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Chapter forty-three

Hell

B am! Lucifer slammed into the hard brimstone floor, surrounded in darkness. The realm smelled of earthly minerals. A faint dampness thickened the air, the humidity uncomfortable.

The shackles around his wrists rattled with each movement as fury overcame him. A deep, vicious roar tore from him as he swung his arms into the thick metal bars of the cage. Over and over, he beat at the bars and yanked on the ropes of Judas, but they held him firm.

How could he have been outwitted by Asmodeus, of all beings, and his little bitch of a mate? Asmodeus was dead to him. Any affection or attachment he once had for his brother would never again blind Lucifer. Deus would need to be put down. As soon as he got out of this cage, his brother would be his first target, and then his whore of a mate. Father, how he would make Deus pay for choosing a woman over his own flesh and blood.

From the corner of the cage, veiled in the darkness, a feminine laugh trilled through the thick air. Lucifer spun towards the sound, squinting his eyes at the darkness. Though his sight failed, he knew who lingered in the cage with him. No matter how much time passed, he could never forget the sound of his mate’s laugh. Soul or no soul, she would forever be branded into his genetic makeup.

The female figure snapped her fingers and small balls of yellow light filled the obscurity of the cell. Lucifer looked around at the twelve-by-twelve-foot cage he was trapped in. The outside terrain was barren. Black brimstone covered every surface. The darkness extended to the sky where clouds of shadow and smoke prevented any light from reaching his prison.

Talia stood from the stool she had been sitting on in the corner. The light bounced off her curly white hair. Her tan skin, so smooth and flawless, glistened as his gaze lingered on the small batch of freckles that dusted her cheeks.

Memories flashed behind his eyes. The tender moments between the two of them as they lay under the stars and moon, their bodies exhausted from their dalliances. He remembered watching her sleep, brushing the small strands of hair from her face, revealing all those small, delicate freckles. Fifty-one … fifty-one freckles adorned her face, twenty-seven on her right arm, seventeen on her left. And then all those little freckles that led to the most delicious center he had ever—

“You’re not as angry as I thought you’d be.” Her voice pulled him from those seductive memories, snapping him back into reality.

He brought his eyes to hers, feeling a stirring deep inside of him. A need to touch her, to have her … to bury himself inside of her. He shrugged, forcing those thoughts and needs down deep.

“I’ve waited this long to gain the power I am owed,” he said. “What’s another thousand years? I am nothing if not persistent.”

She laughed; not just any laugh, but a genuine one. She shook her head in amusement. “That you are, Luc … that you are. ”

“Your involvement did tip the scales for the little witch and my brother. I would have succeeded, if it weren’t for you.”

Talia took a moment, seeming to study the details of his face. Lucifer recognized something familiar and soft behind those dark and haunting eyes. As if in response to his recollection, she shifted her face, hiding what truly plagued her.

“Surprise,” she said softly, taking a step away from him.

“Yes,” he said, formulating a plan to manipulate her into helping him out of this prison. “You’re the only one who has ever bested me at my own game. Doesn’t surprise me, with you being my equal and all. My … mate.”

Her face flared with rage and disgust. “Do not call me that,” she growled. “You lost the right of that title the day you decided to end my life in exchange for your precious power.” She huffed. “And how daft do you think I am, if you truly believe I would fall for your manipulations now? There is no chance in any realm that I would help free you from this prison you built of your own accord.”

She paused, her eyebrow raised, then approached him slowly. “But you are right about one thing … I’ve always been able to beat you at your own game.”

Before Lucifer could respond, Talia drove her hand straight through his chest. A wave of cool, chilling matter seeped through his body as a white, cloudy substance raced from Talia into Lucifer. He fought to breathe, paralyzed by her grip. Everything inside of him burned to life. She pulled her hand from his chest, allowing his flesh to weave itself back together.

Every part of him ached. His heart raced, faster and stronger than it had in millennia. Memories, scents, sounds, and feelings overloaded his system. It was as if he hadn’t taken a single breath in years. He stumbled back, reaching for his heart as the pain of every terrible, evil thing he had done slammed into him like daggers.

The innocents he had tortured … the blood …the body parts … the cries for mercy as he butchered families, women, children . Everything he had commanded Obsidian to do in his name. The torment he had forced his beloved brother Asmodeus to endure, simply because he had allowed himself to love.

Lucifer dropped to his knees as he wept: for the lives he had stolen, the suffering he had caused, the agony he had inflicted on others. And then … then that golden string snapped into place. His body stretched forward as the bond began to weave itself together, connecting every fiber of his being to his mate. His equal. The one that he had loved above all others.

The tether that had gone dark all those years ago exploded to life. Flashes of a life he had worked so hard to put behind him flickered to the surface.

“I would do anything for you, Lucifer.” He heard Talia’s voice say in a loving tone.

