Page 71 of Wicked Believer (Original Sinner #2)

Chapter Fifty-Eight

Charlotte

“What? How in God’s name did you—?”

“Hell is and always has been my realm, darling. Not even my Father or my self-righteous sycophant for a brother could steal it from me.” He steps back, taking hold of my hand to reveal the desolate wasteland around me.

“I’m a man of my word and I made a promise to you that I would bring you here.

I also promise to be honest with you starting now. Do you understand me?”

I nod. “I promise to do the same.”

In truth, what I’ve been doing with his siblings weighs on me.

But I’ll make it a point to tell him soon. When the time is right.

“I would never expect anything less.” Lucifer extends his hand to me. “Do you trust me, Charlotte?”

I snort, smiling slightly. “Your brother asked me almost the exact same thing a few weeks back.”

“My brother?” He lifts a brow as if to say which one.

“The one I ended up in the papers with.”

The one you let have his way with me tonight. That part goes unspoken.

I have a feeling rumors of Lucifer and me being on the rocks will spread rapidly—even if it’s not at all true. Everyone at the party signed a lengthy NDA and would never publicly utter so much as a word against us, but money talks.

And the money the press will pay for any hint of unsubstantiated, juicy gossip about Lucifer and me is substantial. More than most Americans make in a year, easily.

Especially since the first seal opening.

Humanity’s more eager for celestial gossip than ever.

Lucifer frowns. “Azmodeus is a bloody prat who sticks his nose and his cock into everything, and I regret allowing him to touch you if it’s going to be a while before we—”

“It won’t,” I say, smiling at how quickly the tables have turned, and for once, it’s me who needs to reassure him.

“Things with us are still as they were. I promise you. Our dynamic isn’t over, and neither are we.

The twenty-four seven D/s part is only .

.. on pause for a minute. I just need some space to figure things out first. That’s all. ”

“To figure out Azrael you mean?” Lucifer mouth quirks suggestively.

I flush, but Lucifer’s crooked grin only widens. “Not just Azrael.”

“I mean no judgment, Charlotte,” he says, turning away from me. “Azrael is ...” He lifts his brows once to imply that Azrael is, well, completely and totally fuckable.

A sudden burst of jealousy twists through me.

And interest.

How can he be so mature and okay about all this?

I can’t say I’d be able to do the same if the roles were reversed.

And would they ever want to ...

No. No, no, no.

I can’t ask either of them that.

Oh God. I am definitely going to have to unpack all of this in therapy.

The poor woman will be working overtime with all I’ll have to tell her about the three of us. Now that we’re trying this open-relationship thing.

“Come, Charlotte,” Lucifer beckons me. “There’s something I’d like you to see.”

He takes my hand, leading me from the dry, arid sand dune we’re standing in.

We wander through a gray and never-ending desert for what feels like ages—“The weight of all time stretched thin,” he explains.

No wonder he’s sometimes gone for days when to him it seems like it’s only been a few hours.

All the times I’ve been frustrated and angry with him when he’s been fulfilling his duties now feels incredibly selfish to me.

I didn’t really know what I was signing up for before.

But this time, the choice will be mine completely.

“Is this all Hell is?” I ask once we’ve been walking for what feels like ages. “A gray and endless desert?” I hear an eerie, desolate sound in the distance, something animal, and my spine runs cold. I’m not sure I want to see whatever demonic creature that noise originated from.

“It was, originally,” Lucifer answers. “Hell’s landscape is more vast than the earth you call home, Charlotte, but it is most often .

..”—he hesitates for a moment, like he’s trying to find the right description—“spaces that exist between defined states, the familiar made unfamiliar. I take inspiration from humanity’s own horrors.

” He wrinkles his nose. “I find most human imaginations are sufficiently insufferable in their own right.”

The dry heat in the air starts to lessen, then cools slightly, and I sigh in relief from where my lips were starting to crack.

If simply walking through certain parts of Hell is this bad, I can’t begin to understand what other kinds of suffering it contains.

But I have a feeling, from the way Lucifer tugs at my hand eagerly, gently urging me onward, that he’s got something new and completely unexpected up his sleeve.

Just as I’m about to tell him I’m not going to take another step farther, we come to a stop, and suddenly his hands are overtop my eyelids from where he stands behind me.

“I wanted to be certain that when you choose to stay with me, to be mine forever and always, that I no longer have to leave you when I come here. That you would have a place here in Hell beside me, as my queen.”

I lift a brow.

