Page 136 of Lustling
My father does not arrive—heis. The air reshapes itself to accommodate him, reality bending around the gravity of his presence. Lightning given form. Smoke curdling into shape. He is immaculate, smug, gleaming like sin wrapped in silk.
Lucifer Tenebris doesn’t walk into a room. He claims it.
“Now, now,” Lucifer drawls, his voice smooth as obsidian, cutting and endless. “Let me see what all the fuss is about.”
He nudges me aside without effort, the weight of his presence pushing me back more effectively than any hand could. He approaches Lillien, his gaze devouring her before his touch even lands.
Bastion growls low behind me, the sound reverberating like grinding stone. Cassiel slides into a shadowed arc, wings twitching as though ready to unfurl in open defiance. I plant my feet, every muscle coiled, watching their backs become shields. Shields I will not let break.
“Who are you?” she demands, chin lifted, her neck a line of fire-forged defiance.
Lucifer smiles—not kindly. He raises his hand and cups her face, palm spanning cheek and jaw as though she were a favorite toy he’s just discovered. The casual cruelty in the gesture freezes my blood.
I lurch forward, but his eyes flick to me—bright, amused, merciless. The look pins me in place.
“I’m talking to my daughter-in-law.” The words are a guillotine.
Lillien gasps, voice sharp. “You’re Deimos’s father?”
He nods, languid, his gaze turning back to her, inspecting her like a jeweler appraising stolen gems. “That’s right. And aren’t you a sweet little thing.”
“Father,” I warn, my voice raw, blood turning to ice, fists curling until bone grates.
But she rips out of his grip, snapping her face away from his hand with feral precision. Fire sparks in her eyes, and when she speaks her voice cuts like steel drawn across stone.
“I don’t have daddy issues,” she spits, “and Idon’tgo for old men.”
The audacity of it makes my lips twitch, laughter bubbling up despite the ice in my veins. I smother it quickly, glaring at her even as pride claws at my chest.
“Lillien,” I say, my tone grave, “this is Lucifer Tenebris… King of Hell.”
She gasps once, sharp as a blade drawn. But then—she steels herself. Her spine straightens, her chin rises higher. And the light in her eyes? It isn’t fear. It’s challenge. “Is that supposed to mean something to me?”
The silence after is electric, thick with the dangerous hum of a storm begging to break.
“Damn, Hellcat,” Bastion mutters from behind her, a dark laugh threaded through his voice.
Lucifer’s smile fractures, splitting into something almost predatory. His words spill out like hot seeds spat into dry earth, meant to take root and burn. “You’ve got the fire of Hell and the fire of Heaven coursing through your veins, girl. And you’ve made a mess of one of my kingdoms. This kingdom is now without a Warden.”
“And that’smyproblem?” she fires back without hesitation, folding her arms across her chest. She is impossibly small and impossibly vast at once, defiance incarnate. If there were ever a moment when I needed her to bite her tongue, it would be now. “He tried to force me into a marriage and a bond I didn’t want.”
I move. No theatrics, no flare of wings—just a line drawn across an old scar. I step between them, ash and iron sharp in the air, burned offerings thick in my throat. “Surely there are many demons vying for a Warden title. Pick one.”
Lucifer turns his head, gaze sweeping the carnage with idle detachment, as if cataloguing wreckage for art. He looks back at me, smile cutting sharper than steel. “You’ve made a fucking mess of this kingdom, Deimos. And you dragged your brother into it.”
“Raziel helped me of his own free will,” I snap, chest tight with rage. “Becauseweare family. Something you know nothing about.”
Lucifer laughs, the sound like glass scraped over stone. He jabs a finger into my chest, and heat surges through me, scorching muscle, searing marrow. My jaw locks, but I don’t move. “You’re an ungrateful piece of shit,” he snarls. “I gave you everything. Princes of Hell, and you and your brother run like cowards because you don’t want the responsibility.”
My voice is a blade unsheathed, low and dangerous. “Maybe we just don’t want the reminder of who our father is. Or what he did to our mother.”
The words hit. For the first time, something flickers across his face—pain, faint but real. He buries it with the ease of a man who has eaten storms whole and swallowed their thunder. His jaw tightens. His composure returns.
Lillien’s hand slips into mine—small, urgent, her fingers pressing like a rivet into my palm, keeping me from breaking apart.
“I assume you aren’t going to take over the kingdom?” Lucifer asks at last, his voice mild but edged with quiet danger.
I scoff, bitter and raw. “You know I have no will to rule anything.”
