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For one, his filthy innuendo doesn’t derail my thoughts. I wave my fork, shaking my head, “Not that part. The part where you’re implying you’re Lucifer himself. I’m already freaked out enough that my boss is a demon, so don’t freak me out even worse by pretending to be the Prince of Demons himself.”
I expect him to banter with me or laugh at me. I don’t expect a brief shadow of discomfort—not quite shame and not as deep as sadness, but similar to both—to cross his face. He busies himself with his plate for a moment, then swallows the last of his wine. When he’s finished, his usual neutral expression is back in place. He holds his hand out across the table as if to shake mine.
“Sophia Gallo, it’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Lucifer, Prince of Darkness.”
I don’t want to believe him, but the resignation in his eyes convinces me. He’s steeled for rejection, prepared for a massive freak out, or maybe even expecting me to run away.
Well, if there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s defying expectations.
Maybe it’s just because I’ve reached the peak of things my mind can be shocked about this evening, but rather than making me more afraid, the revelation that this man is Lucifer himself somehow makes me feel better.
Because it fits.
It makes sense, when I think about it.
So I reach out and shake his offered hand, pleased to see the spark of interest and flash back into his gorgeous eyes. “The pleasure is all mine, Your Majesty.”
He grimaces and tugs his hand out of my grasp, rolling his eyes at my choice of words. “Just call me Lucas.”
A new thought pops into my head as he speaks, and I suck in a breath. “Oh my God.”
“Not even remotely,” he says with a twist of his lips.
“No, no, when we were talking on the plane—you were telling the truth about your dad, weren’t you? Your father reallyisdisappointed in you, isn’t he? Because you’re up here instead of down there?”
“Yes,” Lucas says with a sigh. “And also no. It’s not really about where I am or what I’m doing. It’s more about where I’m not, and what I refuse to do.”
I nod, slowly putting the pieces together. “Those bad business deals?”
“More like an attempted hostile takeover,” he grumbles. He looks at me with fire in his eyes as he adds, “Of Heaven.”
“Holy shit,” I breathe, then wince at my word choice. “Is that even possible?”
Lucas snorts. “Cephalus—my father—certainly seems to think so. But after the first few hundred thousand years, I admit I had my doubts.”
I try and fail to smother a laugh, feeling a little giddy from the wild swings in my emotional state over the past couple hours. “I’m sorry. You don’t seem like the type to put your weight behind a losing deal for even an hour, let alone hundreds of thousands of years.”
“I was young and idealistic. Back then, I believed we were fighting for a good reason. I was one hundred percent committed to victory. Our fight was a noble war, one which had to be won for the good of Hell. Or so I thought.”
He rubs one hand across his eyes, shaking his head as a disgusted look crosses his features.
“What was the war about to begin with?” I ask, drawn in by his story.
He smiles bitterly. “You know, I don’t even remember. I’m not sure even Cephalus remembers. At some point I realized that every time our proclaimed goal was within our grasp, a new goal would be proclaimed. I was my father’s second, so I saw what went on behind the scenes, and was never the target audience for the propaganda or frenzied rallies. I was there during late nights watching Cephalus scramble to find a new way to stir their blood, to incite violence, to keep the war going. One night I asked him why. What are we fighting for?”
I watch the memories play over his face, fascinated by the freshness of the emotions for events which may have happened eons ago. He shakes his head and scoffs, then looks at me with wry amusement. “You know what he told me?”
I shake my head.
“He said, ‘to win.’ That’s it. I tried to push him to tell me what winning would even look like to him. He said a lot of grand flowery words and inspiring phrases, but he must have forgotten who he was talking to. Empty promises stink of deception and I recognize that aroma anywhere.”
I play with the sparse remains of my food as I watch him. “So that was when you left?”
“Not quite,” he says quietly. “I was still loyal—to my people, to Hell… and even to my father, to a certain extent. Leaving hadn’t even crossed my mind at that point. Still, I couldn’t do my job without a clear goal. I couldn’t keep sending soldiers to their deaths if I didn’t have a good reason to do so. I needed that reason. I needed to know what the end would look like so I could guide us there.”
“That kind of information would be difficult to get your hands on if the only person who knew it wasn’t speaking to you,” I muse.
A small smirk tugs at the corner of his mouth. “I didn’t need him to speak to me. I just needed him to speak to someone who would speak to me. While my father trusted me, he’d always liked Uriel better.”
