Page 3 of Wicked Believer (Original Sinner #2)

Chapter Three

Charlotte

I tear from the house, not pausing to consider the unusually cold autumn temperature or even my painfully bare feet. If I hesitate, Lucifer will catch me, and while I want every delicious, painful thing I know will follow, I like this game we’re playing.

Cat and mouse. Him hunting me.

Though Lucifer is far more dangerous than any animal could ever be.

Behind me, the screen door slams in its frame from where I’ve just barreled through it, the cold hitting me in the face like a sudden shock. It feels like I’ve plunged myself beneath the surface of a freezing lake and I’m drowning, but I recover quickly.

The numbness in my toes and the chill searing my lungs is nothing compared to the pain I’ve endured over the past few months.

My father’s betrayal. Mark’s abuse.

Dying.

And the worst by far ...

Lucifer. Remaking me from the ashes.

I blink, and for a moment I’m back there. That dark, cold place where it felt as if my soul had been ripped from my body. Only for him to fill the empty void in me with a fire so hot I didn’t know where it began and I ended.

Until the pain became me.

I shove the memory aside, leaving it for the nightmares that now haunt me whenever I close my eyes.

Instead, I try to hold on to the thrill of pursuit and run for the trees.

I feel Lucifer standing in the open doorway behind me now, his cruel laugh trailing me as I smile to myself.

We’ve been here before. Or I have, at least.

Running alone through the woods. Lucifer’s shadows chasing me.

Like I was destined to be his before he even knew me.

That possibility slams into me, the stark truth in it causing my steps to temporarily falter.

If I thought I could sense Lucifer’s presence before I became what I am—whatever that is—it’s nothing compared to how aware of him I am now. I feel him. Always. Even when we’re apart. Like I’m an instrument, and he doesn’t even need to touch me in order to play me.

Though he will. Touch me, that is.

As soon as he catches me.

The moment he sees where I’m headed, I hear his dark laugh like a taunting caress against my ear. He’s giving me a solid start. Moving at a normal, leisurely pace.

Though we both know if he wanted, I could be his instantly.

“You think you can hide among the shadows?” His voice wraps around me like a disembodied hiss. The darkness reaches out, and a tendril of it brushes my cheek, causing me to shiver. “That’s where you’re wrong.”

Suddenly, I feel him behind me, his power radiating through me.

I turn, stumbling through the underbrush just in time to see the shadows bend and curl in the moonlight until Lucifer stands fully formed in front of me.

I freeze. He leans against a nearby tree, his suit coat artfully slung over his shoulder like he doesn’t have a care in the world.

He casts it aside before he makes a show of unbuttoning his cuff links and rolling up his sleeves, his muscled forearms flexing.

I swallow thickly, recognizing the move for the delicious threat that it is.

This is what he does before he punishes me.

Before he claims me. Body and soul.

I feel myself slicken, my ragged breath swirling around my face like smoke.

“Did you really think you could outrun me?” He tsks like he’s disappointed in me, though we both know this is all a part of the game we’re playing.

He steps forward.

And I take a step back.

A twig snaps beneath my foot.

My pulse races with a deep, primal need that’s so sharp, so heady, it warms me from the inside out, making me brave. Reckless even.

More reckless than I should be.

Finally, I give a coy shrug. “I thought I might be able to now, considering ...”

Lucifer goes still.

Considering I hold some of his power inside me.

My mouth goes dry at the admission, but I don’t need to say it out loud for him to know.

This strange connection that’s formed between us. Ever since he remade me.

I ... think it might have cost him more than it did me.

A spark of hellfire lights in Lucifer’s eyes, his gaze searing into me.

A cruel, familiar smirk twists his lips, and I know in an instant that my taunting has only made him more feral, more dangerous.

Even as a ... whatever I am now, he’s still a threat to me.

And for that subtle blow to his pride, I’m sure he has a particularly damning punishment in store for me.

“Playing the brat tonight, are we?”

He comes up off the tree, and I take another step back, the sound of a frozen branch cracking like a whip at my feet.

“Don’t worry.” He grins wickedly. “I’ll make a good girl of you yet.”

Without warning he lunges for me, and I turn, trying to bolt into the darkness, but Lucifer’s on me in an instant, predator to prey.

Even at mortal speed, he’s ridiculously fast. Faster than I’ll ever be.

We slam into the ground together, his shadows managing to soften the blow slightly, even as he uses his weight to pin me.

Mud and leaves and dirt coat us both from head to toe as I struggle to break free, but I can’t bring myself to care.

