“Did you claim your dance?” he asked, folding his arms as Belial came back out through the door.
“Not yet.” Lucifer jerked his head at Belial. “Let’s go.”
She rolled her eyes and headed off into a patch of shadow that wasdarker than it should’ve been. Lucifer was about to follow her when Asmodeus grabbed his arm, his gray eyes serious.
“It’s not like you, Luci.”
Lucifer took a deep breath. “I know.”
“She smells wrong.”
“I know.”
“Levi’s going to want to get rid of her.”
Fucking hell. “As, Iknow. We’re going to figure it out.”
“You think she’s here for the artifact?”
It never felt right calling it that, like teeth grinding into glass, but they couldn’t very well call it what it was anywhere that humans might overhear. “I don’t know, As. We’ll find out.”
Asmodeus nodded and let go of his arm. Lucifer stepped into the patch of shadow, and the darkness consumed him lovingly.
Belial was pacing in their parlor by the window, her boots clacking against the black walnut floor. As soon as Lucifer entered, she whirled around and narrowed her eyes. “You smell like her,” she pointed out. “It’s faint, like you tried to hide it, but it’s there.”
Lucifer sighed and collapsed into a leather armchair. “I wasn’t trying to hide it. I just wasn’t planning on announcing it to everyone.”
His prince looked horrified. “What did you do?” Her face brightened hopefully and her nostrils flared. “Is it her blood?”
He dropped his head back and closed his eyes. “No, Belial, it’s not.”
“Lucifer.” He heard the matching armchair creak as she sat in it. “I need you to tell me what the fuck is going on. Do we have a security issue?”
If this was a few thousand years ago, Belial would’ve never dared to speak to him like that. Lucifer had been different then—cruel and unforgiving, still much of an angel despite everything. Things had changed.Hehad changed. There were so many forms of power available to entities like them, a menu of possibilities like faces or skins or weapons, whatever you wanted to pick up and use. Fear was always the most popularone, but frankly, it got boring after endless eons. At some point, Lucifer had decided to try something else—to let his princes have more of a say, to be accountable to them, to share his power. He didn’t have to. They knew he didn’t have to, and that was what made it so much more impactful when he said he would and then hedid, and their world had restructured around his choice. Now his princes followed him not for fear or force or fire, but for a burning loyalty. None of them called it love out loud, but they didn’t need to.
Lucifer still marveled at it, that even as he stared into Belial’s face, there was true concern there, and it was forhim. He might never really deserve it. She was right about Galilee—he needed to give Belial all the information he had available because somethingwasgoing on with Galilee, something serious, and it was dangerously unpredictable, especially in such proximity to the artifact.
“She’s not human,” he said.
Belial went silent in a way that was too quiet.
Lucifer didn’t blame her. It sounded bad when he said it out loud too. What were the chances of something inhuman showing up and trying to gain access to the artifact, to the point of cutting an unnecessary deal with him? He probably would’ve let the spoiled princess in eventually, but Galilee had jumped in with a bargain, like she couldn’t lose the chance to see it. Lucifer had known something was off then, so he’d deliberately separated her from the others. Belial would pick all that up from Asmodeus’s report, but what Lucifer had done afterward had... complicated things. He reported it back to Belial as starkly as he could: the burning of her touch and his eyes going black in response, that he’d kissed her and called up the smoke, that he’d eaten her out, that he’d given her his name.
When he was done, he opened his eyes and turned to look at Belial. She was completely motionless and staring away from him, but her eyes were aflame, and Lucifer knew she was barely controlling her rage.
“I know Levi will want to kill her,” he began.
Belial whipped her head around. “Levi isgoingto kill her,” she clarified with a snarl. “And I’m not going to do a fucking thing to stop him.”
She was adorable when she was furious. “Belial, come on.”
His prince sprang up from her chair. “Are you out of your fucking mind, Luci? You gave her yourname.”
“I give everyone my name.” He’d been going by Lucifer Helel among the humans for years now. “None of them take it seriously.”
“Because we avoid anyone who might know enough to notice thatyou’re the fucking Devil!” Belial was roaring now, and paint shook down from the ceiling. “You don’t see us walking into the Vatican with demon eyes and clouds of smoke, because that would be a fuckingproblem, Lucifer! Andtheyare mostly humans.Sheis not.Shewasn’t surprised by a goddamn thing you did, which means she knows far more than she should, which means she shouldn’t be anywherenearthe artifact. And she cut a deal with you just so she could see it? Luci, she isliterallya breach waiting to happen.”
A silken voice cut in. “Who are we talking about, exactly?”
