Total pages in book: 57
Estimated words: 54848 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 274(@200wpm)___ 219(@250wpm)___ 183(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 54848 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 274(@200wpm)___ 219(@250wpm)___ 183(@300wpm)
“It won’t do them much good,” Lucifer said after watching the news one night. “Seems like dear old Dad has gone into hiding.”
But maybe that was all the more reason to lean into love. When hate and fear and ugliness were taking over the world.
Or maybe I was trying to rationalize my selfishness.
Either way, it was what was happening.
I was falling for Bael.
And I was excited to see what that meant for the future.
Bael - 1 month
It was not as unusual to hear the bell ring these days as it had once been. What with a bunch of modern human women around, there was a lot of online shopping going on. Even as the world burned. And because human companies were selfish, money-grabbing, soulless organizations, its people kept bringing those packages.
Still, there was a strange feeling in my gut as Charlotte climbed off of my lap to rush to answer it, likely expecting another package of books she’d ordered and was waiting on like human children waited on gifts on their holidays.
It didn’t help that her father had finally made it back to the States, and was renting the house just down the street, so the two of them were constantly finding new, or obscure old, books that they felt the need to study.
He’d been a pretty good fucking sport in accepting everything. It probably helped that he wasn’t an atheist like his daughter had been. And that he’d seen some “strange things indeed” during his travels from Europe and back to the US.
If he had any objections to his only daughter shacking up with a demon, he kept them to himself.
Hell, it could have even been her dad at the door.
But, somehow, I knew it wasn’t.
There was something about the way my skin sort of sizzled that told me it wasn’t her dad, or a package, or anything as tame as that.
I was already climbing off the couch when I heard Charlotte call, her voice raised and concerned, making me rush into the hall to see what it was.
I don’t know what I had been expecting.
But it damn sure wasn’t what was right in front of me.
And that was my missing, prodigal brother, half draped over a small, pretty woman, and looking like he’d been tortured relentlessly in recent history since he hadn’t had a chance to heal yet.
“Daemon,” I breathed out his name, making Charlotte’s eyes widen as she looked at him again.
It was no wonder she didn’t see the family resemblance.
Daemon was bloodied and bruised, most of his features obscured by the swelling from his injuries.
“I didn’t know what else to do,” the woman said, eyes huge. “I got him free. And I just… I brought him home,” she said, letting me take his weight off of her.
I had a feeling there was a story there.
But that was one for another day.
I had to get my brother upstairs and in his room first.
Then explain to him about the old gods, about Charlotte, about Lucifer himself, about my Claiming.
Then, eventually, I guessed we would get to his story about the pretty woman at the door who, apparently, had saved him…
Charlotte - 1 year
It was time.
I mean, maybe if the world was a different place, I might have put it off a while longer. There was definitely still a little bit of fear inside of me, despite how many times Lenore, Jo, Nova, and Dale told me it was safe, that they were still the same people, that nothing changed except I now would have forever with the man I was madly in love with.
But the world wasn’t different.
It was just getting worse and worse by the day.
And all that uncertainty was what pushed me to finally make the decision.
I knew Bael had been wanting it for months. But he’d kept silent about it, not wanting to pressure me, allowing me to make the decision in my own time.
It was that time.
Before things got any crazier.
Before I potentially missed my chance of forever.
Condemning myself to death and Bael to endless misery without me.
There was no reason to wait any longer.
There was no doubt in my mind that I loved him. As impossible and stubborn and moody and human-hating as he was.
What can I say? I felt kind of flattered to be the only human he liked.
“For the record, I recognize how antiquated and patriarchal this is,” my father said, fussing with his tie as he waited to walk me toward Bael. “But it is time to walk you down the aisle.”
We needed to do the ceremony.
But I wanted it to be a wedding as well.
So we were combining them.
And my father was doing the fatherly thing.
He’d been surprisingly accepting of the whole situation. It probably helped that on his way back to the States, he encountered an actual monster. Like from the myths.