us.”
The One’s mouth tightened for a fleeting instant. “I might have failed in a great number of my responsibilities, child, but Seth is not one of them. Choices have consequences. My son should never have made the one he did.”
Even unspoken, the words were a like a fist driven into Alex’s belly.
“You know I’m right,” the One said. “You’ve thought the same thing yourself. It is that which stands between you, not Lucifer.”
Alex shook her head, but her objection refused to be voiced. The One’s hand covered hers again.
“Not even I can save everyone, Alexandra. Seth is responsible for his own decisions, just as you are. When he chose you, he did so over the fate of all humanity. And he did it knowingly.”
“You’re stronger than you think.”
The tiny hand on hers squeezed with a fierce, surprising strength. “I know, child. And I’m sorry I must ask this of you when you have already given so much. But you
Alex ripped her voice free of its bonds. “And us?” she grated. “What about us? If he does take back his powers and he becomes like you again, what happens then? To him and me, to the rest of the world?”
The One didn’t answer. She didn’t need to.
“So that’s it.” Alex looked down at the hand covering hers. She pulled away. “Your little marital spat nearly ended my life—twice
“No, but I can guarantee the outcome if you
“That’s the best you have? A guilt trip?”
“The truth.”
Alex shoved back from the table. Scowling, she towered over the One, the Creator of All, and said, very clearly, “Get out. Take your little schemes and plots and get out of my kitchen. Get out of my life. Get out of Seth’s life.”
“I can’t.”
“Fine. Then sit here and drink tea by yourself. I’m going back to bed.”
She made it two stomps across the floor, her bare feet slapping painfully against the linoleum, before the quiet voice stopped her.
“Alexandra.”
Nothing else. Just her name—and an unspeakably compelling, impossible-to-ignore demand that she turn. She resisted until her entire body vibrated with the effort. Then, clutching the door frame for support, she glared over her shoulder.
The One’s crystalline gaze lifted from the table and fastened on hers, seeming to reach inside to the very core of her soul. In the space of a heartbeat, Alex felt herself weighed, measured, and wrung dry of her every awareness and every intention, conscious or otherwise. Her heart turned cold. Panic licked through her. Wait . . . what about Seth? If anything happened to her, what would he think? How would he cope? What would he—?
The One closed her eyes and took a slow, deep breath. “Sit,” said the One.
“We’re done—”
“I. Said. Sit.”
The words, and the tone in which they were spoken, rang with the divinity Alex had previously deemed lacking.
Absolute divinity.
She returned to the table and sat.
The Creator’s eyes opened, glittering diamond-hard. “You’re right, Alexandra. I have failed. Many times and on many levels. I created Lucifer as my companion, as the yang to my yin. In my arrogance, I believed I had created the perfect creature and that, because he was perfect, he could do no wrong. I believed in him. I trusted him. I loved him with every fiber of my being. But I remained a creator. It is what I do. What I am. And so I continued to create. The stars, the planets, the galaxies and universes . . . all the skies that you see and infinite others beyond those. And then I created Earth and seeded it with the potential for humanity.”
The One stood, pacing the cramped kitchen: table to sink, sink to fridge, fridge back to table. “I loved watching your planet’s evolution, the birth of humanity, your discoveries, your growth. I wanted to believe Lucifer shared my joy, but in truth, your every success drove another wedge between us. He resented the time I spent watching your world unfold, hated that I could find happiness in anything but him. I ignored the warning signs, found ways to justify his outbursts, tried to soothe his jealousy. I gave him a”—she paused in both step and sentence, straightened her shoulders, and continued. “I gave him a son, thinking a child of his own would assure him of my love for him. But he wanted nothing to do with Seth, and before I had recovered from the birth, he turned the Grigori against me. Against you, my mortal children.”
Alex wanted to run from the One’s confession, from a story that, surely, she had no right to hear. But she stayed seated, held in place by the tale of betrayal and the Creator’s raw, unspoken grief.
“He gave me an ultimatum,” the One continued at last. “Him or humanity. The rest of the story you know . . . except for this. When part of the host followed Lucifer and we went to war to defend your world, I did try to stop him. To destroy the monster I had created. And I failed.”
Chapter 46
Resting an elbow on the arm of his chair, Lucifer idly rubbed a forefinger over his eyebrow. He stared at the journal on his desk, a pen laid across its blank page. Each of the entries he’d made over the last month had been progressively more difficult to write, and now this. Nothing. No words, no inspiration, no desire.
No need.
It was as if he had emptied himself. As if he found himself in Limbo, where nothing existed anymore. Where nothing mattered.
Oh, he still cared—his whole existence was about caring, for all the good it had done him. He’d just run out of reasons to write about it.
And this interminable
He snatched up the pen and pitched it across the room, scowling when it stuck point-first and quivering in one of the fireplace stones. What in bloody Heaven was taking Samael so long? Finding the Naphil’s sister was such a simple task, the last piece in his plan, and the goddamn Archangel couldn’t get his act together long enough to complete it.
The dish of peppermints on his desk followed in the pen’s wake, shattering against the mantel and sending a shower of glass shards and candies across the room.
Lucifer pushed out of his chair. He wouldn’t put it past his aide to be focused on the whole Mika’el and Seth issue rather than on his orders. Samael’s ability to think strategically might be his greatest asset, but it could also be his most annoying one. The Archangel was forever searching for hidden motives where none existed. Or worse, where they might exist but didn’t matter.
He closed the journal on his desk and turned to slide the volume back into place in the bookcase. Then he paused, staring at the top row of books, the ones at eye level. He inspected the Roman numerals on their spines, neatly lined up in ascending order. Except they weren’t. Not entirely.
They couldn’t be, because the fourteenth journal was missing from its place.
His gaze swept the row, then the room, then returned to the shelf. He released his hold on the journal he’d replaced. Sliding his hand between volumes XIII and XV, he pushed them apart and scowled. Not just missing
