Hell's Gift (31 page)

I wanted it to be over, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that it shouldn’t be. Saying it seemed so definite, so permanent, and I wasn’t quite sure it was. “I think I will rest here a while,” I said, then winked at him before walking to Abbi and my friends.

Chapter 39

Abigail

Sitting on the couch, her knees pulled to her chin, arms loosely encasing them, Abigail watched as Lucifer paced in front of the hearth of his private quarters.

“I don’t suppose I need to tell you the angel—”

“My husband—”

“Silence!” he shouted and the walls of the room shook, making her flinch and her heart pick up pace, even though it wasn’t possible for him to physically touch or hurt her in any way.

She knew he’d been trying to find a way around the bind of the contract. He hadn’t even tried to hide his fierce attempt to overcome his own signature.

Hugging her legs a bit tighter, she cleared her throat. “It matters not if I obey you. Keeping quiet and being a good little girl will not help me one little bit if Rhyan does happen to fail—”

“And he will fail. I can promise you that—”

She looked up without fear of him or remorse of her next words. “You can promise nothing, you bastard. I will admit that it was my bad decision that landed me in here, but I have a chance to get out and you can bet your sweet ass I’m not going to make the same stupid mistake twice. If it takes my husband a thousand years to save my soul from the likes of you, he will do it. He’s not a quitter. You underestimate him, Lucifer. You will never understand the power of love. It defeats anything you have ten-fold. So do not stand there and promise me something you know nothing about.”

Abigail glanced around her, realizing for the first time that she was no longer sitting on Lucifer’s couch, and not only was she standing, but she had crossed the room and had him backed into a corner with fire in his wide eyes, desperately trying not to touch her skin.

She knew it would probably come back to bite her in the ass later, but she couldn’t resist. She smiled then lunged toward him quickly. “Boo!”

Scared as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs, Lucifer acted before he thought and attacked her. Just like before, no contact was made between his flesh and hers; the momentum of the force he used pushed her away from him, but not before the electric fingers shot from her body and took hold.

Lucifer fell to the floor, his vocal chords temporarily paralyzed from the pain. Abigail willingly rode the ride down with him. Seeing him in pain pleased her, and if he ever got the chance to lay his hands on her again, she wanted there to actually be a reason for it.

His wide eyes showed pain and fear, and those were two things Abigail had never witnessed before in him. She relished the idea that she had finally found his weakness: his own power used against him, because it was he who bound himself to the contract and gave her the ability to defend herself against his magic. It only pleased her more to know that she was the one who had the privilege of inflicting pain on the evil beast.

“How does it feel to be on the receiving end of the sword? This will be one game you won’t win. You should have known better than to interfere and come between a man and woman that are destined to be together. Not only do you underestimate my husband, but you have severely underestimated me, too.”

She intensified the electric voltage and smiled mischievously when his body began to violently convulse beneath her hands. Foam poured freely from his mouth and the black of his irises rolled back, leaving only bright white oculi to be seen.

A knock came at the door, but Abigail didn’t look up. It came again, but she only increased the power to keep Lucifer from possibly getting a chance to scream for help.

“Master?” Fallis said from the other side of the door, but a gurgling sound and a low buzzing was all he could’ve deciphered. “Master, are you within your chambers? I have news of the angel’s progress.”

Abigail’s gaze shot to the door and she could feel the prince’s hesitance. It had to be bad news for Lucifer, but good news for her and Rhyan. He was nervous. She couldn’t let him leave with information of Rhyan, but she didn’t know how he would react to what she was doing to his master. She decided the information was more important to have and hoped she could take care of herself if Fallis decided to attack her.

“Come in, Fallis,” she said calmly, and kept her eyes trained on the door as it slowly opened.

Fallis’ eyes met the scene on the floor and they widened in shock. “Abigail, what are you doing? He will put us all in Wrath because of your actions.”

“You don’t have to follow him anymore, Fallis. There is a way out of here. My husband is proving that right now. You can help me, you can help him, and we can all get out of here in one piece. We can be free,” she pleaded.

