Cado (18 page)

“No. You’re making it all sound so simple, so reasonable. It just isn’t. I may have caused you to fall as Nyssa, but I was an angel. I—I…” My words stuck in my throat. I didn’t know what to think let alone say. I was still waiting for my inevitable breakdown.

“But it is. Choose to be with me and we can punish the deserving together.”

“I’m still human. I’m going to die.” I loved Lucian. He owned my heart and probably my soul. It explained why I’d been drawn to him even when I’d been in angel form. But I wasn’t an angel any more, and yet I wasn’t quite human either. It was all so confusing. My emotions were jumbled and I couldn’t think straight.

“No, you won’t die. Over the years I have amassed more power than I ever imagined I could. I—”

“Dark power, you mean. So you want me to agree to make a deal with the devil…literally?” Maybe he was right—I wouldn’t be doing anything that much different if I did it with him. The memories of Lucian seen from Nyssa’s eyes were coloring my view of him now. He’d always been good to me—he was good. Or there had to still be good in him somewhere. He merely lived in the grey areas that I existed in as well. This wasn’t fiction. He wasn’t some horrible, evil creature hell bent on destroying mankind. He was just misunderstood. I mean, what would people say about me if they knew all the things I’d done over my short lifetime? And yet I was sure I’d saved so many innocents from pain, not only avenged those who had already suffered. I harmed those who deserved it to protect those who didn’t. How was that a bad thing?

“So what would happen if I did choose to be with you?”

Lucian’s smile dazzled me. My heart squeezed, it was a fist within my chest. “We would rule over the new world together.”

“New world?”

“Yes. You were forbidden to me. It was decreed. If I defy the laws of God and go against his word—if I make something possible that he said was not—then it will set things into motion.”

A lump had formed in my throat and I swallowed around it. “What things in motion?”

“The Rapture, The Apocalypse—your choice of name but it would all be the same. It would be my chance to shape the world the way I want it—the way
we
want it. We would rule together, and we would be together for all of eternity.”

Laughter bubbled up from my chest. And there it was—my breakdown was finally upon me. I could take a lot of shit in stride, after all, I wasn’t exactly normal nor did I have a regular sort of life. Apparently my sanity drew the line at finding out that I could cause the end of the world. Literally.
Fan-fucking-tastic
.

“Before you decide, there’s something else I want to show you now that you know everything. Come.” Lucian swept me up in his arms, my surroundings blurring and going dark.

When he spoke again, his voice echoed. “I tortured him slowly. I peeled his skin from his body, inch by inch. I relished his suffering—relished the fact that I was the one to delve out justice to him—for you.” Lucian whispered in my ear, “But when he finally died—I wanted more. Someone like him—his actions stole from me. I lost her…you…Nyssa. He deserved to be punished for an eternity.” His large hand cupped the side of my face, his lips brushing the shell of my ear. I shivered. “There was no such place. There was no such place until I made one.”

Light in the space I was in blazed on suddenly. Spots danced in front of my eyes for a millisecond—the millisecond before I focused in on what was across the small brick room from me. A man lay chained to a stone slab, his skin slowly being peeled away by a beautiful blonde woman. She grinned as the man arched up in agony. His wails of pain were silent, his mouth opening without any sound being emitted.

I stood frozen, watching, and yet having no desire to. Just when the woman finished skinning every inch of him, his flesh appeared new and unbroken on his body. When she reached for him to start the process all over again… I opened my mouth and screamed for him. I served as the voice that he no longer had. I couldn’t seem to help myself. I killed for justice, for karma—but I didn’t torture. I would never torture. I bent over and retched.

“No, Lucian, no. You can’t do this in my name. I want no part of any of this.”

“It’s too late for that, my Karma. I’ve made it a point to collect each and every soul that has ever hurt you in any lifetime. They’re all here. In Hell for you.”

I pulled myself up, meeting Lucian’s dark gaze. “No. Just no.” I was repulsed and yes, terrified of what Lucian had become. He enjoyed torture, relished in it. We weren’t the same, at least not yet, and I had no intention of ever becoming like him. Nothing had changed. I loved an evil being, something that I couldn’t seem to help, but that didn’t mean I had to give myself over to him.

I would never give myself over to him. I’d had a few moments of weakness just like I had in every lifetime. But in the end, I would prevail at any cost.

I whirled around and ran, knowing it was a futile move but my body was reacting with flight since fight wouldn’t do shit against Lucian. His black wings whipped out to surround me. They were everywhere I turned, pushing me into darkness, stealing away every last inch of light until there was nothing.

As far as this lifetime went, I’d never been much into organized religion. I’d always considered myself more of a spiritual person. I believed that there was a God—some kind of higher power—God being the best term to refer to it by. But how could any one human claim to know what God wanted and what he or she was like? It just made sense that something had to have created all of us and the world we exist in. Ironically, I’d never believed in Hell. I thought it was a made up place that religious leaders had invented to scare people into making them do what they wanted. I couldn’t have been more wrong. And to boot… I was the reason Hell existed at all.

As much as Lucian had shared with me, I was having a hard time wrapping my mind around everything. Our history went back a lot farther than even I’d known, as mind boggling as that was. I never thought it possible for our entangled existence to be more complicated than I’d previously known. And I had more questions now that I had more information. If Lucian had been the one to make Hell, then what had happened to all the sinners, for lack of a better term, before Hell existed? The world I’d seen through his eyes hadn’t exactly seemed like a utopia of any kind. In fact, it didn’t seem all that much different than today’s world, at least the people hadn’t. What had God been thinking to not have a place to punish those like Niko? Had humans all just gone to Heaven, even the dark souls? That couldn’t be right.

