Levi spoke and his voice was harsh. “It doesn’tmatterif she is an innocent, Luci. She dies anyway.” His mouth twisted. “What is one mortal to the son of the morning?”
What indeed.
Galilee wasn’t human, but she could die and it would be easy. No new variables, no unfamiliar threats to the artifact. She would never touch him again. Lucifer would never burn like this again; that much he knew. He would never feel the thrilling excruciation brush against his bones and sing through his flesh. The infinite future would stretch out before him, cold and unfeeling.
Levi was staring at him with those chilled gold eyes, too controlled to show the betrayal that was still raging on Belial’s face. There had been a time when Lucifer hadn’t been numb, when the prince with the sword had loved him more than any sin. Levi would never touch him like that again, and he would kill Galilee, and Lucifer would feel nothing because there would be nothing left to feel.
He took a step closer and did something he hadn’t done in centuries. He placed his hand on Leviathan’s arm.
“Please.” Lucifer’s voice was hoarse, a stranger to his ears, and Levi’s pupils snapped into vertical slits. He stepped back and drew his sword at the same time, and then the blade was at Lucifer’s throat, cold as moonlight, and Levi’s teeth were bared.
“How dare you,” he snarled. “How dare youbegme?”
Belial reached out a hand. “Levi, put the sword down.”
“He is theKing of Hell. Begging us for some mortal’s life. What ishappening?”
Lucifer didn’t take his eyes off his prince. “I’m simply making a request for time.”
“Leviathan! It’s Luci, for fuck’s sake.Put the goddamn sword down.”
Levi’s nostrils flared, but he removed the blade from Lucifer’s neck and sheathed it in one fluid move. Belial rolled her eyes and turned to Lucifer.
“I want to be clear. Are you commanding us to spare her?”
He couldn’t do that, not when Gali’s power was such a threat. He’d made promises to his princes, and Lucifer always kept his promises.
“No,” he answered.
Levi glared at him. “When I move to eliminate her, will you stop me?”
Lucifer sighed. “Leviathan... of course not. I’d never put the life of a mortal above your safety, and I’d never jeopardize the security of the artifact.” He took a deep breath. “I am asking you for time. If Galilee needs to die at the end of it, then she will die.”
The other two stared back at him impassively, but Lucifer knew they’d made note of her name. He clenched his hand into a fist and exhaled. “I will kill her myself if the time comes. I swear it.”
Belial relaxed a fraction. “Whenthe time comes,” she corrected. “We’ll hold you to that oath, Luci.”
He nodded, unable to say anything else. The thought of ripping off Galilee’s head felt almost as wrong as she smelled.
“If you can’t do it, I’ll step in,” Levi warned.
“I’m sure you will.”
The three of them stood in a weighted silence for a bit, then Belial cocked her head at Lucifer. “Why does she matter so much to you?”
It was a genuine question this time, not an accusation, and Lucifer didn’t reply for a moment. Sometimes he missed the days when they obeyed him with fear and no questions, but this was a different gift. The princes saw Lucifer wholly as he was—brutal or fleetingly tender, monstrous or as brilliant as his name. He was bare to them and they to him. It was what he had chosen. The answer he had was difficult to say in front of Levi, but it was true, so Lucifer said it:
“I haven’tfeltin lifetimes.”
Levi’s face smoothed out into implacable ice, but Lucifer continued.
“It might be an end, but a whisper in me wonders if it could also be a beginning.”
Belial laughed. “That’s a fool’s dream,” she said. “There are no morebeginnings for us, Luci. Walking through an inferno won’t find you one.”
Levi turned away. “You have forty-eight hours.”
Lucifer nodded. It was nothing in the span of their lives, but he would take it.
