“I don’t need you to handle him for me.” I placed one of my hands over his, stroking his fingers. “I can handle him. And he was right. Everything he did for me… I threw it back in his face like it meant nothing.”
A strange emotion flickered in Azazel’s eyes, and he looked away.
“I know what I did,” I said, my voice hollow. “It wasn’t a brand. He gave me a mating mark, and I broke it.”
The Watcher’s lips twisted. “We’re not accusing you of anything.”
“You don’t need to. It must’ve been… extraordinarily painful for him to break that bond. It hurt me, and I probably felt only a fraction of it.” I pressed my blank left palm against my chest with a wince. “Do you think it was? Be truthful.”
Lucifer sighed. “It was, but you shouldn’t blame yourself. You didn’t know.”
“And that’s the problem. I should’ve known. His actions were never meant to harm me, but because of his words, all I did was assume I was his prisoner. His slave. I didn’t take the scales from my eyes.” My voice broke and I finished with a whisper. “I was blind to everything around me. I still am.”
Azazel made a movement like he meant to hold me back when I turned to look up at Lucifer.
A gasp tore out of me.
He was bloody, yellow and plum bruises rising around his eye sockets, his cheekbones, his chest. His lower lip had been split, and slowly healed as I watched.
All at once, my sorrow flared with anger. “What is doing this to you?”
I closed my eyes, summoning my magic to the surface. The white fire was easier to find this time, dancing through the black flames like it sensed Lucifer was near.
I cupped it in my hands and pressed them flat against his chest, letting my power cross into his wounded body.
Lucifer sighed, wincing as his lip healed over and the bruises slowly faded.
“There are some things it’s better for you to not know, Melisande.”
My eyelids cracked open and I scowled up at him. “If you want me to keep healing you, I want answers.”
I had an unshakeable conviction that whatever was doing this to Lucifer… it was because of me.
I’d been nothing but an inconvenient mess for them from the moment I’d crash-landed in Hell. I was tired of being everyone’s problem.
If they could be shields for me, it was only right that they let me shield them, too.
Azazel’s clipped tones grew soft. “Just let yourself have peace.”
My magic finally burned out, having done all it could for Lucifer. At least his wounds were no longer sluggishly bleeding. I kept my hands splayed over his chest, taking comfort in his warmth. “Lucifer, Azazel… do I strike you as being made of glass?”
“No,” Lucifer said with a slight smile. “More like very thorny iron.”
“If you’re glass, it’s because you want to cut everyone around you,” Azazel muttered.
“True. There are many, many things I don’t want to hear.” I flexed my fingers, just barely digging my nails into Lucifer’s inked skin. “But if it’s something to do with one of you, while I’m wearing a feather that proclaims you as mine, then I want to hear it. All of it. In extreme detail. What hurts you, hurts me.”
Lucifer’s silver eyes flicked from me to Azazel, and back down to my face. I felt his acquiescence before he even sighed. “Very well. Only because I want there to be no secrets between us.”
A pang of guilt bit at me. My scarred palm told a story I didn’t want many in Hell to hear… but if Lucifer trusted me enough to claim me for himself, I would need to trust him.
“My father is determined to have you for himself.” His gaze hardened, but he looked distant, like he was seeing something else besides me. Something horrifying. “Satan is nothing but a creature of cruel, endless appetite.”
Azazel shifted uncomfortably, and I reached out to touch his arm reassuringly. He might share that in common with Satan, but he was nothing like the Red Dragon. Not even in the slightest.
“I made it very clear that you were not going to become one of his Brides. I took you for myself.” Lucifer brushed the feather in my hair, and his smile came back. This time it was brittle. “He didn’t take it well.”
“Satan’s been doing this to you?” I whispered, horrified.
How much torment could a body stand, even that of a fallen prince, before it broke?
“He felt your bond to Belial break. That sort of breaking has repercussions. Everyone in Hell who’s gifted with the slightest hint of magic felt it dissolve, and they all knew you were no longer under his protection.”
“So he thought he could come back.” I lowered my head, leaning against Lucifer’s chest. “The night I left the Brightside…”
“I went into the Pit to stop him from climbing out.” Lucifer stroked my shoulders reassuringly, but there was nothing reassuring about his words. “He sent his little puppets out to search for you. But by wearing my token, you have… some small measure of protection.”
“But it’s not as strong as the soul-brand?” I asked, my voice dull.
He paused in his stroking. “No. It’s enough to make it clear where my allegiances lay. A soul-brand would be stronger.”
I winced. As lovely as that protection sounded, I didn’t want Lucifer to brand me for the sake of my own safety. Not on that level. It was something that should be given because I wanted to belong to him, not because I needed him.
“The token is fine. As long as he knows. I just…” I looked back up at him, guilt constricting my chest. “I just wish you could stay away from him. Every time you defy him, he punishes you, and it’s all over me. I’m not worth that sort of pain, Lucifer.”
His lips pressed into a flat line. “You don’t get to tell me what you’re worth. I can decide that for
