Page 71 of Fear No Hell

“Your mother named you, the son of Lucifer Morningstar, after the title of one of the seven daimon kings of Pandaimonium.” Lucifer’s still laughing, one arm wrapped around his waist as he howls.

“If anyone was going to earn that title, it would be you.” He sobers and straightens up.

“Especially after you met Lilith. She’s probably the only reason you came into your powers at all.

And bonding with her? Shit, boy, you might be the most powerful being in the realm now, save your girl here and—maybe—me. ”

“I-I-what?”

“Bonding. It’s the daimonic equivalent of marriage.” Lucifer bobs his head side to side. “Except it’s forever. There’s no getting out of it.”

“How—”

“Binding words, my boy. ‘I give my soul to you, I bind you to me,’ blah, blah, blah. It’s all super imprecise.” He presses a hand to his chest. “Not that I’ve ever had occasion to use them.”

Dimly, I remember Sam announcing that his soul was mine until the end of time. And me… well, I definitely said something along those lines. Which means—at least assuming Lucifer isn’t lying and honestly, why would he—that Sam and I are bound together eternally.

If it were anyone else, I would be panicking. Tied to another man, this time with no escape, no physical chains to break free from. Just a mystical bond tying our eternal souls together. I should be terrified.

It’s not anybody else, though. It’s Sam. My sweet pet. The love of my life. Warmth floods my chest. I have forever with him now.

His panic clear on his face and through our bond, Sam turns to me. “Shit, I didn’t know, Lila, I promise.”

“I know, my love.” I rub my palm over the brand burning on his chest, feeling the touch like a ghostly mirror on my own skin. “I’m not upset.”

“But you’re bound to me—” He glances at Lucifer, who nods. “Which means you’re trapped with me—”

I’m already shaking my head before he finishes his sentence.

“Sam. I was already planning to spend the rest of your life with you.” I press my fingers against his lips to stop whatever response his brilliant brain is trying to pull together.

“Now… Well, now we get to spend the rest of my life together. That’s everything I ever could have wanted. ”

“Are you—”

“Sure?” I tap a finger against his nose and go to tiptoe, so I can whisper in his ear. “Yes. Don’t ever question me about my feelings for you again, though, pet, or I’m going to figure out a good way to punish you.”

His body goes still next to mine.

“Do you understand?” I murmur, silk and sex tangled together in my question.

“Yes, sweetness,” he answers, the reply so obedient it makes my blood heat.

“You two know my hearing is better than the average human’s, right?”

A simultaneous eye roll is our only response to Lucifer’s chiding.

“So what happens now?” I ask.

“Technically, whatever you want. Even though the two of you are Pandaimonic royalty, Lilith and Samael can be as involved in or as distant from the realm's politics and oversight as they want. The seven lords are usually a little more involved since the strength of their magic is directly tied to what the daimons in their infernal circles do in the mortal world. With you bound to Lilith, though?” Lucifer scoffs. “Not sure you’ll ever need to collect any of that power, my boy.” He flicks a finger at Sam.

“Digging the wings, though. Honestly, the whole Supernatural demon look is fire.”

“Fire?” Sam echoes.

“That’s what the kids are saying these days, right?” Lucifer grins. “I have a kid now. I have to be up on the slang.”

Sam bites at the inside of his cheek, which only partially traps the laugh he’s trying to suppress. “I wasn’t cool even when I was a kid. Think you’re good without Urban Dictionary or TikTok or wherever the hell you got ‘fire’ from.”

“Damn.” Lucifer snaps his fingers. “You’d think my spawn would be cool.”

“That’s what you get for not being around, I guess, and leaving me and Mom to Arthur.”

“Hmm, yes, Michelle caught me up on Arthur after the two of you left. I would love to have a conversation with him for everything he did.”

Sam snickers when I comment, “Too late,” with a gesture to Arthur’s hanging corpse.

“Ah.” Lucifer strides towards the body in the corner.

“This is Arthur then?” At my sound of agreement, he tilts his head.

