Page 2 of Wicked Believer (Original Sinner #2)

Chapter Two

Lucifer

Killing Charlotte’s father felt ... different than I anticipated.

The Town Car pulls to a stop outside Charlotte’s childhood home—the dark, tinted windows blocking what little view I have of the uninspired two-story building.

There’s not much to be seen out here in the dark—no neon lights or flashing cameras, which now stalk our every move—but I don’t need to glimpse inside my fiancée’s head to know what she’s thinking.

I haven’t changed. Not one bloody bit.

I’m still the villain in this story.

Only now she doesn’t resist me.

Charlotte’s stuttered breath tears through the cab, the shocked noise instantly reminding me of why I brought her here this evening. I’m not entirely certain what she anticipated following her father’s funeral, but clearly it wasn’t arriving here, with me.

All the more reason to tempt her.

“Shall we?” I offer my hand along with my most charming smile, and she takes it, the beat of her pulse fluttering against my palm like a wounded bird as she allows me to lead her from the cab out into the night.

She braces against the wind before she presses into me, seeking my warmth.

My Father’s redemption may have changed her, made her immortal and mine, but it hasn’t made her any less breakable.

Not to me and my siblings.

“Search the grounds. Again,” I order Dagon. “Thoroughly.”

He nods, turning to direct the security team that now lives within our shadow.

The police’s poor handling of the funeral has left me particularly on edge this evening.

When we reach the front door, it’s unlocked and waiting, the premises and its surrounding acreage having been searched by my team prior to our arrival.

Inside, the interior is painfully drabber than I anticipated, with sponge-painted walls, mismatched architecture, and beige, well, everything, which speaks to the poor taste of the nouveau riche and a bygone human era.

Charlotte doesn’t say anything as Dagon shuts the door behind us.

Instead, she creeps further inside, her footfalls so quiet in the silence that they’re deferential.

I watch as her gaze darts about the empty room.

Like if she moves too suddenly, she might disturb the ghosts and memories which haunt her here.

Though that’s exactly why I brought her here this evening.

To lower her guard. Make her vulnerable to me.

Even more so than usual.

She stops at a narrow console table, her fingers falling to a photograph of a gangly, long-limbed child beside a woman who, based on the uncanny similarity, must no doubt be her mother. Her fingertips hover near the frame momentarily before her hand slowly falls to her side.

“Why did you bring me here, Lucifer?” She looks toward me then, an uncertainty in her expression that I’ve seen more times than I care for as of late.

If I were less confident, it’d almost cause me to think she regrets the choice she made. To stay with me. For eternity.

Though she can’t possibly begin to understand what giving her my Father’s prize cost me.

I place my hands in my pockets, not bothering to leave the foyer. This empty human home is no place for me, even if it was once a part of her life, before she belonged to me. “I thought you might want to retrieve some of your things.”

She swallows. “Before the vultures descend?”

I give a curt nod.

It’s the truth, though not entirely.

Paltry though many of these items may be, the bulk of them will go to auction within a matter of days and fetch a small fortune, thanks to Charlotte’s newfound celebrity.

The house and most of its contents belong to her father’s church.

The pathetic congregation he loved so dearly.

But if I thought for even a moment that she wanted any of it, I’d make it hers in a heartbeat.

I may not be a gentle lover, but I am trying to be gentle with her heart, it seems.

When it suits me.

She turns back to the photo, a sad sort of smile pulling at her lips as I struggle not to tug uncomfortably at the collar of my suit. There are tears in her eyes, and these days I find I can hardly stand the way she softens me.

It makes me keen to destroy anything and anyone who’s ever hurt her.

Slowly.

“Is that your mother?” I incline my head toward the photo.

She nods, smiling affectionately at the woman pictured as she finally allows herself to pick the photo up.

“She died when I was nine. Crohn’s disease.

” She sighs, and the weight in the sound says everything.

“When the doctors didn’t believe her about how bad it was, my father and our congregation told her to pray instead, but by the time she was sick enough someone was willing to listen, it’d . .. become cancerous.”

“I’m sorry,” I mutter, and it surprises me to find that I mean it.

Human life is insignificant really, but somehow, this matters to me.

Because it matters to her.

I frown. On occasion, I find I resent the way she makes me feel.

The subtle ways she’s changed me.

She releases another long sigh, placing the photo back upon the table. “In their eyes, she became more of a good Christian woman after she got sick, because of her suffering. Like ... like she was a martyr or something.”

I give a curt nod, already anticipating where this is heading. My fiancée knows more than a thing or two about martyrs as of late, thanks to her upbringing and the zealous, self-righteous legacy her bloody excuse of a father left in his wake.

