Lucifer smiled and grabbed my hand, wrapping his fingers around mine. “You have two princes, a Watcher, and a Nephilim vying for your attention. I think my assessment might be fairly accurate.”
“Well, if they come for blood, they won’t leave unsatisfied. I can promise that.”
He tipped my head up for a kiss. “Don’t kill them all. You’ll have no one left.”
“They’re not fighting me.” I raked his golden hair, touching the dark feather braided into it. My handiwork wasn’t perfect, but I was just happy to see yet another male I was powerfully attracted to wearing my token, like I’d branded him. “They’re fighting each other.”
He stretched and sat up, and I ran my fingers over the muscles in his back as he tugged his pants on. “When will I see you again? I wish there was a way for me to call you.”
Lucifer tugged me into his lap, keeping an arm around my waist to prevent my escape. “Let the feathers be the first step,” he whispered in my ear. “If it makes you happy, I’d like to do something a little more… permanent.”
A shiver went through me, both happiness and something darker. “Lucifer. Are mating bonds permanent, or can they be broken?”
He rested his chin on my shoulder, his arms tightening. When he spoke again, his tone was guarded. “They can be broken, but it’s… extremely painful to the binder.”
I winced, turning my face away.
I shouldn’t have asked. Now I knew why I felt that empty hole in my chest, why Belial had been so angry, in such agony…
“I want you to be sure before we do this. Beyond a shadow of a doubt. I’ve never bound someone to myself before, and once I do… that’s the only one for me.”
I twisted in his lap, wrapping my arms around his neck. “I will be sure,” I said fiercely. If I ever caused another male that sort of pain, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself. If it’d hurt for me, I could only fathom how badly breaking the bond had hurt Belial.
Maybe he was still in pain.
Lucifer rested his forehead against mine. His quicksilver eyes became my world for a moment, swirling with infinite depths. “So will I.”
Lucifer left through the window, swooping through the garden like a dark shadow. I’d barely pulled a robe on when Vyra started pounding on my door.
“You are not going to greet your new fighters without your hair done!” she shouted, and stopped dead with her fist still raised in the air when I pulled open the door, a big smile on my face.
“Nope. And I want this in it.” I held up Lucifer’s feather, revealing the iridescent sheen.
Vyra’s mouth fell open, then she shut it with a snap. “You’ve been busy, haven’t you?”
A huge grin split my face. I couldn’t help myself.
She looked from the feather to my face, trying and failing to hold a stern expression. “Damn, woman. For as modest as you were when you got here, you’re learning your way around a dick really fast.”
I let her in and shut the door behind her. “I had no idea what I’d been missing out on.”
“A lot,” she said, plucking the feather from my hand and steering me to the chair. “A. Lot.”
She braided my hair and wove Lucifer’s feather in so it brushed against my collar bone. I stroked the feather as she wove a long piece of fabric around my shoulders and torso, making a dress that revealed bits and pieces of my sides, stomach, and back.
“Now for the fun bit.” She started rummaging in a small velvet box.
I raised an eyebrow. “This wasn’t the fun bit for you?”
Vyra held up a ring set with a silver orb. “This is hollow. It’s also full of the most virulent poison known to demonkind. Just make sure you keep it away from your mouth.” Then she pulled out silver filigree hairpins, with long, thin needle-like tips. “Just pull one of these out, and stick ‘em in the eye.”
I held still as a statue as she arranged the eye-sticking hairpins in my braids. “When did you become so bloodthirsty?”
“Azazel had a few ideas in mind, and I executed them.” She finished arranging my hair with a flourish. “I never thought fashion and killing people would go so well together. It might be my new passion.”
If I’d been feeling warm towards Azazel before, I was downright on fire now. Now here was a male who understood my penchant for needing to be able to kill anything in a fifty-foot radius.
I wished he was here so I could thank him in person by shredding off his clothes with the claws he’d given me.
I turned to look at the new additions in the mirror, and Vyra held up a pair of leather straps. “Oh, we’re not done yet.”
She strapped them around my thighs, sliding thin stiletto daggers into the attached holsters. “He’s never given Grigori weapons to a woman before.”
I pulled one of them free easily, examining the slight but deadly-sharp blade. “I really, really like your brother.”
“Good.” Vyra beamed up at me as she slid more knives into my boots. “When you have an official bonding ceremony, I get to make your dress.”
“What makes you so sure there’ll be a ceremony?”
She stood up and gave her work a last critical look-over. “Melisande, please. What am I?”
“A succubus,” I muttered.
“Damn right. And believe me, I’ve had enough centuries’ experience feeling other people’s sexual tension to know when that shit is going places.” She fastened a necklace around my throat. “And if you don’t let me make your dress, I might use one of these daggers on you.”
I held up my hands in surrender. “Whatever you want, Vyra.”
She smiled, her luminescently-pale skin practically glowing in the twilight. “Oh, good, I knew you’d say that.”
We both strode out to the arena balcony. The soft glow of rose and lavender lanterns lit the massive room with a comforting glow, but the crowd gathered
