Bound By Lucifer by Aiden Pierce

Chapter Twenty-Four

Jessica

The Inferno Elevator – Present

Instead of taking the elevator, we had driven through the Mire of Gluttons on the third floor, the entire trip downhill, and when Lucifer’s memory of the Fourth Circle ended, we were already on the outskirts of its deserts.

The car came to a stop at yet another parking garage, this one completely empty. It looked eerie standing in the desert with absolutely nothing around it, save for the stretch of sand below it and the blanket of sunless red sky overhead.

Lucifer guided the car into the first level and pulled into the middle of the garage, ignoring the painted parking slots. Not that it mattered. There was no one else here. He cut the engine, and the doors of the DeLorean slid open.

I got out, refusing to meet his eyes. My heart was pounded hard in my head, and it was all I could do to keep from screaming. So far, his memories had been a rollercoaster of emotion for me.

Was I really Lilith?

Could I possibly be this demon queen he’d loved so long ago?

Had we really trudged through Hell together, rebuilding it as we went? Despite his inability to trust everything his instincts were telling him, he loved Lilith dearly, even before he claimed her as his own mate. It was hard to fathom that such pure, raw, blistering love might have once been mine.

Losing something that was such an integral part of my being would have left a giant fucking hole in my heart. Whether I remembered it or not.

Maybe that was the void Reckless Jess was always on a mad search to fill.

No.

It was something I still refused to accept. I was just a nurse, a human. A girl trying to live her life and pay her bills and hold onto her dad as long as possible. I wasn’t a queen.

No matter how much Lilith reminded me of myself, I couldn’t be that woman. I couldn’t dare dream that this man she had conquered Hell with could also be mine.

My emotions were a heady mess. Even though it was Lucifer’s memories, I was somehow feeling her emotions. I knew her joy, her pride when she’d taken Abaddon down, her excitement every time Lucifer looked at her with something akin to love glittering in his beautiful golden eyes.

And in that moment, above all, I felt her anger. I had seen some fucked up shit in Lucifer’s memories. But none of it surprised me. I hated to admit it, but it almost felt like I had seen it all before. It was the same sensation I got when I rewatched a sitcom rerun that I was sure I had seen before, but it had been so long since I’d watched it that I forgot all the details of the plot. Still, I knew the characters and their flaws, and I knew what couple I was rooting for even if I had already seen the episode where they got together. Going back and watching the important parts of their relationship was…nice. It made me feel closer to them even though the characters were fake and there was no hope of me ever meeting them.

Even though they existed in someone else’s mind, it still felt like they were a part of me.

I could still cheer for them. Still cry for them. Still hurt for them.

And at that moment, I was hurting for Lilith. Abaddon had hurt her in the past, and seeing the heinous demon he once was struck a soft part of my being that I didn’t even know was there. Yeah, so he was a raging asshole. I knew that from the second I saw him outside of Siren’s. Maybe it was the fact that he flirted with me, especially after he shared Lucifer’s belief in thinking I was Lilith. He’d smiled and called me his queen and took pleasure in watching me squirm under his comments.

He was more than an asshole. He was downright evil. And the fact that Lucifer kept him around, even after all he’d put Lilith through, was sitting with me as well as a week-old burrito at the bottom of my stomach.

“Hey, wait,” Lucifer called to me as I stomped out of the car, cursing its stupid high-tech doors for robbing me of the satisfaction of slamming a car door in anger. My name on his lips froze me where I was, standing just before the elevator door. But I didn’t turn around, didn’t turn to meet his gaze. I didn’t want him to see the tears that burned my eyes.

“You’re angry,” he said after a very tense second crawled by on hands and knees.

“Why did you show me that?” My voice wavered with my tears, giving them away even if he couldn’t see them.

