin on the faintest of breaths. “You’re extraordinary.”
The sound of the apartment door swinging open catapulted them back into the fracturing world, Paul and Amy’s muffled voices through the walls preceding the slam of it as it closed.
Katherine opened her mouth to speak, but Lucifer was already there with one finger on her lips. “Ssshhhhhh.”
He swiftly pushed himself off her, gathered her clothes off the floor and threw them to her. Reaching into a dresser drawer, he pulled out more of her clothes – a top and a pair of trousers – and before her eyes they transformed in his hands into men’s clothes that she assumed were his size.
She looked at him, surprised.
He grimaced slightly. “Not much more than glamour – a parlour trick I picked up from fairies, but it’ll do for now.”
Right this second, he seemed much more with it than her. She caught a glance of herself in the wardrobe mirror now that the light was on, and almost jumped at the sight of the dark-haired woman staring back.
She was young again. Well, forty-four. Was that still young?
“Get dressed, Katherine. We have to call a meeting.”
“A meeting?” She slipped on her blouse, not bothering with the bra that she was sure wouldn’t fit her regenerated body.
“We have a problem. With Karl.”
That snapped her back to attention q
uicker than anything else, her protectiveness already rising for Elena’s sake. “What’s wrong with Karl?”
His stare grew black. “It’s for the meeting. Is everyone due back tonight?”
She cursed when her skirt wouldn’t fit over her widened hips. “As far as I know, although Elena…” That sentence faded with the memory of what Lucifer had told her. Familiar anxiety flared in her chest.
“She’s with the Brujii queen, and she’s fine. I’ve already sent word for them both to get here as soon as they can.”
Pulling another skirt out of her wardrobe, she looked at him inquisitively. His back was turned towards her as he did up his belt.
“You checked in on her?”
“After I left you – before I resumed the hunt for Karl. No reason not to.”
She almost said thank you, but held her tongue. What the fuck was this anyway? Not a relationship, that was for sure.
They finished dressing themselves in silence.
“I’m done,” she announced. “You?”
“Ready.”
She nodded and walked towards the bedroom door. One yard away from it, she was halted by the tip of a gold and crimson wing encircling her waist.
“Katherine…”
She turned to face him, his penetrating gaze completely unreadable, yet somehow softer than it had been the first time she’d laid eyes on him.
“Thank you.”
~*~
Amy threw her keys back into her bag, before throwing the bag on the kitchen counter. “I don’t think what I’m asking for is unreasonable.”
“You don’t—Amy, we’re living in an apocalyptic world!”
“And because we’re living in an apocalyptic world, I want to give birth in a nice, safe hospital.”
Paul was near the end of his tether, she could tell – he had his kill-me-now face on. “Home births are really much safer than people think, and since when are hospitals all that safe?”
“Since they started stocking painkillers. Can you see the size of this baby? You’re tall and Pueblo’s massive. I’m not giving birth to a thirteen pound baby at home.”
“The doctor said it was nearly ten pounds.”
“And does that sound like a breeze to you?”
“The hospital isn’t staffed – you heard him.”
“So we’ll find another hospital.”
“And which would be the apocalyptic hospital of choice, madam?”
Oh, great. Kill-me-now face and sardonic-husband tone.
A gasp from behind her arrested her equally sardonic reply. She turned to find Katherine and Lucifer—oh, goody, he’s back—staring openly at her gigantic belly.
“Katherine,” said Paul, “maybe you can talk some sense into her. Giving birth to Elena wasn’t all that painful was it?”
Katherine’s stare left her stomach and ended up on Paul, her eyebrows high in disbelief. She turned to Amy and smiled in reassurance. “I didn’t feel a thing after the epidural.”
“Ha!” She threw Paul her I-win face.
“So…” Lucifer bit into an apple, still gazing at her stomach. “…accelerated growth. The baby’s due … when, exactly?”
“We think he’s trying to align his birth with the birth of the Dragon,” answered Paul.
“Interesting.”
“He?” said Katherine, and they all fell quiet.
She looked back and forth between Amy and Paul. “He?”
Amy beamed, no longer able to suppress her joy despite all the threatening danger. “We’re having a boy!”
“Oh, my goodness!”
She was enveloped in a hug, Katherine’s smile equally as big. “Congratulations!”
“Thank you. This isn’t too weird for you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, he’s sort of your brother – your half-brother.”
“Honey, my whole life has been weird.”
“And nothing’s weirder than living the Bible,” threw in Lucifer.
Amy looked at him and frowned. “What’s he doing here?”
At that moment, Elena and that awful Brujii queen she thought she’d seen the last of, materialised to her right. Her anger rose.
Paul took hold of her hand in reassurance … and probably to hold her back from lunging at her.
