Bound By Lucifer by Aiden Pierce

Chapter Seventeen

Jessica

Lust – Present

We sat on the couch in silence for several tense minutes. I had taken Lucifer’s wine glass from him and took a hearty sip of my own, savoring the warmth that chased away the insufferable chill of Limbo.

His memory of the last time he’d seen his mate left me with a bitter taste in my mouth that no amount of wine could wash away. He had gone to find her, but from our conversation earlier, I didn’t need to see any more of the memory to know what happened next.

Michael had murdered Lilith. Out of envy.

It’s not like I was an expert on angels, but somehow I knew there was more to it than that.

The memory had left one big question unanswered. Why were they going to Paradise to meet Lucifer’s father? In his thoughts, he had implied that he was going to get his wings back soon. But how could that be?

Clearly, it hadn’t panned out that way for him because he was still fallen.

Then there was also the question of how Michael had found out about Lucifer’s true mate. There had to be more reason than jealousy. When Lucifer had spoken about it, his voice had been tight, and he refused to look me in the eye.

I wondered what he wasn’t saying. Even now, he sat at the other end of the couch, his golden gaze affixed to his wine glass. He was swathed in memories, his dark brows pulled together in a tormented scowl.

“That was the last time you saw her?”

He nodded.

My stomach twisted with unease as I pushed to my feet, letting the blanket fall from my shoulders onto the coach. I smoothed down the wrinkles in my dress and let down my hair, the bun already half undone anyway. My skin prickled beneath his gaze as I felt his eyes on me, watching as I smoothed out the tangles in my hair with my fingers.

“So um, second floor then? I have to say I’m pretty eager to see the version of Lust that inspired your chef to make minestrone.”

I was acutely aware of the way Lucifer was staring at me. It was the same way he looked at Lilith in his memory. Those golden eyes, full of hunger, could get a girl pregnant with just one look. She had been so beautiful in his memory. With luscious black hair and full lips that men would sell their souls to taste. I could see some faint resemblance between us. We had the same color of eyes, a similarly shaped face, the same long thin nose. But her hair was black, and mine was blonde. She had slightly wider hips, and her boobs were bigger.

We looked like we could be related, but we definitely didn’t look like the same person.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Lucifer said with a sigh as he got to his feet.

I rolled my eyes. “Of course you do.”

“You’re not going to look exactly like you did back then. You’re reincarnated. Things are bound to change, especially when I know my father reincarnated you with the hope that I wouldn’t find you.”

“But why?”

“Because that would mean he would have been wrong. And he doesn’t like being wrong. Besides, these days, Paradise likes to pretend celestial shifters are above other animal shifters. Meaning they like to pretend that we don’t have true mates. Like we’re somehow above temptation, despite the fact that I’ve served as the poster child rebuking that fact for thousands of years now.”

I wrinkled my brow as I followed him through the main room of the cellar and around a corner to a modern-looking elevator door. “I thought reincarnation was a Buddhist thing.”

Lucifer stopped in front of the elevator, jabbed the down button, and turned to look at me. “Reincarnation is a tool of the Almighty. He’s a mysterious being, even to the likes of me.” The devil paused, considering. “Especially to the likes of me.”

The elevator door opened with a ding, and we stepped inside. The elevator was surprisingly sleek and modern. The pleasant jingle of classic elevator music sounded overhead, briefly interrupted by a feminine voice over the intercom. “Welcome home, My King. You have been greatly missed.”

“Thank you, Nyx.”

I perked up at the familiar name. “Nyx, as in the Goddess of Night?”

Lucifer chuckled, his golden gaze banked with secrets. “Something like that. In modern times she’s simply referred to as the Director of all Nine Circles. She keeps things running smoothly for me when I’m away.”

“Oh my, is that…?” the female voice asked.

“Yes, Nyx. Though we’re trying to smooth out some memory issues this weekend so please refrain from any heartfelt reunions for the time being. We haven’t discussed you yet.”

I blinked rapidly in confusion. Was he suggesting that this Nyx person had more significance than just an important member of his staff?

“Oh, yes, of course.” Her voice was swollen with emotion, almost as if she was holding back tears. She cleared her throat, sniffling. “Um, anyway. What floor would you like to go to, Sire?”

“Second. We’ll be traveling downward, traveling through memory lane to see if we can jog some old memories. Meet us at Lust’s lobby.” He cast a hasty glance at me. “Er, come in your human form.”

“Y–yes, Sire,” she answered, her voice wobbling.

The intercom clicked as she hung up.

I arched a brow at Lucifer, confused by the odd exchange. “What was that all about?”

His heart-breaking physiognomy wore a stony expression that betrayed nothing. “She’s just excited to see you, is all.”

The second the last word was out of his mouth, the elevator came to a halt, and the doors slid open with another ding. I had not expected to see the sleek, modern lobby of what looked to be a hotel on the other side.