He walked around the car and planted himself in front of me, blocking my path to the elevator. “Because I thought it was important for you to see that no one can stand in our way. Besides, I believed you were under the impression that I was the one to put Abaddon in his place. I only did that the first time we met, and that’s when I took his crown. You were the one to teach him that you weren’t his toy anymore. You not only held your own, Jessica; you pulled out his fucking intestines and made him wear it.”

Lucifer raked his fingers through his dark locks, his shoulders shaking with a laugh as if he still couldn’t believe it after all these years. “Abaddon never tried to take you or the crown back after that. It was difficult earning his loyalty after you were gone, but it would have probably been a whole hell of a lot harder if it wasn’t for that little scar you gave him as a memento. And from that point on, I think he respected you as a queen and knew he couldn’t handle you or the throne.”

My belly simmered with anger. I shook my head, my gaze affixed to the concrete floor of the parking garage. “You don’t get it. Can’t you read my mind or something? Read my damn mind so you can get it through your skull how upset I am with you.”

There was another minute of silence, so tensely quietly I could hear my own heartbeat slamming in my ears. Lucifer pulled in a slow, steady breath of air then let it back out again. The hot rush of air ticked my face, making my cheeks hot.

“No, Kitten. I can’t decipher your thoughts when they’re in a big damn tangle like this. Use your words and tell me exactly what I’ve done to wrong you so.”

I jerked my chin up, my gaze snapping together with his for the first time since the Third Circle. My heart pulsated in my chest, Reckless Jessica making the juncture between my thighs drip with lust from the intense way he regarded me.

“I’m not your damn kitten. Stop calling me that. I’m not Lilith. Now take me to this next miserable memory so we can get this over with and I can go home. I never want to see you again.”

His full lips curved downward into a pained frown that tugged at my chest. Fuck. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to steady my breath. I hated him.

Liar, Reckless Jessica growled at me.

Shut up, I hissed at her internally. I hate you even more. I hate how much you’re loving every second of this. I hate that you’re actually buying into this entire crazy nightmare. I hate that you love him.

Liar, she repeated in my ear with a smug purr.

I was thankful that Lucifer wasn’t in my head at that moment because I don’t know what I’d do if he’d heard that little exchange with my inner self. Like a damn crazy person.

Maybe I was crazy. I wasn’t Lilith, so why was my anger toward the demon burning me up on the inside like he had personally wronged me? I felt for Lilith, but would I really be feeling this way if I truly believed that she was one hundred percent dead and gone?

“There are so many things I don’t understand about you, Lucifer. But now I’m completely at a loss for words.”

His brow creased with a V, his golden eyes glittering with confusion. “What is the matter?”

I let out an exasperated scoff. “He is the matter. Fucking Abaddon! I knew he was a jerk, but—” I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to hold back more tears. “You heard what he said. Those words. He hurt me—he hurt Lilith,” I quickly corrected. “He said those horrible things about you using her as if she were just another thing to be used, like the crown. He treated his queen like a hole to fuck and nothing more. And he only ever wanted her in her demon form when he did it. That’s why she hated her beast so much. It reminded her of him.”

Lucifer gripped my chin. I tried to rip it away, but he wouldn’t let go, his fingers gentle yet stronger than anything I’d ever felt against me. “Look at me, Jessica.”

With a thick swallow, I did. I opened my eyes and stared straight into his. My heart crystallized in my chest the moment I saw a smile lurking at the corner of his lips. No matter how soft and kind that smile, he shouldn’t be fucking grinning at my pain.

“Stop fucking smiling! You have some damn nerve, mocking my pain. How you could be his friend after the things he did to me. I get you’re the devil, but you’re supposed to love me. So you go befriend my abuser?” My voice came out shrill, and my pulse pounded so fast I thought I might throw up my heart for a second.

“Jessica…” My name was so sweet on his lips, so perfect. Spoken with reverence, like a prayer. It sent a bolt of searing anger and confusion through me, with all the grace of a deadly lightning strike. I shoved him as hard as I could, a cry of half frustration, half anguish slipping past my lips. He didn’t budge. Instead, he held onto my wrists, keeping them braced against his chest.