“And what’s she doing here?”
“Elena.” Katherine sped towards her daughter, worry clouding her face. “Elena…”
Taken aback, Elena reached out and took a lock of her mother’s brown hair in her hand. “Mum … how—”
“That’s not for now. You were right – I was avoiding … issues … And you?” She clutched her daughter’s arm desperately.
“And me?” Elena looked briefly startled at her reaction, and then some kind of silent communication must have passed between them, because she suddenly looked embarrassed instead and shuffled on her feet. “I’m fine,” she whispered back.
“So, is this the meeting?” Katarra asked in that bored voice of hers.
Meeting? What meeting? Amy smiled too sweetly at Katarra. “Don’t worry, your majesty, I’m sure there’s nothing you can contribute – as usual – so why don’t you run along now.”
The bitch smile right back at her and nodded at her bump. “Awww, look at you – three men in your life now.”
How did she—“How do you know it’s a boy?”
“Prophecies,” came the answer from somewhere else on her right.
Morgana materialised.
This was getting a little crowded.
“The Malattal have predicted it – Neesa informed me just a few minutes ago.” The fairy queen looked accusingly at Lucifer. “Why didn’t you inform me?”
He sucked the last of the apple off its stalk. “You sent me on an errand to find the son of Gwain.”
“Karl?” chirped Elena.
And suddenly, chaos ensued. Everyone was talking at once and firing questions that weren’t getting answered…
Paul pulled her out of the foray and she found her back nestled against his chest. “Maybe we should have a hospital birth after all,” he whispered in her ear. “Don’t want this lot egging you on.”
She giggled and turned in his arms, then froze when yet another voice cut through the throng. “And there I was missing you lot – maybe silence is golden after all.”
The clamber faded into the distance, that deep baritone swelling her heart so much she thought she might choke on the intake of her breath. Oh … my … God.
A fierce pain lanced through Paul’s eyes before he could hide it, the spear of that same lance cutting through her; splitting her in half.
Paul stepped back.
She squeezed his hand harder, but he pulled it out of her grasp.
Don’t leave me!
But she couldn’t not turn towards the man she’d yearned for with every fibre of her being.
And there he was, even more dark and radiant than she remembered.
He looked bloody magnificent, a small smile aimed at her. The smile reached his eyes, which shined with tears.
Her feet were moving before she realised it, bringing her to him.
He opened his arms.
A sob tumbled out of her, and then she was in them, enveloped in the warmest of hugs, unable to stop the tears streaming down her face.
“I’m here, baby. I’m here.”
He placed a hand on her stomach, and she glanced up at him.
Awed coloured his features as he stared at it, then it transformed into elation when the baby kicked in greeting.
“It’s a boy,” she said quietly, trying to get her crying under control.
“I know,” he replied, before kissing her forehead.
She looked at him in question, and then remembered Paul’s emotional reaction at that same news.
She turned around to find him leaning on the kitchen counter, facing away from her – facing away from everyone.
Unwittingly, she took a step towards him, then stopped, un
sure of what to do.
That familiar feeling of panic rose sharply within her.
Pueblo placed a steady hand on the small of her back. “Don’t worry, Amy. We have a lot to talk about. I don’t want you to worry.”
Before she could think of a reply to that, Lucifer threw an apple onto the dining table that stood just outside the kitchen area, separating that from the main living room.
Everyone, who Amy suddenly realised had been watching her and Pueblo’s reunion, now watched the apple thud, bounce and roll into the centre of the table.
“The meeting starts now,” stated Lucifer. He stared pointedly at Morgana, who was staring daggers back at him. “Yes, the Malattal have split themselves up and are speaking about the birth of the boy and relaying their final prophecies at all corners of the Earth, the final prophecies themselves predicting the destruction of the seven demon races. But it’s not just demons that are doomed to die: all beings on this planet without human blood in their veins will perish.”
In the stunned pause that followed, Morgana’s face reddened and Amy thought she might just blow the top of her skull. The air around her shimmered in magic that was clearly of the ‘I’m furious’ variety.
Amy stepped back and bumped into Pueblo’s chest.
He slung a protective arm around her.
She glanced again at Paul, who was staring straight ahead and deliberately not at her.
“You see, my friends,” continued Lucifer, “this is Armageddon … but not for humans. It’s their world we’ve merged into and there’s no room for everyone. Our powers have been diminishing because we are diminishing. The Armageddon is for us.”
“You knew,” raged Morgana. “You knew! How long for, Lucifer? Traitor. Centuries? Millennia? Or have you always known this was how it would end?” She threw her hand up and a shower of powdery substance flew at him.
Quick off the mark, Elena countered her actions with a spell of her own, suspending the powdery stuff in the air above their heads where it shimmered and glittered.