“I thought Lust was supposed to be a club,” I said, recalling what he’d told me during dinner over the best damn minestrone of my life. “A club with a restaurant on top.”

“It’s a club, a restaurant, a hotel, a spa, a casino. We even have an amusement park outside, right beside the aquarium and the Japanese zen garden.”

A laugh tumbled from me, but Lucifer’s stern look was enough to tell me he hadn’t been joking. “Oh, wow, you’re serious.”

“Of course I am. I take my domain very seriously, especially since it’s the home of all native demons as well as the departed souls lucky enough to come here rather than Father’s rigid, stick-up-a-butt ‘Paradise.’ My only rule here? Don’t be an asshole unless—”

“What’s on the lower floors?”

“Patience, Kitten. One floor at a time. Once you come live with me, we’ll stay here in Lust, I imagine.” He grinned. “We have the best parties here. Whatever you want, we have it. Drugs, alcohol, sex, the best food in all nine layers, thanks to Cerberus. Excellent music. Elvis is a resident here, you know?”

“Right… Elvis.” My head was spinning with all this information. I’m not sure what I thought Lust was going to be like, but a super ritzy getaway wasn’t exactly what I’d pictured. The lobby reminded me of the Cosmopolitan on the Las Vegas Strip. Modern, sophisticated, with black marble floors and ridiculously elaborate chandeliers dripping with crystals. The staff at the check-in desks wore black, with little gold pins of Lucifer’s crest pinned to their chests. Most of them weren’t human. They were demons.

My stomach fluttered as I took in their wickedly curious details, their scaled skin of varying colors, some red, some gray, some black. Some had leathery wings sprouting from their backs while others had horns, and some had both. Some of the males were absolutely huge, with bulging muscles and thick tusks sprouting from stony jaws. I wondered if Abaddon’s true form looked like that. Others were small, like the bellhop who scurried across the floor with his talons clacking against marble, pushing a luggage trolley.

“That’s an Imp,” Lucifer explained, reading the question in my mind. “They aren’t shifters. That’s just how they look. As for Abaddon, think bigger. He did use to be the king, you know? And back before I brought some class to the place, rulers were determined by the size of their balls. Poor devil has a terrible time shopping for pants.”

“Now you’re just making things up.”

His lips quirked, and his eyes sparkled with mischief. “Maybe a little.”

A woman dressed in a charcoal pencil skirt and a tight button-up blouse, clutching a clipboard to her breast, hurried across the lobby toward us, the click of her Louboutin pumps echoing off the walls as if to announce their mistresses arrival.

She held herself like a high-powered CEO, and all the demons and souls seemed to give her space as she passed as if afraid to get in her way.

“And that will be Nyx,” Lucifer murmured. “I warn you, there may be tears.”

No sooner than the warning was out of his mouth, Nyx flung herself at me and wrapped her arms tight around my neck, making it hard to breathe. “Oh! It is you. Oh, Lilith. I’ve missed you so.”

I stiffened in her arms, and she pulled away, tears streaming down her moon-pale cheeks. She was absolutely stunning, with gray eyes and long black hair the color of midnight. She almost looked familiar, and a second later, it dawned on me. She looked just like Lilith from Lucifer’s memory of Limbo. Only Nyx had fewer curves and was much taller.

“I’m sorry, I’m not sure…” This was awkward. I looked to Lucifer for help. Was everyone here going to think I was this Lilith person? Whatever I had to do to get home, I guess.

“Nyx, this is Jessica. She’s a nurse and my date for the weekend,” Lucifer explained.

Nyx blinked at the devil. “Right, but—”

He reached out, brushing his palm against her temple just like he’d done with me when he’d shown me his memories. The demoness’s eyes went blank for a moment, her pupils swelling, then a few moments, she stepped away, casting me an apologetic, if not slightly heartbroken, look. “I’m so sorry, Jessica. You must be so confused after all you’ve been through. Know that you’re safe here.”

She wrapped her arms tight around her clipboard and beamed at Lucifer, nothing but respect in her gaze. All the demons, and even some of the human souls milling about, kept casting him glances, like freaking Oprah had landed in the building.

“Nyx is Lilith’s sister, Jessica.”

“Oh,” was all I could say. Now the teary-eyed reception made sense. She thought I was her dead sister, a sister she hadn’t seen in hundreds if not thousands of years. I had always been an only child, so I couldn’t really identify with whatever it was she had to be going through. But my heart still ached for her. She seemed nice…for a demoness.

“I imagine that you don’t want me accompanying you on the rest of your tour but at least let me show you Downtown.”

“Downtown?” I asked.

“Yes, Downtown is what we refer to the rest of this level. The hotel, The Hell Hound Cafe, and Club Lust are all just in this building. We have an entire city of sin that puts your realm’s Las Vegas to shame.”

