“There you are,” she said fondly.
Lucifer could barely form words in response. The ground was sure and solid under his feet, but not as certain as her body pressed against his as he pulled her into a hug.
Galilee stroked his hair. “Are you okay?” She smelled like Leviathan, a cracked cacao pod lying in a dewy jungle.
“I’m fine,” he managed to say. “My brother’s a piece of shit, that’s all.”
Leviathan coughed out a short laugh, and Lucifer turned to him.
“Thank you for guarding her,” he said.
His prince’s eyes slid away. “I live to serve,” he replied dryly. “Will Michael be a problem?”
The real question he was asking was if Michael planned to kill Galilee. Lucifer disliked not knowing the answer, disliked being distracted by Deziel’s resurrection in his life, the dominoes tipping over in favor of his annihilation.
“The hellgate is the priority,” he answered instead. “Belial should be there by now. I’ll take Galilee, and we’ll meet you there.”
Leviathan’s eyes flicked to the deadly girl in Lucifer’s arms. “You’re taking her?”
Lucifer frowned in disapproval. “This isn’t the time for your bloodlust, Levi. Focus.”
Levi merely smiled, and there were new shadows in it, ones Luciferdidn’t have the bandwidth to wonder about. He wrapped his arms around Galilee and took off, gravel scattering again, his wings beating steadily. The air got colder as they rose, and Lucifer was glad for Levi’s jacket wrapped around Galilee’s shoulders.
“What’s the hellgate?” Galilee yelled above the wind as they headed for the Onyearugbulem house.
“It’s the artifact we were protecting,” he answered, and her laugh tore away into the sky.
“Ofcourseit is.” She tipped her head up to smile at him. “Remember our deal?”
As if he could forget the bargain that had turned him inside out. Lucifer grinned back, feeling some of the darkness slough away. This was why he needed her, needed the way she made him feel, everything better than the fate his family had condemned him to.
“You get to see it, I get a dance.”
Galilee winked. “Can’t wait to dance with you.”
His heart spasmed. She made it sound so simple, all that innocent anticipation, as if he wasn’t who he was, as if he hadn’t done what he’d done. Deziel wanted to hurt him, and Galilee wanted to dance with him—wasn’t this the truth about the world he had left and the one he had been condemned to? It was a truth he kept rediscovering over and over, in millennia of realizations and looped epiphanies, the blasphemy that maybe Heaven simply didn’t know how to love as well as the humans did, as well as a score of Hell’s princes could. That maybe damnation was a better place to be than the propaganda of salvation. It was no longer a question of where he belonged, because he belonged nowhere, but of making a world of his own. The loyal princes and their blood-splashed love. The silent Hell. The Morningstar had been thrown away, but he’d taken all that discard, used it as scaffold and mortar, and now this girl-creature of light was smiling in his face as if the best part of their future would be spinning in each other’s arms as music swirled around them.
Lucifer was inclined to believe her. The hellgate would be thwarted. He would coax her soul out of her, and it wouldn’t be a betrayal, not when he intended to be so careful with it, not when it would protect her from both his princes and a dangerous archangel. Besides, Galilee hadchangedin the garden—she didn’t belong with the humans who aimed weapons at her. She was one of them now, the outcasts, the unwanted ones, and the princes would see it, would get past their fear of her power once Lucifer had her soul, once they understood her heart, the soft valved thing that wanted to dance with the Devil. He would take her back to Hell with him, and Michael would never lay eyes or hand or sword upon her.
They touched down on a balcony of the mansion holding the hellgate, and Galilee glanced around as Lucifer folded his wings. “The cameras don’t catch you in this form?”
He shrugged. “Glamours are useful for all sorts of things.”
“Ugh, I’m jealous,” she replied, stepping in through the door he held open for her.
Lucifer followed behind her, and Galilee turned around slowly as she recognized the hallway where he’d faced off with Oriak?.
“Right back where we started,” she said, her voice low with awe. “I can’t believe it was just lastnight.” A note of uncertainty crept in on her last words, and Lucifer slipped an arm around her.
“Too fast?” he asked. Time never meant anything to him, whether it stretched long or short or sideways, but Galilee had been raised as a human.
She turned inky eyes up to him, worry tangled in her expression. “How is this possible?” she asked in return, pressing her palm to her chest, then to his. “How is thisreal, Lucifer? A day ago, I didn’t even believe you existed. Now...” She broke off and dragged in a deep breath. “God,everythinghas changed.”
Lucifer cupped her face in his hands, and fire cut through him in awelcome burn. “It is fast,” he agreed. “Everything between us, between you and your family; everythingwithinyou. But you can handle it, beloved.You’re not human.As much of a shock as that is, it can also be a strength.”
Her pupils were wide and dark. She was so fucking beautiful.
“Find it, Galilee. Hold on to your light, your power, and it will get you through this.”
