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“Why do you always wear it?”
Lucifer raised his head at Chloe’s voice. She was smiling at him, but there was that light in her eyes. The light she had when she was determined to have a reply. A satisfying one.
Lucifer rotated his glass of whiskey a couple of times, then put It down on the poolside, stretched his back and looked at her: what did he have to do?
Tell* her the truth he had always proclaimed she deserved? Or figure out another version as soon as possible?
“Having wild sex will not stop you, I suppose” he teased her.
“Tempting. Feasible also. But no*, it will not stop me.” Her laughter filled the room, and his heart stopped. Why did he love* her so much? It was making everything more and more difficult.
Lucifer smiled bitterly. His eyes darkened while he quickly made the right decision.
Chloe’s cheerful expression faded immediately.
Lucifer sensed her hand on his abdomen, her warm breath on his cheek. “Lucifer, what happened?”
Lucifer left his gaze dancing on her: her blonde hair on her bare shoulder, her skin amber after a whole day spent at the seaside at his summer villa, where he had planned a perfect weekend for them, her blue eyes where he could read only love and trust. Love and trust for him, the Devil. Love and trust he was afraid would vanish* sooner or later.
“Lucifer, what happened? I have just asked why you have always your ring on. Is it linked to your time in the Silver City? To your family?”
Sadness mixed with anger crossed his perfect face. She was right. Her head dropped on his chest and her arm crossed his waist.
“No need to answer, love. Forget it”
Lucifer raised his right hand to leave his ring on front of her.
“You deserve the truth, Chloe. Only the truth. And believe me, me as the real Devil is not the hardest one.”
He was right* accepting his burned face and body, his red eyes and his wings was a lot of processing and Linda was the best supporter and friend ever. But Linda had also warned her on the risks of being with him. Chloe could still hear words in her head.
“Lucifer trusts you, Chloe. But there will be a time you will * have concerns about it. You love the man he has been for the last six years. But he has been the Devil for millennia. And millennial experiences are hard for a mortal mind. Even if the mortal mind is the one of a badass woman in love. Take your time to process, Chloe. Be angry and disappointed, get pissed off if you like. But do not judge him. He was lost and alone until he found you. You are his entire world, Chloe.”
It was late when Chloe woke up that night. It was hot and she was sweating. Lucifer was sleeping on his right side, so she could see only his back.
She placed a soft kiss where the wings were supposed to be and left the room, taking care not to disturb him.
The marble floor under her bare feet gave her relief and comfort. She took a glass, filled * it with water and ice and sat down on the terrace, surrounded by darkness and silence.
After Lucifer’s story, no wonder he loved that place: partially because it reminded of him of Silver City for its beauty and sense of peace, partially because he could clearly see the stars. The stars he missed so much in Hell.
Hell... she would never have known how he had lived there, what he had really suffered. What he had felt.
Chloe sipped her water slowly and closed her eyes, Lucifer’s voice echoing in her head.
“The first time I saw her she was sitting in a corner, waiting for her torture session. She did not cry or shout or try to escape. She was waiting patiently, as she had accepted her destiny. Her attitude impressed me immediately, I got curious and I started following her, observing her, and in the end I decided to investigate what she had done, why she was so different from the other ones.
She was not afraid of me, and that had never happened with the lost souls there. She was different. She was interesting and fascinating. Day by day, I found myself waiting for those moments we spent together. My life in Hell seemed less empty and pointless. I had someone to wait for and someone who waited for me.”
Chloe’s heart* started beating furiously against her chest. She had never considered that in Lucifer’s past there were room for a love interest. He had had lovers, for sure: Maze was one of them. But someone he had...loved? Before her? It was possible, of course. She simply had not seen that coming.
Chloe swallowed and waited for Lucifer going on. He had gone silent, probably lost in his own memories. That silence was killing her slowly. But then he started again.
“My attention to her was noted by other lost souls and by some demons. That turned into harder times for her, she was beaten and tortured even more cruelly. Until I decided to take her away from her room.”
“She started living with you, right?” Chloe tried not to sound jealous. And she was not. She was just suffering. For Lucifer, for the sadness and the pain she felt in his voice, in his body tension, in the way he clenched his fists.
“Yes, she did. She was so kind and sweet and covered me with attention I had never received, not in my time with my family. She became my lover too. The first one. She made me forget the punishment I imposed, the screaming around us, how much I missed the sun. And the stars.”
Chloe closed her eyes, hoping no tears escaped from her eyes. Someone before her was the whole world for Lucifer. Someone still so important to him, it was clear. She fought her feelings back. She needed to know.
“Is the ring for her?”
“No. She gave the ring to me. The first time I received a gift.” His voice broke and instinctively she kissed his chest, softly.
“Don’t go on if you don’t want. I’ll never ask you, promise” she whispered in his ear.
“No. You deserve to know. This story has an end, you know. If it had not, maybe I would not have left Hell.”
“What happened?”
“Being my lover changed her. She started to think of herself as my substitute. She was mean and cruel, especially to young boys and girls just arrived. She had fun in scaring them, even beyond what * was necessary. She was able to kill a demon, one of Maze’s army. The day she threatened me, Maze took the opportunity to take her revenge.”
“I can’t even start imagining what happened.”
Lucifer exhaled.
“Maze hated her. She thought she was spoiling me, lying to me. Maze tortured her until she revealed her plan.”
“Plan?”
“She had planned everything since the beginning. She was not interested in me. She just wanted to escape from her destiny in Hell. And seducing me was a good way in her mind. Pretty sure she now knows it wasn’t.”
He fell silent again and Chloe realized her time was over. She left him in the swimming pool and went out to walk along the beach. The number of emotions was too much to manage. For her, for him. For them.
When she came back he had disappeared. She saw him again in bed when she woke up.
Chloe finished her water and moved back to the bedroom. Lucifer was still sleeping. She entered the bed as much silently as possible, but when she laid on her left side to sleep, he slid his arm across her chest.* She turned to face him, to face the broken angel rejected by his family and betrayed by the first person he was open to after centuries.
“Chloe…”
Her name was enough. She cupped his face with both her hands. So many words were filling her mouth, so many thoughts were crossing her mind. She forced herself to be silent. Lucifer needed his time and his space.
Lucifer looked at her intensely.
“I wear this ring to remind me what happened. It is a warning. But ask me and I’ll get rid of my ring immediately”
Chloe shook her head.
“No, I’ll never ask you to get rid of your past. It will be hard, it will hurt. But it is part of you. Remember? You told me that. ‘You can’t love the prince if you don’t love the beast too.’”
Lucifer bent over her and kissed her intensely.
Chloe recognized the kiss: it was not speaking of passion and lust. It was asking for caring, compassion, consolation. It was asking to belong to someone. It was asking to belong to her. His past, his divinity, his immortality, these would be obstacles, she was aware of them. But that place, that night, that moment were only for them. And she did not ask for anything else.
She smiled on his lips and reciprocated the kiss.