Page 94 of Endless Terrors
“You say you’re not evil,” I said without preamble, setting my fork on the table with a harsh sound. “If that were true, how can you do the things you do? Take enjoyment from causing pain?”
Lucifer didn’t flinch. He chewed his food slowly and then took a drink of water. As he set the glass back down he asked, “Are you saying you’ve never liked it? The fear you take from your prey?”
“They’re not prey.” My response was immediate. Automatic.
The devil raised his eyebrows. “Then what are they?”
This time, I paused before answering, and I hated myself for it. Because however much I wished I could be righteous and indignant, Lucifer was right. I did like it—seeing the terror in their eyes, tasting them, punishing them.
It also didn’t escape me that I’d had this conversation before.
I pictured a small, white cell and a lanky figure sitting against one of the padded walls. Once upon a time, Gil had called our victims “morsels.” I wondered if he felt differently now that he’d felt how they suffered. How they died.
Be the better monster. That’s what I’d told him.
“What happened after that? After Olorel ripped a hole between dimensions?” I asked abruptly, changing the subject yet again. I was avoiding Lucifer’s question, and we both knew it. But I also wanted to know the rest of his story.
To my relief, he didn’t call me on it. Lucifer took another drink and answered, “I kept fighting. I couldn’t abandon the siblings that had saved me. But we were too few, and they were too many. The tide of battle turned against us. I was wounded. As I lay bleeding, one of my brothers dragged me to the tear, where the others had already fled through.”
Here, Lucifer stopped again. Recounting his past, even with all the time that had passed, seemed to have darkened his mood. He wiped his mouth with a napkin and moved his chair back, standing.
“During the Fall, I ended up in a realm you know of as Hell, and Persephone back in the realm where He put the humans,” he concluded. The note of finality in his voice made it obvious. Lucifer held his hand out and tipped his head toward the doors. “Shall we?”
I pushed my chair out and stood without touching him. “I already told you. I’m leaving.”
“The story isn’t done, Fortuna.”
I was getting tired of this game. I shrugged at Lucifer and started walking toward the doors. “You’ll have to tell me the rest later, I guess. I’d like to go down to the ground floor now.”
He followed without argument. He moved with such arrogance, I decided as I waited for him. Every step was that of a fae male, self-assured in his position and power. We stepped onto the elevator and I watched Lucifer navigate the screen. I’d seen Roger do it enough times to recognize that he had pressed the symbol for the library. “What do you think you’re doing? You said you’d honor the bet,” I snarled.
Lucifer didn’t answer. In fact, no matter what I said, the devil kept his gaze firmly on the elevator doors. When they opened again, the library loomed before us. I didn’t look at it. I was too busy murdering Lucifer with my eyes, and I was on the verge of demanding an explanation, again, when he turned to me.
“I offered to teach you once before,” he said with that infuriating calm. “I’d like to extend that offer one more time.”
“Why?” I snapped, my hands curled into fists.
He walked into the middle of the vast, well-lit room. The dummy was still where I’d left it. “Because if you truly intend to leave the safety of this tower, and you refuse to take my guards, then you must know how to protect yourself. Hell is not an evil world, but it isn’t a kind one, either,” Lucifer countered.
I stared at him. He looked steadily back at me. He didn’t move from his place beside the practice dummy, and his offer floated between us. “I’m leaving today. I mean it,” I insisted.
Lucifer knew a surrender when he heard it. In response, he took off his shirt and tossed it on the back of a chair. The ridges of his stomach gleamed in the light shining from a nearby sconce. My mouth went dry, but by the time Lucifer turned back to me, I’d gotten my expression back under control. I rolled up my sleeves and pulled off my shoes, then faced him.
We started with cardio to warm up our muscles. At first, it was strange doing something so mundane with the devil himself. But it quickly reminded me of all those hours in Adam’s garage, and I felt myself starting to relax. This was comfortable. This was familiar.
Then we started on hand-to-hand combat.
I’d never thought Adam was a gentle teacher, but compared to Lucifer, he was Mary fucking Poppins. Every time I blocked a hit, a jolt of pain went through my bones. Lucifer was breathtakingly fast, and something told me that he was still holding back. I started to tire. I knew it was all in my head, and yet a familiar ache had begun in my side and breathing became harder. I got sloppy. I ducked Lucifer’s swinging arm—air whispered over my face as his fist passed an inch above my head—and bounced back up. I spun around to face him again, but my pants were too long, and my heel caught on the soft hem.
There was a blur in the corner of my eye, and before I hit the floor, Lucifer caught me. He brought my body upright as if I were weightless … and didn’t move away. His hands pressed against my back, our pelvises crushed together. At some point, I’d grabbed onto his shoulders, and I was looking into the devil’s sea-blue eyes when I felt his cock harden. It was as long and thick as I remembered from my dream. I watched those eyes slowly lower to my mouth, and I fought the urge to look at his. I could hear my heart like an anvil.
Give in. Give in. Give in.
Fight him. Fight him. Fight him.
I jumped back and aimed a kick at his groin.
Lucifer caught my ankle in a deft, arrogant movement. I dropped, yanked my leg back, and rolled, bouncing back up to face him. Every part of me cried out to close the distance between us again.
