Revealing the Monster by Amelia Hutchins
Chapter Forty
And then peace came, and the world was right if even for only a moment in time. ~Lena
When Lucian said my family was waiting for me below, I thought he was talking about the castle, but he was talking about Club Chaos. He explained that the doors leading inside were a gateway and that the club was actually in his world, which explains why I have always felt at home here.
Peeking out of Lucian’s office, I saw my family speaking with Synthia and Ryder below. It didn’t take much to figure out what, or whom, was the topic of their conversation.
My mother’s shoulders shook, as did her dark blonde hair. Synthia was offering her comfort. But I knew they were discussing Alden, and that the silver lining of that situation was that he was still alive.
“Do you think Alden can be saved?” I asked, turning to look at Lucian, where he sat with Benjamin cradled in his arms.
I still didn’t believe that this was real. The man I loved was holding our son, and nothing had gone wrong yet. I guess when you expected chaos around every corner; it was hard to believe what was real and what wasn’t anymore.
I’d been through so much in such a little amount of time that everything seemed amiss, even though it was right.
“Maybe we should wait to introduce Benjamin to anyone.” Panic rushed through me as I wrung my hands in front of my dark blue eyelet dress.
“You remember the last time you wore that outfit?” he asked, ignoring my question.
“It was when I came here to apologize for accusing you of murdering a poor woman,” I snorted. “A woman that you actually did murder, I might add.”
“I did, but she’d murdered her husband and her children. She’d asked me for a favor, and I had granted it. Her request was to go unpunished for her crimes. I accepted it but chose to collect that payment instantly.”
“Did you know what she’d done?” I countered, narrowing my eyes on him as my heels clicked over the newly tiled floor.
I’d been told that this flooring choice was because it would be easier to clean after one of our fights. Apparently, carpets had been too difficult for Lucian’s men to pick out pieces of glass and other items spilled. I twirled my hair, smirking as Lucian glanced at me with a needy, predatory gaze.
He nodded slowly, sliding his hungry stare down my body. “I always know, but back to the dress. I wished for nothing more than to remove it and bend you over my desk. I had never been more aroused or hard in my entire existence. I wanted to hear your sweet screams and feel your pussy clamping down on my cock while you yelled my name to your fucking gods.”
“Innocent ears.”
“He’s in stasis and doesn’t understand a single word we’re saying. I could set Benjamin down and make that dress go away,” he offered.
I snorted, turning to look at the picture that adorned his wall. It was of me, holding Benjamin in my arms, smiling as I kissed his soft black curls atop his perfect head. No longer did I see the woman he’d once obsessed about covering his walls. They were now decorated with images of the three of us, and that hit me harder than I’d expected. I turned, studying the way Lucian observed me.
“It was always you,” he said softly, as if he’d just had an epiphany. “I couldn’t figure out what it was about Katarina that I thought I loved. I know now that I didn’t love her. I fell for the soul that would be born from hers: you, Lena. I fell for you before you were ever real. Your eyes are hers, and yet I never believed them to be pretty until they were yours. Your hair is the same color with a few different shades added as a highlight, but on you, it’s more. And your soul isn’t hers. It is yours, and yet it was created from her. I never loved Katarina. I loved the soul she would eventually create.”
“You’re not making any sense,” I returned, canting my head to peer at him.
“I can meet a soul centuries before the final one is cemented. I am eternal and can tell you which life would have been the hardest or sweetest before that version of the soul is ever born into a bloodline. Katarina generated your line and had a hand in making you. I sensed it, but I missed it somehow. I never enjoyed fucking her, but you? I can’t stay out of you. You’re like a fucking drug, and I need a fix. I didn’t like kissing anyone, not even her. Your lips draw me in, and fuck do I want to feel them against mine, and around my cock.”
“You always have a way with words, Blackstone,” I teased, crossing my arms over my chest, glaring pointedly at him.
I replayed what he’d said as a look of wonder burned in his eyes. Then, a woman appeared from thin air, accepting Benjamin from his father before she vanished as quickly as she’d come. Frowning, I shook my head as my mouth dropped open.
“You loved me?”
“I fell in love with you before you were even born. Katarina wasn’t what I wished for, ever. I wanted what she would create with her soul. It explains everything about you that has been a mystery to me.”
“So you’re trying to get out of the fact that you had shitty taste in women?” I countered, as he slowly crept over to where I stood. “Everyone makes mistakes, Lucian.”
“I didn’t, though. I just chose the wrong soul and at the wrong time. Katarina was selfish and petty. You’re selfless and pure. She cared what others thought about her, but you don’t.”
“I did,” I corrected.
“No, you really fucking didn’t. You went away, and you used a spell that made you appear plain and lacking, and we all know that’s a fucking lie, Magdalena. You’re gorgeous and draw the eye of those around you without even trying. You just don’t know how beautiful you are. I’ll change that.”