“You are the first thing I have ever truly loved,” he heard himself confess in a memory. “I never dreamed I’d find someone like you, someone who I … who I could lose myself in. I love you, Talia. I loved you from the first moment I laid eyes on you.” He heard himself laugh. Vows … he was reciting vows. “The moment you tossed that cup of wine in my face, I knew there’d be no escaping you. I wanted you then, and I want you now. Till the end of time, I will always love you. My body is yours; my heart is yours; my power, and everything I am, everything I possess, is yours.”

Image after image of their love flooded his memory. Their bodies, moving as one. The sounds that he drew out of her. The feeling of utopia he found only when he was with her. Happiness … true, complete happiness. A life and a family they had hoped and planned for. An empire they had built. The power they had possessed.

Then … so much pain. He felt her in that moment, when she had discovered his plan to kill her and take her power. Her heart had shattered. Her soul was ripped in two. All because of his selfishness.

When in reality … she was enough. She had always been more than enough, yet he couldn’t let go of the past. He couldn’t let himself be happy. He couldn’t choose her.

His face, wet from the tears of pain turned up to her … his mate. Talia stood over him, her face no longer masked. Every emotion, every moment of sadness and terror she had lived through was present. Tears fell as she clenched her jaw tightly.

“I would have done anything to protect the life we had planned, Luc … anything,” she said. “Why couldn’t I be enough?” she yelled, her anger getting the best of her. “What else could I have done to make you happy? I thought you were happy.”

“I was, Ahuvati,” he replied in a loving tone. “I was. You made me whole. I had never known true love until I found you. I … I don’t have an answer for you. I’m flawed, Talia. Utterly flawed.”

Her fist connected with his face so fast, he didn’t see it coming.

“No!” she screamed, fuming with rage. “Tell me! Tell me what I did wrong. Tell me why you threw away everything? Why you ripped out your own soul to steal mine!”

“I couldn’t kill you,” he replied, staggering to his feet. “I knew with my soul intact, there was no reality where I could take your life and not destroy my own in the process.”

“Then why?” she cried. “Why kill me? Why not let me help you find what you sought?”

“I thought it was the only way. You were gifted to me by my Father as a cruel joke. I had broken his heart when I chose power over him … over his love. He wanted me to suffer as he had when I abandoned him. So, he sent me you … my mate. The one person he knew I would love unconditionally.

“When I found out you were the key to the power I had searched for my entire existence, it all made sense. He wanted me to choose: either the love I had found with you, or the power I had chosen over him. The same choice he had given me before I fell. I thought it was a cruel joke … some test to finally become the god I knew I was destined to be.”

Talia faced him, her posture stern. “What is the point of building an empire if you have no one to share it with?” she whispered. “What is the point of a legacy with no one to pass it to? Isn’t that why you left Heaven in the first place? You’ve allowed your pride and narcissism to blind you and rob you of a future worth cherishing.”

He lunged for her, grabbing her by the shoulders. “We can still have that future, Ahuvati,” he exclaimed. “We can have it all.” He looked into his lover’s eyes, overcome with the need to kiss her, to taste her. “I am so sorry, so terribly sorry, for all I’ve done. I’ve lived these past years empty and dead inside. I’ve learned my lesson. I’ve lived without you, and I never want to be parted again. Not for another moment.”

She forced herself to look away as more tears spilled out. “Lucifer,” she whispered.

“I’m serious, Talia. Please. Please give me another chance. I remember … I remember every single moment together. We were happy, so incredibly happy, and we can have that again.” He brushed her hair away from her face. She leaned into his touch, and his knees weakened at the familiar ac tion.

“Father, I love you,” he whispered tenderly, allowing his heart to feel. “I am so in love with you. You are incredible. Better than me in every way. You make me better, Talia. We were made for each other. You are my best friend. My mate.” He took her hand and rubbed his thumb over the small white stone that adorned her left ring finger. “My wife.”

She pulled away from his touch, taking a step back, shaking her head. “No, Luc. I … I can’t.”

“Fine,” he said confidently. “Then I will wait for you. As long as it takes, I will wait. I will stay here for a thousand years, as it is prophesied, and then once I am free, I will find you and we will build the life I promised you all those years ago in the desert. We will have our happiness. Our empire. Our family.”

Talia was sobbing, holding herself tightly as she continued to shake her head. Finally, she brought her eyes up to his and in that moment, he saw it: what she had planned to do.

“No,” he whispered, looking at the cage around him. “Ahuvati, no. You can’t, please.” He stepped closer, but she backed away. “You have saved me once again. I am made whole.”

“It will never be enough, Luc,” she whispered, wiping the tears from her face. “I will never be enough.”

“You are more than enough. You are my world … my life.”

She took a deep breath, steadying herself. “I want you to know … I want you to know that I hate you. I completely and utterly hate you for taking away our happiness, and choosing a power that was never meant for you over a love that was made for you. I would have gone to the ends of the earth for you. I would have pillaged, killed, and set fire to any village or empire that threatened your reign. You had me, Luc. Every fi ber of my being … my heart … my soul was yours.

