Page 6 of Wicked Believer (Original Sinner #2)

Chapter Five

Charlotte

The moment the words fall from Lucifer’s lips, I ... don’t know what to make of them.

“Fated,” I repeat, the word suddenly feeling foreign. Too otherworldly, too ... supernatural to be real. Made from one of his bones. Like Adam and Eve. “As in ... as in I never had any free will?”

Lucifer shrugs, the cigarette between his fingers burning as he flicks some of the ashes onto the forest floor. “I fail to see how that’s relevant.”

I blink, nearly at a loss for words.

“How is it not relevant?”

We’re standing in the middle of the barren forest, my bare feet so numb I can no longer feel my toes.

My dirt-covered dress is torn from where he fucked me so hard I saw stars.

Not to mention how he made me cause a freaking mini-earthquake and unleash whatever the hell else that pulse of light mid-orgasm was, but somehow, it’s this that undoes me.

Makes me feel like the ground beneath my feet is moving.

Like there’s nothing left to tether me.

I swallow hard. The choice he gave me to stay with him was never really a choice at all. The same as working for him. The same as becoming his fake fiancée. The same as my father’s death. Only worse than all those, and the knowledge of that steals the last little bit of my sanity.

“Fated,” I exhale.

“Or something close to it, really,” he mutters before blowing out another cloud of smoke.

The end of his cigarette pulses, the vapor disappearing. There and gone instantly.

Like I would’ve been. If he hadn’t remade me.

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 been before he’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 as much as you do, but free will, fate, these are human concepts, 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.”

Now that he’s gifted me God’s redemption and unleashed whatever this ... darkness is within me. The bit of his powers he unwillingly transferred to me.

I shake my head. “Could have fooled me.”

I pull away, trying to escape the nearly irresistible influence he seems to have over me as I move toward the edge of the clearing, but he quickly captures my wrist.

“Charlotte—”

“Inferno,” I snap, using my safe word before he can go any further.

Lucifer stares down at me incredulously, but he releases my wrist instantly.

I open and close my mouth several times, failing to find the words until I close my eyes.

I inhale a slow, steadying breath, just like my therapist taught me.

“The Lucifer I know would never be okay with the idea that someone had manipulated him. Made him a pawn in their game.” I open my eyes again.

And even through the shadows, I can see his gaze darken.

The anger in his eyes as he looks at me.

At how I’ve damaged his pride.

But the ... resentment I see there is new to me.

“Perhaps you’re right. I’ve changed,” he sneers, staring down the bridge of his nose as he begins to circle me, a predator once more.

Suddenly, I’m backed up against a rotting tree, his shadows clutching me at the base of my throat.

“But it’s you who did this to me,” he hisses against my ear. “Would you have me undo it?”

My knees quiver, and his lips part as he steps closer, breathing me in. He trails his nose along the length of my jaw, his tongue flicking. Like he can taste the salt on my skin.

“Now,” he purrs, “let’s head back to that blasted thing you once called a home before either of us says something we do not mean.”

Abruptly, his shadows release me, and he stalks toward the edge of the clearing.

But I’m not finished yet.

“I don’t know what I would have chosen, you know,” I call after him, my words stopping him in his tracks.

His shoulders go rigid.

“I don’t know what I would have chosen had I known everything.”

Lucifer turns to face me, his eyes so full of hellfire, they glow. Like two burning amber jewels in the dark. “If you value our life together, I beg you not to speak another word.”

“Or what?” I gape at him. “You’ll hurt me?”

“Never,” he snarls, like the mere suggestion that he would do so without my consent is an insult to him. As if I don’t know exactly how beastly he can be.

“Then why? Even if I wanted to, you wouldn’t allow me to leave.”

I’ve been held captive to Lucifer’s will before, though I ... thought things had changed recently.

The flames in his eyes flash, burning bright. “Because I cannot be held responsible for what I would do to keep you with me.”

I let out a shuddered breath.

In another life, another moment, one where he hadn’t killed my father without my permission, one where he hadn’t remade me from the ashes of God’s redemption, where his crazy Mother hadn’t stolen all my free will from me, those words might have meant something, made me melt.

Now, as I stand here, the last grasp I felt I had on my human life slipping through my fingers like sand through an hourglass, the full reality of all that he’s planned, of how thoroughly I’ve been manipulated, chills me.

He destroyed the last human part that was left of me.

And not by my choice like I thought, but by fate.

And I think that, not for the first time, I might truly hate him for it.

“Is that all I am to you? Still?” I breathe. “A toy? A pretty little dove for you to keep in a cage?”

For a moment, Lucifer’s mask falters, and I think I see a deep flash of hurt in his eyes before it’s gone instantly, his expression darkening. “If you think for even a second that’s the way I see you, then you truly don’t know me at all.”

“Maybe I don’t,” I say defiantly, old hurts bubbling up inside my chest. In for a penny, in for a pound, I guess. “After all, you’ve been lying to me from the start, haven’t you?” I close the distance between us as I whisper, “You used me. Manipulated me. And I let you.”

“Because you love me.” He reaches out to cup my cheek.

But I shake my head as I take a small step back.

His hand falls to his side reluctantly.

“Because I fear you.”

This time, Lucifer’s pain is obvious, his tongue darting out to wet his lips as he shakes his head at me.

“You don’t mean that. You don’t even know what you’re saying.

You’re hurting, still reeling from the power I had to unleash in you, all because you refused to release it yourself, to embrace your immortality.

I know you’re scared, but there’s no turning back now, and you can’t—”

“Don’t you dare try to tell me how I feel,” I snap, my tone sharp enough that in the quiet of the cold forest, I may as well be shouting.

The words settle in the ether between us, and for a long moment, Lucifer doesn’t say anything. He simply stares at me, amber gaze blazing until finally his eyes narrow. “I think that’s quite enough for tonight.” He turns to leave.

But I grab his shoulder. “No. I decide when I’ve had enough.”

Lucifer rounds on me. “For fuck’s sake, Charlotte. You—”

“Hit me,” I say, gesturing to his now clenched hands. “Show me I have just as much say in all of this chaos as you do.”

Lucifer shakes his head. “Not now that you’ve used your safe word,” he growls, tossing the butt of his cigarette onto the ground and grinding it beneath his Armani shoe. “I’ll do no such thing.”

“You want to destroy the last of my humanity? For me to embrace immortality? Fine. Then hit me,” I say again, my voice lifting in anger.

“Rip the power out of me. Fuck me until I can’t see straight.

Whatever you have to do.” I square my shoulders, drawing nearly nose to nose with him, or as close as I can, considering he’s nearly a foot taller than me.

“But if you can ask that of me, why can’t I ask it of you?

” My breath becomes heavy, swirling like smoke in the space between us, the butt of his cigarette still smoldering beside our feet. “We’re equals, aren’t we?”

Lucifer doesn’t answer. Instead, he simply stares at me.

“Aren’t we?”

I reach for him, and for the first time ever, he recoils from me.

Until I have no choice but to allow my outstretched hand to fall.

Something dark flashes in Lucifer’s eyes then. Something pained. “If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times. Don’t try to top from the bottom. Not with me.”

He turns and disappears into the shadows, leaving me breathless and alone in his wake.

I suck in a sharp breath, clutching at my chest, overwhelmed by the feeling. As if my own heart has just been ripped out of me.

I stumble forward, standing there frozen in the dark for what feels like hours, until reluctantly I begin to make my way toward the house.

Unhinged by everything I now realize he’s stolen from me, and the knowledge that the monstrous immortal I’ve chosen to give my life to can think so little of me.