Page 14 of Wicked Believer

My stomach reels, the thought nearly making me sick.

“Fated,” I breathe.

I had my suspicions that God may have played a role in bringing us together, of course, and when Mark killed me, when Lucifer stood beside me in limbo in Grand Central Station, he’d warned me that his Mother might have had something to do with it. But that’d beenbeforehe’d used his Father’s redemption to reshape me, to bring me back to life, and the confirmation is another matter entirely.

Made from one of his bones.Like when God made Eve.

To be subservient to Adam.

My stomach twists.

“How long?” I whisper. “How long have you known we were ... destined? Or that I was made from you? Or suspected it, at least?” I can hardly bring myself to say it, the words nearly choking me.

Lucifer makes a circular motion with the hand holding his cigarette before he casually brings it to his lips. “Since I realized I couldn’t see your sins, I suppose.”

My breath stops, his words gutting me. “So, from the very beginning?”

“Naturally.” He shrugs as he takes another long drag. “Though I fail to see how that’s relevant, Charlotte.”

“Of course it’s relevant,” I snap, cutting him off in a way that’s uncharacteristically bitchy of me. In a way I’ll no doubt be punished for later.

For the first time, that doesn’t excite me.

Lucifer arches a brow at me as he quirks his head. “Careful now,” he says, flashing a slow, crooked grin at me. “You don’t want me to put you on the rack tonight, do you?”

I blanch before I lower my gaze. Submitting to him. Exactly like I was taught to do. Another thing I have my late father to thank for.

Or was I made this way from the start? All by Lilith’s design? To please Lucifer?

No.No, I cannot go down that line of thinking right now.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, my pulse racing with my own shame, even as I purposefully keep my eyes low. “But it ... matters to me, sir.” I glance up at him apologetically, silently pleading with my best doe eyes.

Please listen. Please understand me.

But Lucifer simply shakes his head, chuckling like he isn’t certain what he’s supposed to do with me. He crosses the clearing and tucks a bit of my hair behind my ear, gently brushing his knuckles over my cheek. “You humans have always been so bloody preoccupied with the concept of free will.”

“Of course we are,” I say, more than a little shocked at how dismissive he’s being. “Why wouldn’t we be?”

Lucifer huffs like I’m being naive. Humiliation wasn’t on the BDSM consent menu this evening, but still, my face flushes with heat.

“Because I fail to see what difference it makes. He always gets His way in the end, don’t you see?” He flips his middle finger irreverently toward the night sky as if to indicate his Father.

God. The Almighty.

And it’s only then that I realize I’m shivering. “I would have thought you’d understand this more than anyone.”

My choice being taken from me.

Just like his was taken away.

When God chose to make him the villain of every story ...

Lucifer flicks the ashes of his cigarette impatiently, balancing it between his fingers as he steps closer. Close enough to trail both his hands down my arms affectionately. “I fancy the idea of free will asmuch as you do, but free will, fate, these arehumanconcepts, and human is the one thing I will never be.”

“And what does that make you?”

“Divine,” he says, tipping my chin so that I’m forced to look at him. Gently he kisses my forehead, baptizing me. “As are you.”