“In Purgatory, I had a lot of time to think back on our life. I wondered what I could have done to change the course of our story … but our story was never mine to change. You were always the author, and I was just a character following the path you wrote for me. God, do I hate the story you wrote for us. How different this world would be if you had just chosen me. If you had loved me enough to believe in the power we had together.

“But that isn’t how our story goes, and I am angry about it. I have watched for months as your brothers have chosen the love of their mates, even a human witch, over all else. Yet my mate, the most powerful, angelic demon prince in history, tossed his gift aside, willing to execute her for the smallest morsel of power.

She paused, taking another deep breath. Silent tears ran down Lucifer’s face. “I hate you, Lucifer Morningstar. I hate your pride, your selfishness, your one-track mind, your stubbornness and blindness. Yet … I wouldn’t have you any other way.

“You are the greatest thing that has ever come into my life. The love you showed me, the love we shared, can never be replicated. You are the most stubborn man I’ve ever known, and I love that about you. I love everything that makes you … you. You were my entire world, my reason for breathing … and you still are.”

Lucifer felt a spark of hope. His mouth curved into a smile as he looked into his wife’s eyes. “You are mine as well, Talia. Forever and always, you will be mine.”

She smiled back at him softly. She took a step towards him, slowly reaching up to his face. The moment her skin touched his, something in Lucifer’s heart lit to life. He savored her touch, her scent, and needed more. She leaned into him, pressing her lips against his. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her intimately as they kissed each other with an unmatched passion.

In this moment, it was as if no time had passed. They were back in the deserts of Egypt, surrounded by their coven and armies. They were the king and queen of an era. Their reign had just begun.

He pulled away, looking into her eyes. He felt her love, her admiration and commitment to him through the bond. He didn’t care how long it would take … he would win her back. He had to. There was no future worth living unless she was in it.

“I love you,” he whispered, rubbing his nose against hers. He kissed each of her freckled cheeks, running his fingers through her long, beautiful white hair.

“And I love you, Lucifer. Forever and always, I will love you.” Talia stepped out of his arms and made her way into the center of the cage. Her face was stained with tears.

Time itself stopped.

Lucifer shook his head in disbelief, trying to reach towards her but she restrained him with her powers … their powers. With the shackles still in place, he was helpless. Talia closed her eyes, began to recite a spell. Her hair lifted gently into the air as she slowly rose above the ground. A bright white light surrounded her, glowing from deep within.

“No,” he said. “Talia, no! Please!”

She ignored him, her lips moving faster and faster. The light glowed brighter, seeping out of every pore of her skin. She burned like a star that had come to life.

Lucifer reached for her, but he was trapped. He cried out, screaming and fighting, trying to get to his mate, trying to save her before she destroyed them both.

A loud boom echoed and Talia’s head snapped up towards the sky. Her body extended outwards and a painful scream ripped through her throat. Lucifer felt the pain she was experiencing, her power and lifeforce eating her alive from within. He watched helplessly as blood streamed from her eyes, her nose, and the corners of her mouth.

Her perfect, beautiful body convulsed, the light now raging with the heat of Hell. Lucifer cried out again, folding his hands together as he did something he had vowed never to do.

“Father, please,” he cried out in desperation. “Please save her. I will do anything. I will cease to exist … whatever you require. But please, please save her. Please save my mate. My wife.” He screamed, fighting the chains, but there was no use.

The bright light and echoing sound of power faded. Talia looked at him, her eyes saturated with blood. Her face twisted with pain and agony. He looked at his beautiful mate, continuing to pray to the heavens in hopes that she would be spared.

“I love you, Lucifer,” she whispered, one final time.

A blast of white light exploded from her, incinerating her body into a million particles of white and gold flakes that sparkled like glitter through the air. Lucifer screamed, every blood vessel bursting underneath his skin. All he saw was red. His body shook furiously as beads of sweat poured from his skin.

The particles fused to the bars of his prison, the precious metal glowing with her lifeforce, trapping him inside for eternity. Lucifer banged his hands on the brimstone floor, breaking the hard surface into pieces as he screamed from a suffering he had never experienced.

The bond that connected them shattered, what felt like thousands of shards of glass crashing through him, tearing him up inside. He fell to the floor, grabbing at his heart as it broke into pieces. He cried profusely, calling out for his mate.

“Talia,” he whispered, over and over again. “Talia …”

The light that was her beauty and essence faded as the bars dimmed into the shadows. Lucifer’s mind slithered into a darkness that was unknown even to him. Nothing else mattered but her.

He lay there, left in complete solitude, replaying the love he had selfishly sacrificed. The love his pride and arrogance had destroyed. Tears pooled underneath his cold face while he fought to breathe on the cold brimstone floor. His voice echoed through the barren darkness. “Talia … Ahuvati … my Talia … my wife … my mate.”