Page 133 of Wicked Believer

Lucifer goes still. He’s standing near the rack a few feet from me, his suit coat hanging from one of the pegs. His tie is stripped off, and the first several buttons on his shirt are loosened, so that, even with his suspenders overtop, I can still see several of his tattoos peeking out frombeneath. Somehow, the thought of them, of all those tempting thoughts inside my head as I trained this morning with Azrael, only makes the tears come harder.

“Charlotte,” he breathes.

“Last night I saw the sky open. Azrael said you had—”

He curses under his breath. “I’m fine.”

“You don’t sound fine.”

“It doesn’t concern you,” he says, his tone sharpening.

I flinch, my chin trembling like he’s slapped me. “Right. I almost forgot. I’m just your paid whore.”

Lucifer tenses, his whole body tight as a bowstring.

He hangs his head as he leans overtop the new bondage table, using his arms to support his weight.

“Give me a color,” he says, before we’ve started the scene. Before I’ve even changed into my actual play collar.

“Red,” I mumble.

My tears come hard and fast, though I stay silent, unmoving.

Lucifer crouches in front of me, tipping my chin up so that I’m forced to look at him. “Where do we go from here, darling?” he whispers.

There’s so much more loaded in his words than what he’s asking me, but I have no idea where to begin. It feels like there’s been so many cosmic fractures between us, we might as well be shouting at each other from opposite sides of the universe. Each of us fighting desperately to be heard.

But we have to start somewhere, to try to heal this, heal us.

No matter how angry I am with him, how much I may hate what he’s done, I still love him.

I will always love him.

That’s why I jumped off that ledge, I think.

With the ridiculous hope that somehow, he’d be there to catch me.

In all the ways he’s failed to catch me before.

Choose me over what he believes is his destiny.

My immortal body isn’t the only thing that needs his protection.

And my heart is the one thing he can’t keep under lock and key.

Due to all the ways he continues to try and guard himself from me.

The silent admission sends a fresh round of grief rolling through me, a sense of powerlessness that’s so similar to freefall, it makes my ribs ache.

Regardless of what he does, I think that’ll always be true, unfortunately.

That I love him.

I’m not sure there’s anything he could ever do that would make me push him away.

To make me abandon him like both our fathers did to us.

I shrug weakly, uncertain where to begin. “Mia,” I mumble, sniffling from where I’m now close to ugly crying.