Revealing the Monster (Playing with Monsters #4) by Amelia Hutchins

“Did I? I don’t recall,” I snorted, glaring at him while he chuckled.

“I’ll never forget how you tasted or the noises you made.”

“Focus on your story, or send me back, Lucifer.”

His eyes lowered to my gown, and his nostrils flared before he laughed soundlessly. “I was curious, but then who wouldn’t be? It was the first time a man had lain between a woman’s thighs, and she was fucking hot. Eve was perfect, created in the image of how my father thought women should look. So I remained in the shadows, observing as Adam pumped his cock into Eve’s tight opening. I saw the look of such utter pleasure in his eyes, and I wanted to feel that desire, too, and what it felt like to be within a woman. To feel something so fucking pleasurable that it sparkled from Adam’s eyes and made him scream maddeningly as he continued pummeling her delicate flesh,” he paused, lowering his stare to my body with need boiling in his gaze.

“But that wasn’t all I wished for, sweet girl. They were in love. It shone from them like a light that couldn’t be snuffed out. Eve watched Adam as if he was an extension of her being. It was as if they were so deeply embedded into one another that one would perish without the other. I craved to know how it felt to have someone so in love with you that no matter what happened, they would rather die than be without you.”

Frowning, I searched his darkening gaze before exhaling. “And you told your father how you felt, and he sent you to hell because of it,” I guessed absently.

“Of course, I told him. He was my father, so I shared everything with him. He had never exposed how cold and merciless he could be until I confessed that I wanted to feel love from a woman. I was once his favorite son. I thought maybe, just maybe, if I were like Adam and Eve, he’d love me as he once had. I informed him of what I’d witnessed and that his children could have that, too. I told him that his humans and angels could live together and create a perfectly balanced race. I told him I wanted to know what a woman felt like in that manner. How Adam had looked between her thighs and the pleasure he had taken from her body.” Luc laughed sinisterly and planted his hands on the altar, watching me as his stare turned cold, ruthless, and hard with his words. “He said he had bigger plans for the angels and that coupling with humans would interfere with his master plan. He sent me to Hell and that same day and placed a curse on angels and humans that mated. He created—”

“Nephilims,” I finished his words, hating the way my stomach flip-flopped, knowing that it was why Kendra had died. “He made certain that you wouldn’t chance to lie between a woman’s thighs. He cursed the mother to perish for the monstrosity they would create together.” I swallowed past the lump in my throat. “Back then, you were an angel, Lucifer, which meant you were still pure?”

“I was. Had I known what my father would do, I would never have chanced it occurring. I love women, which is no secret. I was thrown into Hell for wanting what the humans have with the promise that he would bring me home once I’d learned my place, and I’d atoned for wanting what wasn’t mine to have. My father acted like my wanting to feel love was so fucking wrong, but the humans with all their sins weren’t punished like I was. Not even close. He allowed them to live and populate the earth.”

“That couldn’t have been easy for or on you.” I pushed the hair away from my face, noticing the coldness that washed over Luc’s features. The muscles of his neck tightened, and he snorted loudly.

“Do you know what happens to an angel when he enters Hell? Their wings rot to bones, becoming useless. Then, they burn for centuries, charring the bones until the angel transforms and grows into the wing of the monster they become. Wings are the most sensitive place on an angel’s body and have more nerve endings than a woman’s clitoris. After that, Hell claims the angel, using barbs to hold them down, making them into monsters that are never sated or satisfied. There’s nothing but an endless hunger and the need to quench it. Pain that never ends still rips you apart, no matter how long you’ve been there. It is the most horrid way for an angel to go on living, and my father never even tried to get me out. He forgot about me, and eventually, I started hating him.”

“He sounds like a difficult father, Luc,” I uttered hoarsely as pain danced in his deep blue gaze.

“He is not my father any longer, sweet Lena. I’m what this place has made of me. I am the Prince of Hell. I became the monster he accused me of being, and all because I simply wanted to know what Adam had felt with Eve; love, unconditional love for someone else besides myself or my father. I am the monster that Hell needed,” he stated, wincing before he stepped back.

“That’s horrible,” I whispered, unable to imagine the horror he’d felt at being abandoned and left to suffer endlessly. “Nyx said God slept with the serpent and created your race…” I admitted hesitantly, remembering an entirely different conversation with the goddess. “Wait, you watched your mother telling people to fuck, and didn’t think to look away?”

“Nyx wasn’t inside the garden. I started that rumor to get back at my father. Rumors have a way of becoming a version of the truth to the uneducated ear, and it was one of my better lies that got around. You should hear all the shit I created about myself, Lena. You’d be scarred over the stories and would feel sorry for me. What happened to me was horrible, but I adapted. Now I am simply the monster ruling Hell. I am not his favorite son or his beautiful avenging angel that reaped the souls of those bound for Heaven. Gone is the boy who would have wrecked the world to please his father.”