This isn’t about to be some hellish BDSM torture chamber, is it?

Lucifer chuckles, hearing my thoughts loud and clear.

“What are you trying to say?” I ask.

“Open your eyes, darling.”

He pulls back his hands, and I gasp, all the breath rushing out of me.

Because in front of me lies his real kingdom, his real court.

The one of his own making.

Made entirely out of stars.

The colors of the sweeping mountainous landscape before us are in the same palette as the northern lights he cast over the city.

And the starlight in Hell is actually twinkling.

“How? How did you—?”

“I had my suspicions that my brother might pull something of a coup, of course, so I’ve been pouring a fair amount of my power into this realm for years.

It felt high time that I spruce the place up a bit.

” He snaps his fingers, and we’re transported to the middle of an obsidian throne room, overlooking an outdoor balcony.

Dozens of smaller dwellings pepper the hillside beneath, and I know without asking who they’re for.

The souls.

The ones he doesn’t believe deserve to be here.

Suddenly, my heart is in my throat, my chest tightening.

I should have known.

Like his Father, Lucifer is capable of mercy.

Mercy he was never given.

Because God couldn’t bear to see His own flaws reflected in His son’s face.

In all the Originals.

I shake my head. If what Azmodeus told me is true, then ...

Man, God was a much bigger asshole to His own children than I ever would have expected He’d be.

Even if I do still plan to say my prayers in hopes that He and His followers become, well, self-reflective enough to help fix this whole apocalypse situation we’re dealing with topside.

The amount of pride and ego it would take to not see themselves for the hateful monsters they’ve allowed themselves to become is, well ...

Nearly as villainous as the fallen angel standing next to me.

Lucifer doesn’t say anything for a few moments, like he recognizes I’m lost in my own thoughts, before finally he clears his throat. “Michael may have stripped me of my powers while I’m on Earth, but what he took is only a fraction of what lies here.”

“You just need to figure out how to reclaim it.”

He nods, taking my hand in his.

I honestly understand the feeling.

He draws me to the edge of the balcony then, and I watch a few of the souls move about below, one of them waving up at me.

“Is that—?”

“The nun who helped you from the church down on Seventh Avenue. Yes.”

My brow furrows. “How did she—?”

“I’ll explain later, darling, but what you should know is that since my Father abandoned us all, well, it seems you were the only one given the option to head upstairs, I’m afraid.” He nods toward Hell’s sky as if to indicate where Heaven waits somewhere above.

“So, everyone who’s died in the decade that you and your siblings were released?”

Lucifer’s jaw sets with a hint of bitterness. “All down here, I’m afraid. The growing population is becoming a bit of a problem actually.”

“Overpopulation. In Hell,” I exhale.

Exactly why did I want him to be honest with me again?

Sometimes I think staying ignorant might have been easier.

But then I wouldn’t know if what he and I have is truly real.

Now we can choose one another without fate getting in the damned way.

“There’s something about that I’ve been keeping from you for some time.”

I nod. Whatever it is, I think I’m prepared for it.

“Tell me.”

“When I gave you my Father’s redemption, I also might have made you the only immortal capable of reopening the pearly gates.”

All my breath rushes out of me.

“Oh yeah, sure. No big deal,” I squeak, my tone going significantly higher at the end until I sound as mousy and timid as I used to be.

“I’ll just throw those ol’ gates open and help fix your little overpopulation problem, while meanwhile your Mother expects me to be the champion of her freaky-as-hell prophecy and give her grandbabies. ”

“Her prophecy?” Lucifer’s brows shoot up.

This is the first he’s hearing of this.

“I ... may or may not have met your Mom on the way to the play party. All three terrifying versions of her.”

Lucifer sighs. “Sometimes her level of theatrics rivals my brother Gabriel’s.” He pinches the bridge of his nose like he’s trying to find patience as I lean into him. “I apologize if she scared you.” He pulls me to him and kisses the top of my head softly.

I wave a dismissive hand, trying to be far more nonchalant about all this than I feel. “Of course not. What could be scary about your future Mother-in-Law being a divine goddess?”

“She’s a tad bit more than a goddess, little dove.”

My gaze whips to his, my eyes widening.

“My Mother is the chaos from which the universe was created. The precursor to my Father’s divine order.”

I blink, taking a moment to process that. “Do you mean to tell me that God is a Dom, and He made Lilith, the embodiment of all divine chaos, his sub?”

Lucifer smirks wickedly. “Where do you think I get my more adventurous tendencies?”