“You do good work.” He raises Arthur’s chin, taking in the extensive damage.

“I have an in with the new Lord and Lady of the Underworld. I’ll make sure this fucker gets what’s coming to him in the afterlife too. ”

“You also going to tell us how to get that—” Sam jerks his thumb at the portal—“Out of our basement?”

“What makes you think I know how? The portal came to me. I didn’t summon it. If I were to guess—” He drawls the word out—“Then I would imagine the two of you summoned it. And the best way to get rid of it would be to… walk through it and see the realm you two rule. I could be wrong, though.”

Sam hums, staring intensely at the opaque swirls of reds, golds, and blues filling the portal, each color glimmering in a way that’s distinctly inhuman. Through our bond, I feel an overwhelming cocktail of emotions: Confusion. Fear. Intrigue.

Interesting.

I cock my head. “You want to go through, don’t you?”

“I… yes? It’s a whole ’nother world for us to explore.”

The excitement bleeding from him—and my willingness to do anything to make Sam happy—settles it. “Okay. Yeah. Let’s explore. See what’s there for us on the other side.” I turn to Lucifer. “We’ll be able to come home, right? Once we’re done there?”

“The two of you can summon portals.” Lucifer motions at the gate currently in our basement. “Clearly. If for some reason you can’t, I’ll bring you back.”

I jerk my head at the stairs. “We’re going to get cleaned up—” I ignore Lucifer’s derisive snort. Hard to feel judged for wanting to be in better clothing by someone who is wearing a custom-tailored suit. “And then we’ll go.”

I grab Sam’s hand and drag him up to our bedroom where we try to race through a shower. Our first mistake because, of course, it runs long after Sam presses me up against the wall and proceeds to remind me what a fast learner he is in a way that makes me scream the house down around us.

When we finally make our way to the basement, showered and dressed, Lucifer is perched on Sam’s makeshift operating table, testing the sharpness of a scalpel against the pad of his thumb.

After a second, he drops it back to the table.

“You need to sharpen your tools,” he scolds Sam, a look of disgust on his face.

“I kept it dull on purpose,” he comments mildly. “It hurts more.”

“That’s my boy,” Lucifer responds seriously.

“Wait.” I grab Sam’s hand before he can make his way towards the portal. “Hold up. You were helping me torture him?”

Sam shoots me a surprised look. “Of course I was, sweetness. I gave him a feeding tube while he was awake. I stitched him up without a local. Just because I was keeping him alive for you doesn’t mean I didn’t make him hurt in my own way.

” He raises my hand to his lips and kisses the palm.

“There was no way I wasn't going to make him pay for what he did to you.”

“Gods, I love you so much,” I whisper, my heart seizing in my chest. I sway towards Sam, wanting nothing more than to climb him like a tree. Again.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Lucifer yelps. “No more fucking in my presence! My own spawn almost ripped my head off earlier just for seeing you naked. Not to mention I got to hear the two of you earlier in the shower—” A lascivious sneer turns up his mouth.

“Because your girl enjoys herself loudly and proudly.”

Sam’s growl pierces the basement.

“And I’m now realizing that’s the sort of comment that would make my spawn particularly feral, and I should keep it to myself.”

“Yes, you fucking should.”

I can’t help how much the possessiveness—the aggressive display of ownership from a man who would never try to exert that possession over me—turns me on. And Sam, whose nostrils flare as I grow wet for him yet again, knows it.

“Alright.” Lucifer raises his hands in the universal gesture of truce. “I shall make no more lecherous comments about your girl.”

“Thank you.” One hand in his pocket, the other tangled with mine, Sam draws me towards him. “You ready, sweetness?”

I glance at the portal, this burst of magic and color in the otherwise dim and unbelievably gory basement. There’s still a lake of blood dotted with islands of viscera and bone obscuring the cement floor, absorbing into our shoes and staining our feet.

Sam’s gaze remains steady on me. Just like it always has. Just like I know it always will be.

With his attention on me, I say, “I’m ready,” and follow Sam and Lucifer through the portal.