Page 1 of The Cruelest Chaos

Chapter One

I pullthrough the gates at Liber, one hand on the wheel, other on the burnt orange center console of the 720S.

There are cars already parked around back of the stone mansion, a guard pacing the length of the building, pulling on a cigarette as he does his rounds. I see Lucifer’s black M5 and I’m surprised he hasn’t left yet to come find us. Ezra must be doing his part to keep him here, just like I asked him.

Not for the first time tonight, I wish I was high. But Sid exhales loudly from my passenger seat and I remember why I’m not.

I park the car, turn to face her in the glow of the dash lights. It’s nearly midnight. A new year is almost here. I have a feeling it’s going to be bloodier than this last one.

Sid’s silver eyes lock on mine. “You’ve got some blood,” she says in that low voice of hers, “there.” She touches her cheekbone.

I reach up to grab the skeleton bandana around my neck to wipe it off, but Sid shakes her head, leans across the console. She sticks her thumb in her mouth, then plops it out and swipes her wet thumb over my cheek, right under my eye. I don’t miss theXcarved into her palm, now a pale white scar.

I try to feel nothing at her touch. I try not to see that the silver of her eyes is the same color as the circle around my blue ones. I would know; I’ve stared at myself in the mirror more lately than I have in my entire twenty-four years, trying to find the similarities. Trying to convince myself that Sid really is my sister.

But right now, I want to feel nothing. Know nothing. Especially as Sid’s touch lingers, even though I’m pretty damn sure she’s got the blood off of my face. She just stares at me, still touching my skin, her eyes searching mine.

I wish I could know what she’s thinking. I wish she could know that I’m happy we did this together.

I hope she knows Lucifer is going to lose his shit when he finds out. I hope she doesn’t care, because I sure as fuck don’t.

I wonder if she sees the change in herself. Before tonight, she had dark circles under her eyes. Her olive skin was pale, her cheeks hollow. She’s thinner than she was when I first met her, and that’s saying something, because she’s always been on the small side. That hasn’t changed, and she still does have circles under her eyes, but she looks...alive.

She’s made for this life.

I hope she knows that, too. I hope she can read all of it on my face.

She pulls back, dropping her hand. I exhale a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding. She rubs her hands down her thighs, over her black jeans, blowing out a breath. She stares out the windshield at Liber, towering over us.

“What do we tell him?” she asks in the silence of my car.

I grip the steering wheel for something to do with my hands. I’m feeling restless, which is just another reminder that something is seriously fucking wrong with me. All this chaotic energy, it should be out for the night.

I’ve got blood on my hands—and my face, apparently—after all. But I’m still unsettled.

“You tell him what you want, Angel.” I glance at her out of the corner of my eye, but she’s still staring straight ahead. “And if he gives you any shit about it, put his dick in your mouth and make him shut the fuck up.”

She tips her head back and laughs, and despite myself, I do too.

She hits me with the back of her hand, pretty hard, on the shoulder. If she’d been just a few inches back, it would have really hurt. But I force myself not to think about the state of my back.

Instead, I catch her fingers in my hand.

She stills, her smile faltering as she stares at me, her lips parted. I wonder what she’s feeling right now.

I wish she wasn’t who she was, just for a few minutes. I wish she wasn’t Lucifer’s wife. My sister. A girl still putting herself back together.

For a little while, I just wish she was mine. Because she’s the type of girl who would let me do what I wanted with her, and she’d fucking like it.

Then it occurs to me that Lucifer probably does exactly what he wants with her every damn day, and I drop her hand.

She’s not mine.Not mine.

“Let’s go, Angel.”

But neither of us move.

“Mayhem?” she whispers my name in the dark, even though she doesn’t need to get my attention. She already has it.