Fallis shook his head in amazed disagreement. “You’re crazy! He will not let any of us go. Stop dreaming up these fantasies, Abigail. He will not let you leave here. He will make us all pay for your stupidity!”

“Do you not see him beneath me now? He has no control over me, Fallis. I will protect you all from his wrath. Join me.”

He stood there, shaking his head and staring at the strongest being he had ever encountered, weak and powerless beneath one of his minions. He locked eyes with Abigail. “There is no way it will work, Abigail. He won’t make the same mistake twice. If we help you get out, who will protect us once you’re gone? He will show us no mercy. You are mad to think he will. I can’t—”

“Fallis—”

“No! I will not be a part of your treachery. I can’t afford to take that risk. Leave me be,” he pleaded.

Fallis turned and started for the door, but Abigail couldn’t just let him walk out. Lucifer would punish him regardless of the decision he made. “He knows you’re here! He senses you, and he knows you are leaving and doing nothing to help him. He will seek you out the first chance he gets, Fallis, and he will not be happy you have deceived him. I will not protect you unless I can trust you are on my side. Look at him,” she said, and waited for him to turn. “Look at him!” she demanded. “He is nothing, Fallis. Make sure my husband gets through your syde and I swear I will not leave until you have your soul and can leave, too. Please…you still have a choice.”

Without turning, Fallis released a heavy breath. “And I choose not to betray my master. I’m sorry, Abigail, I expected more from you.” With that, he turned the knob and let himself out of Lucifer’s lair.

~ ~ ~

Cursing silently, Abigail pulled her gaze back to Lucifer. It was clear he had passed out from the pain she was inflicting. Veins had burst, leaving bluish-black bruises just below the surface of the skin she could see.

She released him and sat back on her heels a few feet away from where he lay unconscious. Even as she watched the contusions, they began to slowly vanish before her eyes. He would wake soon and, being honest with herself, she was looking forward to hearing what his first words would be.

A low moan escaped his parted lips. Abigail watched and waited, fighting the urge to kick him.

His tongue came out to wet his lips, then he swallowed. Without opening his eyes, he began to speak, “So, that’s your plan? To turn my children against me, steal your souls and flee Hell? Have I not given you everything you’ve ever asked for, Abigail?”

“I asked for my freedom—”

“If I gave you that, if I handed you your soul in this moment, would you stay willingly?” he asked, then opened his eyes and focused on her stunned expression. “I knew once what it felt like to love, Abigail. I wasn’t always a monster. Having you here makes me feel close to that again. I could spend the rest of eternity waking up next to you, and only you.”

Abigail had never seen this side of Lucifer before, but she didn’t fear it was a trick. He had shown her kindness and heated passion for over three centuries. He could be a cruel bastard, but he had never, until recently, been intentionally mean to her.

She wrapped her arms around her legs and averted her gaze from him. “I don’t belong here anymore. I don’t belong with you.”

He was quiet for a moment, then he sat upright and folded his legs in an Indian-style fashion, facing her. He held out his hand, palm facing up, and a tiny glowing orb appeared. “It’s yours. You can still save the soul of your husband. I will give this to you and release him from the contract. I will cast him from Hell without so much as another thought. But…you must promise to stay here with me. You are royalty here, sweetheart. You will be nothing in Heaven. I will make you my one and only Queen. You have my word.”

“I will be something in Heaven, Lucifer. I will be Rhyan’s everything, and I will be happy. I wouldn’t trade that for a thousand eternities with anyone else, and that includes you.”

“And you wouldn’t change your mind about that if you knew for a fact he would fail? You know the terms we agreed upon. I won’t have mercy on him because of your feelings for him. You will not always have the ability to drop me to my knees, Abigail. I would really hate to hurt you again, but it is your choice to make. It matters not if you belong here or if you do not. He can go free and you can be happy here, with me, as my Queen.” Lucifer stood and looked down at the top of her head as she thought about his words. “Come with me. I will let you see the angel.”