“We have guests waiting for us below, and if you keep sweet-talking me, my panties are going to combust.” I lifted on my toes to kiss him. “I don’t care if you knew or not that I was the one you’d fall in love with, Lucian. I only care that you never let me go.”
“Never,” he promised, cupping my head to hold me against his lips. “Fine, but the moment we’re finished below, you’re getting fucked in this dress, on that desk.”
“Fine,” I said, smiling as his eyes turned into slits.
“Say it again, woman.”
“Nope, not happening, Blackstone. I’ve learned that you never give idle threats. After we’ve sent our guests away, you can fucking rail me on your desk and show me what your fine ass can do to me.”
“Fine,” he returned, watching my mouth.
“It’s a deal,” I chirped, spinning on my heel, allowing him to watch my ass from behind. He’d wanted me to say fine. If I had, I’d have been bent over that desk, my panties in his hand, and his dick buried in my heat.
Opening the door, the men on the other side came to attention, staring pointedly at me. I smiled, wrinkling my nose while stepping out of the office.
“Gentlemen,” I said softly. “I love your asses, too,” I admitted after a moment had passed.
“We like you too, Kitty.” Spyder slid his gaze over my face and grinned. Lucian cleared his throat, and Spyder winked at me. “Would you like to take the stairs or try out the new shiny silver ladder I had installed while you were gone? It’s not like any other ladder you’ve seen, and our patrons really like holding onto the edges and sliding down the slick surface.”
I cleared my throat, buffing my nails, then stared at them as if they held a layer of dirt. “I’ll use the stairs. I’ve slid down a ladder a few times in my life, but stairs seem to suit me better.” I swallowed past nervous laughter as flashbacks from our time in bed together replayed inside my head.
“I should hate you, Lucian, for taking those memories of the three of us from my mind, but judging by Lena’s reaction, I’m going to enjoy guessing what the fuck happened in that room,” Spyder admitted.
A sense of somberness fell over the men, and I turned, staring at Lucian, who watched Spyder with an uneasy expression.
“What is it?” I asked, pleading with Lucian to tell me what was happening.
“Not here, Lena. Not right now. Tonight we celebrate our victory. We still have to figure out Asmodeus’s next play and contain that prick in Hell. Lucifer is still below. You need to decide what happens with him and his daughter. Your family is also here and waiting to see you. They’ve been driving me insane for months. So enjoy the evening, because tomorrow all hell might break loose,” Lucian admitted, which seemed to lighten the air around us.
“Lucian,” Erie interrupted, stepping out of the shadows with a serious look in her sky-blue eyes. “I’d like to have Asmodeus back and your permission to handle him however I see fit.”
“And what do you intend to do?” he asked softly. His perceptive gaze slid over Erie’s face, slowly narrowing his eyes on her. “You’re attached to him, aren’t you?”
“In a way, he’s my friend. You set him on a course, but he also betrayed me. I plan to put him back where you found him. After all, you did steer him in the direction of his actions. Maybe not the part where he acquired the Unseelie blade and tried to kill Lena, but you knew he would come for her. You probably expected me to take her from Club Chaos, allowing Asmodeus the opportunity to find her.”
There was an accusation in her tone, one that made the hair on my neck rise. Her gaze slid to me, narrowing with the same look she’d given Lucian.
“I had no idea that you’d take Lena from where she was safe, Erie. I did know that Asmodeus was close to you, but I assumed he’d come here and that my plan wouldn’t put Lena in jeopardy.”
“In more jeopardy than you releasing the one being that could remove the furies from within Lena?” Erie asked, tapping her finger on her chin. “Or more than using me to draw your enemies out, to mark them,” she wondered out loud.
“I never should have questioned your loyalty to me, Erie. For that, I am sorry.” Lucian apologized. At that declaration, Erie dropped the angry look and clapped her hands.
“Party time?” She grabbed my arm and yanked me behind her toward the people expecting us below. “Everyone is waiting for the new Mistress of Chaos!”
I laughed, following her, my heels clicking on the tile as we descended the stairs. At the bottom of the staircase, I dragged her back a step. Joshua stood at the bar, staring at me with a smile that lit his eyes.
“Joshua,” I whispered as he came toward me.
“Lenny,” Joshua said the moment he reached me, hugging me to him. “Blink twice if you need to escape this shit show.”
I pulled away from him slightly, smiling until I caught the blackness swallowing his pretty blue eyes. His dark brown hair was longer than he normally allowed it to be, and there were dark circles beneath his eyes, highlighting the lines that shouldn’t have been there. He was aging.
“What happened?” I asked, but he shook the question off.
“This night is about you, Lenny. Not me. I’m sure you know what’s going on. It isn’t happening tonight, though. You’re free, and you look amazing.”
“We will figure it out, Joshua.”
