Bound By Lucifer by Aiden Pierce

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Jessica

Museum of Violence – Present

Remission. It was a miracle of a word, music to my ears. I had never been into the whole God thing, but I had stilled prayed for it. I prayed, and the devil had been the one to answer.

I spun around, my own eyes wild with hope. “You mean…?”

The corner of his mouth tugged up into a honied smirk. “A deal is a deal, Kitten. I always keep my promises.”

“But I thought you said you needed something of equal value,” I squeaked, my eyes watering with emotion. “I didn’t sign the contract.”

“Forget the contract. That was just a way to easily compel you so that I could get you to the Underworld without a fight. I asked for your heart instead, remember?”

I gave a weak nod. “I remember.”

“I wasn’t just talking about the kiss you’d given me. As sweet as that was, it wasn’t enough. I needed your whole heart.”

“Meaning…?”

He held my head in his hands and tilted it back, so our gazes locked. “Meaning, it was your love I needed in order to heal your father. And now that he’s in remission, it’s your love that I have.”

“Why didn’t you tell me it was ‘my love’ you needed?”

“Because then our little play session before dinner would have turned into a full-on reenactment of that night our beasts bonded on the second layer. As much as I would have liked that, I wanted you to remember who I was first. In any case, as delicious as your body is, that’s not what I meant by love. I needed your whole heart in order to pull off the trade.”

His arms tightened around my waist possessively, and his teeth grazed along the shell of my ear, causing me to inhale a sharp breath. “I needed you and the demon still inside you to know deep in your heart that you are mine.”

His words filled me with flames that licked at my core.

The devil had kept his word. My dad would be okay. I didn’t have to sell my soul to do it. Because according to him, he already had that.

He had all of it.

My soul.

My heart.

His tongue slipped from his lips and dragged over the delicate flesh of my throat, tasting the heavy thrum of my pulse. “And your body,” he rasped in my ear.

“I don’t remember giving you that,” I teased. “Maybe we should watch another memory in Lust?”

He flashed me a heated grin, his dark chuckle tickling my skin. “I’d rather make a new memory. But first I’d like you to look into the last pool, Kitten. I want you to get a glimpse of your future.”

My heart clenched at the idea of seeing any fragment of my future with Lucifer entwined in it. But curiosity was burning me up, so I stepped out of his embrace toward the third pool and peered inside.

“Step into the water, Kitten.” He directed from behind. “Ask the pool what it is you want to see.”

Kicking off my Louboutins, I grasped my skirt and tugged it up to step inside the pool. Wading to its center, cool water lapped at my ankles and soaked into the lower hem of the Alexander McQueen dress.

My breath came out in erratic, shaky pulses as I thought on what I wanted the pool to show me. I’d seen enough movies to know that peeking into the future was risky business. Even with all my memories slamming back home, there were questions about the future that the past couldn’t answer. Mainly, what now? Lucifer was mine. My opinions of him as Sane Jessica, my human side now, came together with Reckless Jessica’s feelings, my beast, united by the bridge of memories from both lifetimes.

It created a mess of emotions that sat low in my belly, prodding my core like a million hot pokers.

“Pool… Show me what I do about Lucifer.”

The surface of the water shivered as if a stiff breeze had swept through the museum. Then a scene appeared that sent a flood of heady heat coursing through me, making my stomach swirl with need and my skin flush to Lucifer’s favorite color.

There, on the water’s surface, was a scene just as I was now, standing in the pool. The only difference was this had to be mere minutes in the future. Because Lucifer was standing in the water with me, right behind me. My dress was pulled up over my hips with my bare ass out and pressed against his groin. He had one hand wrapped so delicately around my throat, his fingertips pressed against my jawline and his thumb on my jugular. It was a possessive hold that had me burning with the most delicious fire, turning my core molten.

Then I was completely naked.

His other hand curved my bare hip, holding me flush to him. My skin was coated in a thin sheet of sweet, washed with the glow of the museum lighting. My nipples pebbled as rosy red as my cheeks. His belt was undone, and from this angle, I couldn’t see the point of penetration, but from the lusty glaze in my eyes and the not so gentle thrust of his hips, he was inside me, fucking me. Fucking me hard.

