He was silent several seconds, assessing, reading me like no one else could.“Have your wounds healed?Do you need me to take care of them?”
Once again, he offered to give me what I needed.No fuss, no deep and meaningful conversation if that’s not what I wanted.“My injuries have healed.”
“That’s good, but that’s not the only injuries I’m talking about, my sweets.”
My skin was too tight, like I was about to jump out of it at any moment.I turned to him.“Why aren’t you angry?I fucked up.I let Silas get one over on me.He betrayed us.”
Lucifer picked up his beer beside the couch, sipped it, and sat back.“Oh, I’m fucking furious, Urs.”
My eyes slid shut, and I drew in a painful breath.
His hand grabbed mine again, getting my attention.“Not at you.”His voice vibrated with rage.“That tournament was fucking bullshit.The angels ran amok, and that freak show, Felditch, let them.If it wasn’t Silas, it would have been something else that gave the angels an edge.”
His yellow eyes were almost glowing.
“You believe that?”
“I know it.”He slung his arm along the couch behind me.“They’ve won every tournament for a reason, and it has nothing to do with skill.”He took another sip of his beer.“I needed proof though.”
My stomach started churning.“And now you have it?”
He was quiet a beat.“Possibly.”
I rubbed my hands over my face, exhaustion washing over me along with disappointment.“You knew Silas was going to fuck me over, didn’t you?”
His yellow gaze held mine.“I knew that somehow it would be Silas who would help me uncover the truth.I didn’t know how that would happen.I sure as fuck didn’t want you hurt in the process.I wanted the opposite, in fact.It seems I keep fucking things up when it comes to you and your sisters.I’m sorry, Urs, if things between you and Silas got all twisted because of me.”
Of course he knew me and Silas got together while we were competing, but I wasn’t going there.“So what is the truth?”
“It’s still unraveling, but all will be revealed.”
“Says who?”
He tapped his nose.“All in good time.”
“Lucifer—”
“I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life, Urs.Hurting Roxy and Lothar the way I did is something I can’t ever forgive myself for.I know you may not trust me as easily as you once did, especially after the shit that went down at the final event of the tournament, and that kills me.It is a pain like no other.I want to prove to Rox and to you, to all of your sisters, that you can trust me like you used to.So although I can’t give you the answers you need right now, know that not only Hell’s butyourbest interests were…are…at the forefront of any decisions I make.”He lifted his hand to cup the side of my face, and when I didn’t pull away, he gently curled his fingers around my cheek, sliding his thumb over my skin.“We are a fucked-up, messy”—he chuckled—“dysfunctional family, but that is what we are.And family is everything, Urs.It is everything, and I’m trying, really fucking trying to show you that.Can you at least try to trust me to do that?”
I believed him.Lucifer didn’t ask for shit.He didn’t need to ask us for permission for anything.He was the king of Hell.We may have had a seriously big fucking wobble just recently, but our love for him and his for us was never in question.It was unconditional.He was broken over Roxy cutting him out of her life.For the first time since he became the ruler of Hell, he didn’t have control over what happened, and it was obviously affecting him, was changing him in ways I never imagined.Lucifer would never want to cause that kind of pain again.
“Yes,” I said and heard the emotion in my own voice.I swallowed it down.“Just tell me what you want me to do and I’ll do it.I want to help.I want to make things right.”
“I wish I could tell you, Urs, I really fucking do, but I don’t know what comes next.All I know for sure is that you are on the right path, that your next move will be one of many stepping stones in all of this, that will reveal how our fate will ultimately unfold.Whether that’s the forgotten prophecy or not remains to be seen.Everything we do from now going forward is a step closer or farther from it.All you can do is trust your gut.All you can do, my sweets, is let those finely honed instincts of yours guide you.”
“What if my instincts guide me wrong?”My gaze sliced up to him.“During the poison event, I saw…I saw my sisters slain, mutilated.They were all dead, Lucifer…and you, you lay there, unmoving, cleaved open, bloody wings painted on the floor beneath you.”It was hard, but I made myself say the rest.“You said I failed you, that I let them win…that I killed you all.What if it wasn’t just some twisted nightmare that Felditch put in my head, what if it was a premonition?What if this is what happens if I get it wrong?”
He held my eyes then, as if he was looking deep inside me.Did he see it?The weak, broken creature I’d become?“You, my most fierce warrior, are Ursula the Relentless.”His eyes glistened with emotion as he said it, and my throat grew tight.“I gave you that name for a reason.”He shook his head.“No matter what that voice in your head is telling you, she hasn’t left you.She’s right there.Let her fill your heart and burn through your veins.All you have to do is let her back in, Urs.Ursula the Relentless doesn’t get it wrong, and if she does…” He grinned, his yellow eyes darkening.“She’ll tear it all down to make it right.”
My heart pounded in my chest, and when I blinked, a tear streaked down my cheek.
I wanted that more than anything, to let her back in, but I wasn’t sure how.
Lucifer was right about family.I didn’t need anyone else.Now I knew who Silas truly was at his core.A traitor.A disloyal asshole and an exceptional actor.He’d fooled me, and there would be consequences for his deceit.I looked up at the huge gates in front of the knights of Hell’s compound.He’d fooled the knights as well.They’d welcomed him into their home, fought alongside him, and he’d left without so much as a goodbye.
The knights’ loyalty wasn’t with Heaven despite being half angel.If they’d known what Silas had planned, Zenon would have told Lucifer straightaway.
I stared up at the camera, letting them see my face, and a moment later the sound of steel scraping across steel rang out as the lock disengaged and the gates slid open.