Abigail looked up at him, hopeful, and when it didn’t appear he had wasted his breath on lies, she quickly got to her feet and followed him.

The fountain was massive. It was in a room of its own and covered the majority of the floor space. It was easily ten times the size of the fountain she’d had in her quarters, but then again Lucifer had all of Hell to look at, not just one syde, Abigail mused.

She was excited to see her husband. She felt like it had been a hundred sleepless nights since he’d held her close to him.

She could feel Lucifer’s quaint stare on her as she admired one of his greatest possessions, and she met his gaze without emotion. She didn’t doubt for a second that Rhyan could complete the quest he’d been given, but she also knew how hard it would be to see him suffering. That one brief minute they had channeled each other’s thoughts while he had been in Damien’s syde was enough to let her know they weren’t giving him any slack. It had been days since the deal had been made and she knew Rhyan had been allowed to rest none. Not such a difficult task for a strong angel, but he wasn’t exactly holy anymore.

Without speaking, Lucifer nodded once and then placed the tip of his finger in the center of the clear liquid.

A beautiful scene spread across the fountain and she knew instantly that it was Heaven. “Is this what it really looks like?” she asked him, knowing he wouldn’t lie about something like that.

“It is.” He pointed to a great fountain, even bigger than the one they stood in front of in his chambers. “That is the West Court fountain. Heaven is very large, but the courts are what surround Central.”

“And is, um, Central—where God spends his time?”

Lucifer smiled that one of a kind hypnotic grin of his.

It was true that she had been a dedicated minion for over three centuries, but he had taken her memory and molded her into something she was not. The Abigail she’d become was not the same Abigail Rhyan had married, and she craved to be that vibrant young woman again. She couldn’t do that with Lucifer. She had no desire to even look at his beauty the way she had before Rhyan had shown up.

“No, God doesn’t spend his ‘time’ at Central,” he chuckled. “Explaining God is very simple and very complicated at the same time, so it’s best we don’t try it today, when so much is crowding your mind.” He gestured toward the fountain again and she looked.

“I thought Rhyan was in Envy. Why are you showing me Heaven? I wasn’t even aware you could look at Heaven through the fountains.”

When he didn’t respond, Abigail looked at him. He was studying her body language, expressionless.

“Who told you he was in Envy?”

Abigail glanced away from him, her face flushing with a rush of red heat. She cleared her throat. “Fallis was here a moment ago. Remember?”

He nodded once, seeming to appreciate her quick thinking, but it was obvious he thought she was hiding something.

Instead of answering her question, he looked back to the beautiful canvas before them. Abigail could have sworn his eyes misted over, but then she blinked and his expression changed.

“This is Envy—”

“Envy has always been a desert. Did you change it just for my husband to insure his failure?”

“This is an oasis. It is a figment of Rhyan’s imagination, and in this oasis he has dreamed up everything he wants that he doesn’t have any more. He envies his old life.”

“So, where is he?”

“I imagine he is in his chambers making love to his wife. Want to go see?”

Abigail immediately covered her mouth.
Oh, no!
Of course she, as a figment of his imagination, would be in Heaven with him already, she thought.

Abigail hadn’t heard a peep out of that guardian angel of Rhyan’s since right after he’d entered Envy.
What was he doing up there? Playing poker?
It wasn’t like she could try and summon him right then with Lucifer standing so near, so she kept her cool and nodded. She had to see Rhyan, no matter what he was doing or with whom he was doing it with.

“Yes.”

Lucifer touched the liquid again, zooming in across the plains and pastures at warp speed. The image began to slow, bringing into focus a small, white plantation.

“I would have chosen my mansion to be a lot bigger,” he said, but Abigail never looked up.

“It’s our house. It looks exactly the same as it did the night I came into your world.” She turned to face him. “Rhyan is simple, Lucifer. He doesn’t expect to have the fancy stuff or require power to be happy. All he needs is love. All he needs is me.”

He looked back to the small home, the home where she had loved, the home where she had conceived and then taken two lives: her child’s and her own. He seemed uncomfortable all of a sudden.