I focused in on Lucian, who had been holding me while I tried to regain some composure. I’d drifted off mentally, lost in my thoughts. Now I focused in on him because of my endless questions. Some were definitely more important than others. “Before you fell—before Hell—what happened to the dark souls? Where did they go?”

A knowing smile slowly spread across Lucian’s face. “Humans were favored, all of them. None were punished.”

A sour taste bloomed in my mouth. “None were punished,” I mumbled numbly. I thought about Niko and what he’d done to Leitha. I thought about my foster father and what he’d done to Evie. I thought of all the people I’d punished and all the horrible things I’d seen them do.
None were punished?
No. How could that ever have been? “No. You have to be mistaken. Maybe a lesser form of punishment or—”

“None were punished. I would know.”

Of course he would know. Unless… “How do I know you aren’t lying? How do I know that everything you’ve said isn’t a lie? You’re the great deceiver. The dark one. Be—” Lucian’s wings shook when he laughed. He slid his hands down my arms and interlaced his fingers with mine. I glared at him. It was hard to focus with him being so close. My body cried out for me to stop thinking so much and to invite Lucian inside of it again…and again. He was every bit as addicting as I knew he would be, and I’d just had the first little taste. Did I have any hope at all of denying him anything he wanted?

I have to focus.
“What if you don’t love me at all? What if, for whatever reason, my soul, or my choice is necessary for the end of days and you’ve just come up with one hum-dinger of a plan to convince me. Was it free will you spoke of? Nothing like throwing around the words true love, star-crossed lovers and the like to suck a woman into your lair. Even me. I’m mostly human now after all, but isn’t that kind of the point?”

Flames erupted within Lucian’s eyes as he gazed down at me imperiously. “If I sought to be duplicitous with you, my Karma, then I would have chosen another way. Do you think that I would fuck just any human? Despite what you may think—you are the first and only human that has ever interested me.”

I briefly remembered him saying something to the effect of no human ever intriguing him before me, back when I thought he was just some crazy dude with the same kind of abilities that I had. Not only was he not insane, but that had been the truth as well…if I could trust anything he told me. How does one even consider trusting the devil without being the biggest idiot ever to exist? I found myself wishing that I was crazy and in a padded cell somewhere. At least that way the repercussions of my decisions wouldn’t affect the entire world.

Lucian dipped his head and skimmed my jaw line with his lips. He pressed his firm body down into mine, causing my breath to come out in short little spurts. “You have never been like other humans. Your soul, your mind—nothing about you is normal. You see the world differently. That’s why I fell for you.” His words ghosted over my skin causing goose bumps to erupt. “You are still my sun and I was thrown into utter darkness without you.”

“How do I even know that what you think of as love is the same as what I think of it? You were never human. You weren’t like me, a human soul made into an angel. Love as I understand may never mean the same thing to you. And how would I ever know?”
Am I beginning to consider this with him?
It was just that I never thought love possible for myself. No mortal man could even begin to compare to Lucian in any way, and a part of me knew that even when I didn’t remember him.

“It’s true. My kind doesn’t love the way a human does. As you well know. We love better and more completely.” He rocked his pelvis against mine, stealing my attention.
When did our clothes disappear?
“I’ve remained devoted to you all these years. Not once wavering. Never considering another. You know an angel can only love one soul completely. Just because I was born angel doesn’t mean that part of me is any different from what you experienced as an angel.”

My body was slick with need to feel him inside of me again. I groaned when he pushed his rigid cock against me and yet still didn’t enter. I wanted to grab his perfect ass and force him down on me, to impale myself on him. “How can I believe anything?” And did it really matter? I’d lived for so long with the sole purpose of exacting my own brand of karma but I didn’t want to be the cause of the friggin’ apocalypse. No matter how convincing he was, no matter how I felt about him and how much I wanted him—I could never choose him.  I couldn’t be that selfish, no matter how much I’d allowed myself to be tainted, that was a step too far. Or more like ten thousand steps too far. I wouldn’t end the world for my own desires.

“Lucian, please, stop. We can’t do this.”

Lucian plunged into me. “Yes. We. Can.” He punctuated each word with a mind-altering thrust, which I was sure was his intent. “Tell me yes. Tell me that you choose me.”

“I can’t,” I ground out even as I arched up into him.

He bared his teeth in what can only be described as a snarl. His features seemed to sharpen and his demeanor roughened even more. He grabbed my wrists and forced them over my head, holding them tightly. “I won’t let you leave here—for anything—until you accept your fate.”

My mind had long since shorted out. I hadn’t said yes from mere stubbornness even though I wasn’t even sure why I would deny Lucian anything he asked for anymore. I just knew I had to resist giving him that last little bit of myself. If he wanted to keep me, to never let me leave while he attempted to fuck me to his will—then well… I could think of worse ways to die.

I wrapped my legs around Lucian, resting the heels of my feet on his wings. A fine tremor stole through him. He liked having his wings touched while he fucked me, which was good because I needed to keep any reminder close of why I should deny him—why I shouldn’t say yes.

He wasn’t human, and he never had been. Doing the things that I do—punishing the foul souls of the world—it had changed me over the short course of my life. I couldn’t even begin to imagine how much it had tainted Lucian over all the years he’d been doing it. He may have started out with good intentions, but as the saying goes, good intentions can pave the path to Hell. This time it had happened quite literally.

I continued to cling to my stubbornness for as long as I was aware. I didn’t even know where we were anymore. I think we started out in a bed—maybe—I was almost certain we’d changed locations several times.