“Jessica… Listen to what you’re saying. What he did to you? Your abuser?”

Lucifer held my head and began to stroke my hair. “You’re beginning to remember.” Now his voice was choked with emotion. “Thank The Fates.”

“No,” I lied. At least it felt like a lie. I wasn’t sure what to believe anymore. My head was filled with memories, half my own, half Lilith’s. They weren’t good memories. They were horrible and dark, and they felt like weights on my heart. I sagged against him, sobbing.

He wrapped his arms around me, and we slid to the ground together, a tangle of limbs and hot tears. He consoled me by stroking my hair, his ever-steady smile infuriatingly comforting.

“I’m so confused, Lucifer…” I blinked back my tears and pulled away to look at him, an epiphany lighting up my nerves like a dynamite fuse. “Wait. We knew from Lilith’s memories that she hated to shift, but we didn’t really know why. She never said it was because Abaddon made her lie with him in her true form, did she?”

His head shook, his beautiful features wearing a somber expression. “We haven’t visited that one yet. You dug up that memory your own. Your memories are coming back, Kitten. I’m just sad that the first one was of Abaddon.”

I sobbed at the name. I could feel the archdemon’s hands on me, his gray scales rubbing against my pink ones. His hot breath, his cruel laugh.

Maybe Lucifer was looking into my mind, seeing flashes of the cold and bitter memories of him in my head because at that moment, he looked so fucking angry, almost disgusted with himself.

“I didn’t know the depths to which he hurt you. You hid those memories from me. You hid them so well… I would have killed him if I’d known that he forced you like that.” His voice broke, weak under the weight of his anguish.

“How could you trust a monster like him?”

Another shake of Lucifer’s head, his face frozen in an expression of aghast with the horror this discovery had brought on. “He—swore his loyalty to me. He helped me find you… I can’t read his mind, and you hid your past with him so well.”

Lucifer’s voice waived. He ran a hand over his face, and when it dropped into his lap, his golden eyes gleamed with murder. “I’ll kill him. I don’t care how loyal he’s been, how much time has passed. I’ll fucking kill him.” His voice was lethal and sent a shiver through me.

His gaze turned soft when his pupils focused on me. He raised his fingertips to my cheeks, barely touching them, yet they stained red beneath the whisper of his touch. “Please forgive me. I’ll kill him once we return to the surface. I’ll shed the blood of anyone if it means earning back your love, your trust.” He gripped a lock of my hair in his shaking fist and put his nose to it, making a tearless sob into the blonde strands. “I’ll burn the whole fucking world down if you asked me to, Jessica.”

My heart ached for him, almost as if I could feel his pain. And on some level, I could. His hatred for Abaddon rivaled my own, palpable in the air and leaving my tongue heavy with the taste of ash.

“No, you wouldn’t,” I choked out on a bitter laugh through my torrent of tears. “You like to think you’re the villain because that’s the box your dad and your brother placed you in. But they were wrong. It’s why Lilith followed you through Hell. Before her beast ever resonated with you. She knew you were her true king long before she knew you were her true mate.”

He lifted his head, his Adam’s apple twitching with a swallow, no doubt upset that I was still speaking in the third person. That I wasn’t fully acknowledging all the brutal facts being laid at my feet. He held my hand and threaded his fingers through mine, then lifted my hand to his mouth to plant a tender kiss on my knuckles. I shivered as his breath feathered over my skin, sending goosebumps up my arm.

“You understand you wouldn’t know these things if you were anyone but my queen? Right, love?”

He was right. Even Sane Jess couldn’t argue with what Reckless Jess had bought into the second the devil started selling the fantasy. At this point, I was balancing on a precipice, caught up in a war. On one side, Jessica. The twenty-six-year-old nurse who’d been raised in a single-parent household. Loved baseball and too much booze on the weekends. Then there was Lilith, that ancient demon shifter, Queen of the Underworld. The demoness who loathed her beast and who fell in love with a disgraced angel and helped him rebuild Hell.