“Did you kill him, Lucifer?” she whispers softly.

I straighten. We’ve danced around this topic several times over the last few weeks, but this is the first occasion where she’s deigned to actually ask me.

She glances away from the photo to a section of the floor near my feet. Like she does when she kneels in submission for me. As if she can’t possibly bring herself to look at me.

For fear of what she’ll no doubt find there.

These days she’s better at reading me than I ever intended her to be.

“Don’t ask questions you’re not prepared to hear the answer to, darling.”

She sucks in a harsh breath, closing her eyes, and one of the tears escapes, sliding down her cheek. “Please be honest with me. Just this once.”

This time, I don’t hesitate.

“Yes,” I admit, my voice turning cold. “Yes, and I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”

She inhales another slow, pained breath, though we both know it’s only confirmation of what she already believed.

She knows who I am, what I am, explicitly, and somehow, she’s still chosen to love me.

It astonishes even me.

She opens her eyes, swiping away the errant tears and smearing a bit of her mascara as her gaze sparks with fury. “I didn’t ask you to do that. I wouldn’t have wanted that.”

I scoff. “Don’t lie to yourself.”

She looks away from me then, biting down on the inside of her cheek as a flicker of doubt passes over her features. “Did he ... did he suffer?”

“Not nearly long enough, if you ask me.”

She winces, then nods, like she takes some form of comfort in this, though the reason is beyond me. She could read any number of the coroner’s reports on file with my legal team, but I’ve spared her the details—shown her mercy—and we both know she’s not fully prepared for the true answer.

The one where her father’s continued torture falls to me.

For now, and the rest of eternity.

She straightens, brushing herself off. “How long do I have?” she asks, glancing around in clear recognition that this is yet another gift I have given her.

Bribery isn’t beyond me, even if the money I paid to bring her here will no doubt go to her father’s so-called ilk. The Righteous. Or so they call themselves.

Despite their increasing threats, they’re nothing more than a bloody thorn in my side. I will handle them. Personally. Given time.

“Take as long as you need, little dove.”

With my permission, she spends the next hour flitting about the quaint space, placing items in and out of a box that Dagon retrieved for me. Somewhere halfway through, I note that it’s all the photos she’s taken as I finally lower myself enough to sit upon the meager excuse of a sofa, waiting.

I could watch her until the ends of time and never tire of it.

By the time the box is nearly full, according to my Patek Philippe, a few hours have passed, but it feels no more than a blink. The price of immortality is steep. My fiancée has yet to learn that particular lesson.

Though she will. Shortly.

Suddenly, Charlotte clears her throat, and I glance up to find her standing barefoot at the top of the stairs, her black mourning dress replaced by a tight all-white gown that’s two sizes too small. Her delicious breasts strain against the sweetheart neckline.

I growl, my cock instantly thickening. “Whatever game you’re playing at, I like it.”

She blushes, smoothing her hands over her generous hips. “It’s my purity gown. I just ... wanted to see if it still fit.”

“Purity gown?” I lift a brow as my gaze rakes over her.

There is nothing pure about the thoughts I’m thinking.

From the coy grin on her lips, that was exactly her intention.

“It’s this sort of father-daughter dance, where you pledge to your dad that you’ll stay a virgin until marriage.” She shrugs.

“How incestuous.” A devious grin twists my lips. “Well, we both know how that turned out, don’t we?”

I move toward her, prowling across the open living room to where she meets me at the foot of the stairs.

I capture a lock of her hair in my fist so quickly her eyes widen.

I twist the smooth strands around my fingers, gripping them in my palm, and roughly use it to tug her toward me.

“Are you feeling particularly pure right now?”

“With you?” She bites her lower lip, shaking her head. “Never.”

She barely manages to get the word out before I have her pinned against the banister beneath me.

My mouth is on hers in an instant as I bite and lick my way past her lips, forcing her open for me.

She moans sweetly, wrapping her arms around my back so that her nails scrape into me.

She tastes like Heaven. Like milk and honey, and the warmth of the sun on my face for the first time in months, though I don’t remotely know how that’s possible.

I pull on her hair a little, breaking the kiss only enough to allow her to speak. “Do you care if this dress survives the evening, little dove?”

“Yes, sir,” she breathes.

I trace my knuckles over the curve of her cheek. “Pity. A shame, really.” A devilish smirk twists my lips. “Because when I give you the word, I want you to run.”

Her eyes widen in a mixture of excitement and fear that’s now familiar to me.

“And for the sake of your dress, you best not let me catch you.”

I release her, her eyes already darting about the room as she plans her escape.

“Now,” I hiss.