Lucifer grinned. “Yes, It’s like comparing a McDonald’s Play Place to Disneyland. But we’ll have to show her the rest of Downtown another time, Nyx. We’re on a bit of a time crunch, I’m afraid. You can accompany us to The Hell Hound, however. I’d like the table at the top of the tower. Have Cerberus prepare her some of his soup. She likes his minestrone.”

The demoness gave a dutiful nod and pulled her phone out of her skirt pocket, her French tips clicking away at the screen. “Yes, Sire.”

Normally I would never allow a man to order for me, but I let Lucifer off the hook, considering he’d done nothing more than read my mind. I was starving, and I would kill for another bowl of Cerberus’s bomb minestrone.

Nyx walked us through the lobby into the piano bar. An Elvis impersonator was seated at the piano, playing “I Can’t Help Falling in Love with You,” whose soulful, baritone voice was almost uncanny to the King’s. “Wow, he’s…good.”

Lucifer’s purring chuckle resonated with the slow, sweet melody of the tune. “That’s no impersonator, Kitten. That’s really him. He always plays here on Saturday nights. Sinatra on Monday and Bowie on Fridays.”

“What, no Michael Jackson in that lineup?” I said asked with a nervous chuckle.

“No,” Nyx answered before Lucifer, her lips pursing in thought. “No, I believe he went to the other place… We tried to get him down here put Paradise threw a little fit like they always do. Thinking their boring little amphitheater in their Silver City is good enough for modern musicians.” She huffed an indignant snort. “I hear their acoustics are a joke.”

“Oh…”

“You’re taking this very well, Kitten,” Lucifer observed as we walked down a hallway, passing a cluster of women all dressed up like they had come straight out of the fifties. One of which I was pretty sure was Marilyn Monroe. “Hi, Lucifer,” she greeted him with a flirtatious wink, other girls giggling like a bunch of Xanax-induced hyenas as they hurried off toward the piano bar.

“I’m not really sure I’m buying into any of this,” I admitted through a frown. “For all I know, I’m still dreaming. Or you drugged me, and I’m hallucinating.”

He arched his brows. “You know it’s not any of those things.”

“Yeah, well, at least let me pretend.” Logical Jessica needed to pretend this all had a reasonable explanation behind it.

Nyx led us down a hallway toward a large doorway with a glowing pink fluorescent sign reading “Lust.”

The club wasn’t terribly unlike Siren’s. In fact, it was almost identical in branding, with the same color pallet of pink, red, and black and even the same furniture. The only thing different here was there was no old church or stained glass windows, and the dancers didn’t wear plastic horns. The succubi in Lust were all in their true, demonic forms, with their real horns decorated in glittering rhinestones and tassels to match the accessories they wore on their nude, scaled bodies.

”They really are succubi,” I breathed.

“Mhm, we have plenty of incubi working here too,” Nyx added, her voice a gravely purr as a male demon with yellow skin walked by, wearing nothing but tiny silk briefs that left little to the imagination.

She led us up a flight of stairs to the second level. A sign declared this was “The Hellhound Café,” which had to be Cerberus’s restaurant. My tummy began to rumble with all the delicious smells as I spied on the dishes of the patrons seated at the tables scattered around us. Instead of stopping to take a seat here, we continued up a spiral staircase threaded through a tower that sat at the center of the restaurant. The very top opened up to an observation deck where only a handful of tables sat, all of them empty. At the center of the tower’s platform was a bar, where a familiar face was hurriedly preparing drinks.

“Cerberus!”

The wiry-haired chef beamed at us as he took the drinks and hurried out from behind the bar with so much zeal he almost spilled the alcohol. “Hello again, My Lady!”

Nyx seated us at a table for two beside the floor-to-ceiling windows that wrapped all the way around the platform, giving us a view of Downtown. It was dark outside. Too dark. The only thing penetrating the inky void were the bright lights of the various buildings, including what looked to be a Ferris wheel. It was storming outside, rain pelting down on the glass, making for a peaceful ambiance that drowned out the chatter of the busy dining room below us.

“There is no moon here,” Lucifer said, taking the old fashioned Cerberus offered him.

I guess there wouldn’t be since we were in the Underworld. Nyx excused herself with another hug and left, with Cerberus in tow to fetch the soup.

“Are you ready for the next memory, Jessica?” Lucifer asked, carefully watching my every reaction as I gazed out the window. My attention shifted from the city outside to my own reflection that stared back at me in the glass, the dark cityscape making the window highly reflective of the lights inside the restaurant. Already, this trip had me asking questions I thought I already knew the answer to. Like who was the devil, really? And was Hell really such a bad place, or had humanity gotten it all backward?

And the biggest question of all, though, was how did I fit into all this?

Stealing my nerves, I took a sip of Cerberus’s old fashioned and sighed. “Well, shit. Your dog makes a better drink than you, Lucifer.”

The devil’s eyes blazed with hellfire, burning me up from the inside out. “I should spank you for that, Ms. Sims.”

My pussy clenched at his threat, and both sets of my cheeks flushed at the wicked thought. “I’m ready for the memory.”