The glimpse into our very immediate future must have caught Lucifer by surprise, too, judging by the sharp inhale he made behind me. Then, an erotic, masculine growl slithered up from his throat, sliding over me like a lover’s caress. His jaw flexed, the muscles in his shoulder went taut, and his pupils dilated, fixing on me with a hunger in them that shook me to my core. He looked like a starving man that hadn’t know a meal in centuries, an ancient predator that hadn’t tasted meat in eons, a devil who hadn’t known the inside of a woman in centuries.

He didn’t even bother kicking off his shoes. He stepped into the fountain and slowly prowled towards me, eating up that precious distance between us. My heart lurched into my throat, and butterflies erupted in my stomach.

“Stop,” my voice splintered.

I wanted him. It almost scared me how much I wanted him. I was at war with myself. Jessica and Lilith. Human and demon. Nurse and Queen of Hell. Who was I? What was I?

Lucifer stopped where he was in the water, his expression calm, but his eyes were wild with something that sent a thrill through me.

“This is confusing, I know,” he murmured, the soft purr of his voice comforting like a blanket or like…minestrone soup. It soothed my muscles and filled me with familiar warmth. “But just because you remember who you once were, doesn’t mean you have to stop being Jessica. I don’t expect you to be exactly the same as you were all those years ago. We have both evolved and changed. Time and circumstances have broken us apart, but now that we’ve found one another, we can continue to change and evolve together. If you want to be called Jessica, or Lilith, if you want to keep your old life, that’s your choice to make. All that matters to me is that you always remember that you are mine, Kitten. Your heart belongs to me.”

My heart, the one that belonged to him, beat so hard in my chest, it was as if it agreed with him. He’d said it himself. The King of Hell’s miracles came with a stipulation. He can only pull off a feat such as curing my dad’s cancer by receiving something of equal value. My heart, no, my love. And he had it. He’d always had it.

Watching the memories of Lilith and Lucifer had made me so jealous, seeing how they loved each other. Now that I knew Lilith was me, I just felt so incredibly miserable, knowing how much heartache he’d been through over the years. I’d not existing through much of it, then when I’d been reborn, I hadn’t remembered. But he hadn’t any such luxury. How many lifetimes had passed while he searched for me? How many nights had he spent in his empty bed, thinking of me?

“Stop that,” he whispered on a shaky breath. He took a step closer. “Stop feeling sorry for me.”

“You’ve spent so long searching for me, Lucifer.”

“I have. And it’s all been worth it for this moment. Get it out of your head that I have spent countless lonely nights wallowing in misery over your absence. Our time together before you were stolen from me— Those memories have kept me moving, knowing that there would come a day that I could begin making new memories with you. They filled me with hope, not pain.”

He was smiling again, that infernal smirk that filled me with hellfire. “I want to make new memories, starting now.”

His gaze dropped to the lascivious scene in the water, parts of our entangled bodies broken up by the movement of the pond’s surface. “It seems like you do too.”

I sniffed. “But I’m not the same person as I was before. I’m not a demon shifter anymore. I’m just a human.”

“I’ve never loved you because of your demon form, Kitten. You were never really fond of it anyway. Your beast is still with you. She still makes you, you.”

He took another step, then another. There wasn’t much space left between us at all. He was so close now I could feel his heat fanning over me, his hot breath washing over my bare shoulders and making my skin tingle.

He canted his head, his golden stare banked with love and admiration. “You know what hasn’t changed about you? While others shy away from their fear, you bend it the fuck over and make it your bitch. I’ve always loved that about you.”

My breath hitched in my chest. I could hardly breathe, but for some reason, I didn’t really need air anymore. In that moment, Lucifer Morningstar, the devil himself, was my new life source.

I wanted him desperately. I wanted the king who’d rebuilt Hell by my side. I wanted the broken devil who still mourned for his wings, who still wanted his father’s love even though he pretended he didn’t. I wanted the beast inside him who drove my inner demon mad with need.

As much as I hated Abaddon, he’d hit the nail right on the head that night outside Siren’s. Like a moth to a flame, I had found my light. His fire would turn me to ash, and from my ruin, I would rise as that fearless queen he spent centuries hunting.

Then his arms were around me, drawing me close into his muscled heat. His heart beat against my chest felt as familiar as my own. The scene in the water faded, as did the museum’s dim track lighting and the reflection of our portrait mounted on the wall. He held my chin, his touch bleeding devotion, and leaned down to lower his lips to mine in a searing kiss that scraped my very soul.

And just like that, the void I’d lived with for so long was finally filled.