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Never to be doubted. He’d never needed to doubt Her. She was Dona and every woman who’d let Light into their souls to love a man with all they had. All he’d ever wanted was to love a woman unconditionally, freely, and receive this gift in return. So that he’d never know loneliness and abandonment again.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. ”
“I know. ” Her touch along his body was warm and simple, like a blanket. “You have to find the courage to make the choice. You belong together. She needs you, maybe even more than you need her. ”
He didn’t have that kind of courage. He knew he didn’t. Like a man with a terminal disease, only of the mind instead of the body, he knew where he would fail.
If he destroyed Dona, he knew without being told he’d damn himself forever. There were things that were beyond unforgivable. Meaning unfixable, and destroying one half of yourself, the best half, would certainly fall in that category.
“Find the quiet place in yourself, the center. Let down all your shields and simply be. Accept what is. To pay for your transgressions, you have to be willing to accept that payment will be made. You have to forgive yourself. ” He thought of the tree where he’d hidden his treasures, thought of laying down a carpet of soft pine needles for Dona there. Her fingers would caress his head, his ears and jaw, pressing him down between her legs to make him service her. The trees above would be layers of blues and green like Eden, the peace of nature all around. With the passion he’d bring the peace. Part of him acting as a lover, suckling her cunt, the other part of him like a son worshipping at the Mother’s womb, both aspects bringing fulfillment.
The fire-like glow and the feel of the cold stone returned. He was there with just Lucifer, the Lady’s presence like a lullaby fading as he woke from sleep. Nathan pushed himself to his hands and knees, breathing deeply, hearing a silence in himself he’d never heard. A place of quiet, terrible truth.
“I have to go to Hell, don’t I?”
“I think so, yes. ” Lucifer answered him. “But that is your choice. You have performed well enough in Redemption to earn the right to another body. ” A body with a soul still infected with enough corruption that he could simply end up here again. He could feel the darkness in him, confused but waiting to reorganize as soon as doubt, guilt and rage crept in.
“The time in Hell will be bad. You will pay through direct punishment for all that you’ve done to others. It will be far more than the pain you’ve suffered thus far. There is much of Jonathan in you still, so getting rid of his influence will not be pleasant. It will be agony. ”
Despair and pain knocked him back to the cold stone. It was every bad, anxious feeling he’d ever had magnified a thousand times, fears and terrors of the night he couldn’t even imagine crowding in on him. He thrashed, struck out. Abruptly he was back on the cold stone, huddled in a fetal ball, sick to his stomach but unable to retch.
Lucifer regarded him with a dispassionate eye. “That was barely a tenth of what you will feel and I gave it to you for a blink of time. Do you still wish to undertake this course?”
Nathan managed to respond, his voice hoarse. “If I go to Hell, will she be safe from me?”
“Safer than if you don’t. ”
He had his answer. She needs you.
“How long in Hell…” Nathan forced his lips to ask the question.
“As long as I deem necessary. You won’t know how long. Only when it begins and when it is over. ”
“When it’s over…Dona? How long…?”
For the first time, Lucifer hesitated. “The soul has no memory of its mate after Hell.
Not at first. You won’t remember her. Not for a long time. ” It was an effort like lifting the weight of the world, but he put one foot back beneath him, then the other. Stood up. “We’ll still be
soul mates?”
“It may be many lives before you recognize her as such. But, yes. ”
Surely time could be folded here, a thousand years to one minute on Earth. Science fiction couldn’t be that far off from the truth.
As Lucifer considered him, Nathan knew that the Being wasn’t likely to respond well to such a persuasion. He thought hard, aching, needing her now. “May I keep her marks?” He directed his gaze to his piercings. “Can I have the compulsion to put them on myself when I’m older? To help me remember her?”
“It will not help. ”
“So what’s the harm?”
He felt a blast of heat and sulfur that made his knees tremble. He locked them, tried to at least stay steady even if he couldn’t meet the powerful Being’s gaze.
“You’re as stubborn as she is. ” Lucifer snorted. “Fine. ” Pain could clarify as well as heal. Didn’t a submissive know that better than anyone? Nathan tried to focus on what he knew instead of the fear, the realization he was about to do something which was far over his head, the knowledge of it reflected in those powerful eyes. What was important was what would best serve his Mistress.
Bring him to her side more quickly. She needed him. The Lady had said so.
“So I’m guaranteed nothing. ” He said it without censure.