The moment he captures both my wrists, roughly pinning them above my head, I go still.

Frozen like the willing prey I was taught to be.

But for once, Lucifer isn’t having it.

“Fight me, Charlotte,” he growls.

I bite my lip. “Sir?”

“I said, fight me.”

“Lucifer, I—”

“Are you safe-wording or are you going to obey?”

I drop my gaze. This isn’t what we agreed on, and a sudden feeling of cold chills me, but I ... have my safe word and I ... don’t use it.

Lucifer grips my face in one mud-covered hand, forcing me to look at him.

His suit is ruined, just like my dress, but somehow, with his hair tousled and covered in grime like this, he looks even more stunning.

“Don’t hold back now. I killed your father, after all.” He smiles viciously. “Aren’t you angry with me?”

His expression is like a kick to the gut for how it knocks the wind out of me. The way he says it is so cold, so remorseless, that even though I know he’s trying to provoke me, I can’t help the sudden rage that sparks inside me. Rage that’s been building.

Even as my eyes fall to his lips.

A gnarled tangle of emotions twists inside my chest. Every awful, terrible thought I’ve been holding inside myself. Though what I can’t begin to understand is why.

Why is he coaxing them out of me?

“No,” I lie, shaking my head and trying to force the feeling back down.

Like the good girl I’m supposed to be.

Good Christian girls do not get angry. Good Christian girls smile through the pain.

Like my mother.

Even when we’re dying . . .

“No.” I shake my head, denying it. “No, I’m not.”

“Don’t lie to me,” Lucifer hisses, using his shadows to shackle me in place. “You’re furious with me. You have been for weeks.”

It’s the truth, and we both know it, but I refuse to admit it.

To him, most especially.

His eyes narrow. “But what I want to know is why.”

I turn my face away from him, unwilling to meet his gaze, but Lucifer only chuckles before he forces my chin toward him and kisses me, stealing my breath and my focus.

The feeling of his mouth on mine undoes me, his kiss knocking me off guard.

He breaks his lips away from mine only moments later, leaving me breathless and panting with pleasure, before he whispers, “Or perhaps it’s your lost humanity that has you furious with me. ”

“I haven’t lost my humanity,” I mumble against him without thinking.

A spark of hellfire lights in his gaze. Like a shark that’s scented blood.

And that’s when I know he has me.

“Haven’t you?” he purrs, gripping my chin even tighter, his fingers smearing a mixture of mud and dirt all over my face. “Or perhaps what truly infuriates you is that you wish it was you who’d killed him, instead of me?”

My breath rushes out of me like a force.

And whatever denial was poised on my lips dies instantly as his other hand, wiped clean on the inside of his suit coat, finds that delicious spot between my legs and parts me.

I arch into him, a fresh round of anger sending my pulse racing at how thoroughly he’s able to play me, almost as if he’s called my desire forth to taunt me.

His grip on me tightens, his thumb circling my clit as his fingers thrust into me. But I won’t let him win that easily.

Not without a fight, at least.

Without warning, I thrash violently, attempting to wriggle and writhe my way out of his hold as he continues to finger me, but my resistance only seems to fuel his enjoyment.

“That’s it.” Lucifer’s fang-laden smirk widens as I fruitlessly attempt to escape him.

But I don’t use my safe word, and to my surprise, he lets me nearly manage to get away before one of his hands clamps around my ankle like a vise and pulls, and before I can stop him, he’s dragging me back toward him, crawling up the length of my body.

I kick out my other foot, unexpectedly catching him hard in the mouth. Harder than I would’ve ever thought possible.

I gasp as Lucifer goes still.

Oh God. He’s going to kill me.

The sound of my heartbeat thrashes in my ears, and a cold sweat breaks out over my skin.

But Lucifer moves first. He probes the wound gingerly, his eyes widening at the sight of the blood on his fingers, before he throws back his head and laughs wickedly, the forked tip of his tongue darting out to lick some of the blood from his lip.

“Now we’re getting somewhere.” He smirks down at me. “Fight me.”

His tone is so patronizing, so cocksure, that my pulse races, my own embarrassment at how much I’m still enjoying this slamming me into overdrive, and before I fully understand what I’m doing, I’m clawing at him, and the ground beneath us is shaking, vibrating, the anger buried deep inside me barely leashed.

Like he’s coaxing all my darkest desires out of me.

And suddenly, I can’t stop myself from wanting to release it.

My desire. My anger.

At him. At this fucked-up existence he created for me.