“Sure,” he said, appeasing me, even though his smile no longer touched his eyes. I rushed back into his arms, knowing he didn’t feel the loss I felt and that I sensed what was happening. Or maybe he did. I was losing him again, and nothing could stop it this time because his soul was too far gone.
“I love you, Joshua,” I whispered.
“I know, Lenny girl. I know you do. I should be able to return the sentiment, but I can’t say it because I won’t mean it. That part of my soul is gone. I loved you in our first life. You’re my sister, and you will always be my Lenny.”
He pulled away, leaving me rooted in place as he vanished through the doors. Both mom and grandma watched him go as Lucian spoke softly to them. I wanted the floor to swallow me whole, but I knew I couldn’t leave yet.
With a heavy heart, I moved to where Lucifer sat, staring at me. There was a quietness to him that almost made me shrink away from what was coming. He smirked, sensing it before I reached him. His violet-blue gaze studied my face, and then his dark head slowly shook back and forth.
“Joshua will come to me because of what he did and became in this lifetime. I’ll make sure he is safe, Lena,” he promised. At my shocked look, he frowned. “All beings who escape death come to me. They’re not welcome in Heaven once they’ve received their immortality. He’ll be reborn, but he won’t be your brother anymore. He will be a recycled soul that never fits into this world. They normally become those that are lost, never understanding the shit haunting them from their past life.” Lucifer turned, grabbing a drink from the bar.
“We need to discuss Makenna.”
“She’s staying with you and Lucian. If she can? She’s not safe with me right now. I am being hunted by angels once again. If they find her, they will kill her.”
“I was going to say that she should stay with you. Does anyone have any good news?” I asked, as Lucifer downed his drink and rapped his knuckles on the counter for more. “Kendra said you loved her and that she belongs with you.”
“No, she didn’t. She has no idea what happens down there or what I am.” He snorted, draining his glass. “I have Cassidy, and Helen in Hell, being tortured endlessly, and I enjoy watching them suffer. They’re being skinned alive and then slowly burned until they are nothing more than a meal to consume. Once the last morsel is eaten, their bodies are made whole again, repeating the process on an endless loop throughout eternity.”
“Oh, that sounds lovely.” He turned to look at me mid-drink, with his brows raised to his hairline. “I mean, I wouldn’t want to try it out or anything. But it seems a fitting end to the likes of that pair.”
“How’d that asshole get you? What did he do that I didn’t, Lena?” Luc asked, scanning my face as if I’d give it away.
“I fell in love with him first and wouldn’t let him forget that I was worth loving,” I admitted, nodding at the bartender, who placed a cup in front of me, pouring a drink. “I will keep Makenna, Lucifer. I will love her as if she was my own, but you will still be in her life. I can’t begin to understand the decisions your father made when he cast you from Heaven and abandoned you, but you are not him. I know you would not forsake Makenna and that you want to be a part of her life, and so you shall be, in whatever capacity you choose.”
He snorted, downing another drink. “You almost fucking died, and I hated myself for being the reason for it. You’re quicksand, Magdalena. You’re fucking quicksand.”
Lucifer turned, smiling, as he noticed something over my shoulder. He leaned in before I could guess his intentions and kissed me on the lips. Backing up, I stared at him as if he’d lost his fucking mind.
One second he was on the stool, and the next, he was sailing through the air without anyone having touched him. I watched his body break the wall, cracking the plaster as he smashed against it, slowly sliding down. He landed on his feet effortlessly, fixing his suit jacket before he winked at me.
Shifting my attention back to my drink, I found Lucian on one side of me, and Spyder standing on the other. Smirking at their jealousy, I lifted my glass and sipped from it.
“Was that necessary, Lucian?” I inquired.
“No, but it felt good.” He grinned wickedly and leaned over to whisper in my ear. “Now you’re getting spanked before you get fucked on that desk.”
“Care to make it a show? My memories of that time are missing, so I don’t know if she enjoyed it,” Spyder snorted, and a gust of wind sent my hair sailing into the air. I turned, staring at where shadows were barely touching the wall before Spyder emerged from them, smirking. “Here, Kitty cat. I got some catnip for that pussy.”
“I’m almost glad you erased his memories. Although, I think he is enjoying this more than if he had them,” I muttered.
“Indeed. Go visit with your mother and grandmother. I intend to steal you before I allow them all in to see our son,” he stated openly, and once again, the entire bar turned to look at us. Freaking immortals and their seriously enhanced hearing. “If I didn’t want them to know about Benjamin, they wouldn’t.”
“Don’t get inside my head,” I snorted, turning to face him.
“I’ve never been in your head. I read your expressions. I see your thoughts displayed on that beautiful face, and I know how your brilliant mind works. I just really enjoy taking my time and getting to understand the woman in which I intend to spend eternity with.”