Which one was I?

Could I really be both?

“I still need to see more. But I’m going to be honest here. I don’t know how much more I can handle.”

“Alright…” He hauled himself to his feet and helped me up, jabbing a finger into the elevator button. He gathered me in his arms and helped me into the elevator. I didn’t need help walking. My limbs were still shaking, but for now, I was pushing Abaddon to the far reaches of my mind. Still, it seemed the devil was using any excuse to maintaining contact with me, now that I was allowing it.

The crazy thing was, his touch made me feel better, soothing away the jagged edges that were the pieces of Lilith’s memory before she had met him.

“Nyx?”

The intercom clicked, and the voice of Lilith’s sister answered a second later. “Yes, Sire?”

“Take us to the fifth floor.”

“Right away, Sire. “There was a pause from Nyx’s end. “May I ask how it’s coming along with…Jessica?

He cast a glance at me, worry etched into the corners of his eyes. “I believe things are starting to come back to her.”

“Really?” There was a hopeful lilt in Nyx’s tone. This time, her voice was having a different effect on me than it had when I’d seen her in the second circle. My heart lifted, a swell of butterflies filling my stomach.

I had just seen her a few hours ago, yet it felt like years, like I had known her for ages and… And I somehow…missed her. I missed her so much my throat tightened, and my legs turned to jelly beneath me. I leaned against Lucifer for support, his scent of leather and whiskey enveloping me like a blanket and calming my nerves.

He dropped his gaze to mine, the heat and love banked in his golden depths causing my breath to hitch. “Do you want to talk to her?”

Swallowing, I gave a slow nod. “Yeah. Um… Nyx?”

“Yes?” her voice came through, oozing with hope and joy and so much emotion. All from a single syllable.

“Uh, can you tell me what your relationship with Lilith was like? What was it like growing up with her?”

“We were very close. Born of darkness and chaos. So, so long ago. It was awful back then. Back when demons were hardly more than animals. Our parents weren’t around, and for the longest time, all we had was each other.

“I remember when I had my triplets. I knew from the clairvoyant dreams they gave me that they weren’t going to be normal. Birthing them lasted…” her voice tightened at the memory. “Eons. You were there with me through every excruciating second. When I first held them, they were so small, yet they seemed to have this sort of aura around them that made the whole realm hold their breath until they drew their firsts. Then, they looked at me, and I could see the whole world staring right back at me through their eyes. I was terrified. Then, you squeezed my hand and smiled and cracked a joke. I’d just given birth to three little girls who could see from the beginning of time all the way to the dark death of the universe. And you cracked a damn joke, Lil.”

Nyx was chuckling to herself, and I didn’t correct her when she used her pet name for her sister. It didn’t seem right correcting her. “I’ll never forget what you said next. ‘Of course, you can see the whole world when you look at them. You’re their mother.’

“You had always been like that. Looking death and doom and terror dead in the eyes and then flipping it off with a smile.”

I closed my eyes as she spoke, imagining every detail of that night. My sister’s screams. Her throat dry and cracked as she entered into yet another hour of her unholy labor. I had held her hand through it all as a demon witch of the Hecate bloodline eased her through the birth. An entire civilization could have rose and fell for all I knew by the time the first girl arrived. When her fingers curled around my finger and I stared into her eyes, I could see a glimpse of my own future. A tall man with lush lips that would please any female. A masculine form too slender for a demon, too imposing for a soul. Hair as dark as the Abyss and golden eyes filled with promise. It was in the eyes of my newborn niece, the oldest of The Fates, that I saw my whole future.

The memory penetrated an armor I hadn’t even known I was wearing, striking a chord deep inside.

Tears smothered my vision, and Lucifer’s form blurred. “I remember…” My knees buckled beneath me and my back slammed into the elevator. I clutched my head in my hands, thick, swollen sobs catching in my throat. “I remember. I remember.”