Page 65 of Wicked Believer

Anything to avoid being alone.

I open my text app, reading through all the unanswered messages beneath Jax’s name.

Shit. There’s too many of them.

What kind of lame friend is so busy they unintentionally ghost their bestie?

But as I wander up to our bedroom, typing out a reply, I find a familiar face waiting for me.

“Lucifer,” I exhale. It feels like I can breathe for the first time in days.

“Charlotte.” Lucifer grins, his smirk beckoning me.

I want to drop my phone along with the Dior bag I’m carrying and launch myself into his arms without a second thought. Give in to the relief that fills me. Beg him to do whatever it takes to make me feel whole.

I’m an honest-to-God mess whenever he’s gone.

I’m addicted to him, truly.

But I ... can’t seem to stop the hurt that holds me in place.

I watch him for a long moment, opening and closing my mouth several times. At first, no words form, until I manage a weak, “Where have you been?”

Lucifer quirks his head. “Everywhere, darling.” His eyes narrow as he watches me, the darkness in his gaze intensifying as he clocks all the evidence of how I’m feeling.

My hunched shoulders, the slight press of my lips, the long-pained look I give him before I glance away.

“You’re . . . upset?”

He says it like it’s a curious observation, his attention combing over me as if he legitimately expects to find me injured but doesn’t.

I try not to cast a weak, sad smile at him, at how unsure he seems, but I would never let him know how amusing it is to see him openly confused like this.

To Lucifer’s credit, he must be getting better at reading human emotion, or me at least, because he spends a moment longer looking a bit perplexed before his eyebrows shoot up suddenly. “You’re upset withme?”

“Hurt, actually. There’s a difference.” I shrink a little. I don’t consider for even a second how risky I’m being by correcting him, or what punishment will be in store for me later.

All I want is for him to see me.

To see how badly I needed him here. With me.

“Is this about the other day?” he asks, stepping carefully toward me. Like if he moves too fast, I might break. Too many people have been treating me that way lately. “Your PR idea or perhaps—”

“The death threat I received?” Time seems to stop, my breath hitching as my heart slows to a pause. “How you left me alone in the aftermath? Or maybe how you murdered my father without my permission, haven’t given me any more information about what all this fated business means for our relationship, or maybe the over a thousand people you killed? You tell me.”

Lucifer goes still. “I did what I had to do for our future. Even if you can’t see it yet. Every one of thosepeople,” he sneers, “had a hand in helping plot against you. The bombs at the Met Gala. Your abduction. You think that was the act of a sole individual, who—”

I wince. “I can’t do this with you right now.”

The tension in the room expands until I can’t even tell where it begins and I end. Heat rises in my face.

“She took my choice from me,” I whisper, my voice breaking.

“Charlotte,” he breathes, hesitating before he reaches for me. He captures a lock of my hair, stroking it between his fingers as I turn away from him, and that familiar emptiness creeps back in.

I want so badly to close the distance between us—to be honest, open, and transparent with him, give in to the vulnerability I’m feeling, to voice all my desires and concerns—that I almost step toward him, but after what he said following my father’s funeral, I’m ... not certain I can trust it, trusthim.

Not any longer.