Page 22 of Devil Wears Nada
“And if I refuse?” Van asked, though we both knew the answer.
“Then we take you back.” Her pleasant facade dropped completely now, her eyes flashing with hellfire. “Not as a prince, but as a traitor. And believe me, Vanity, you do not want to experience what awaits traitors in the deepest circles.”
I stepped forward, still holding Van’s hand. “There must be another option.”
Lilith regarded me with something almost like respect. “The mortal negotiates for a prince of Hell. How novel.” She tilted her head, considering. “There is one alternative, but you won’t like it.”
“Tell us,” I demanded.
“Van retains all his memories, his knowledge of Hell and his former glory. He remains here, with you, living his mortal life.” Her smile turned predatory. “But you, mortal, will forget him entirely. Every moment, every touch, every shared creation—gone from your mind as if he never existed.”
The room seemed to spin around me. Forget Van? Forget everything we’d built together?
“No,” Van said immediately. “That’s not an option.”
“It’s a perfectly balanced exchange,” Lilith countered. “One of you must forget for balance to be maintained. The choice of who bears that burden is the only freedom you’re being granted.”
I looked at Van, seeing the anguish in his eyes, and made a decision. “I’ll do it,” I said. “I’ll be the one to forget.”
“Lucas, no,” Van protested, turning to face me fully. “You don’t understand what you’re offering.”
“I understand perfectly,” I said, surprising myself with how calm I felt. “If you forget who you were, you lose your entire identity, centuries of existence. I’d only be losing three months.”
“The most important three months of my existence,” he argued, his eyes bright with unshed tears. “Lucas, I can’t let you do this.”
“It’s not your decision,” I said gently. “It’s mine. And I’m choosing to give you this gift.”
Lilith watched our exchange with clinical interest. “How touchingly self-sacrificial. Though I should warn you, mortal—the forgetting won’t be limited to just Van. You’ll lose all memory of your work together, your collection, this very event. As far as your mind will know, you created everything alone.”
The implications struck me hard. Our collection—our shared vision, our creative fusion—I would believe it all came from me alone? The idea was both tempting and horrifying.
“There has to be another way,” Van insisted, turning back to Lilith. “Some compromise—”
“There isn’t,” she interrupted coldly. “The Council was divided even on offering these options. Many wanted you simply destroyed as an example.” Her expression softened fractionally. “I argued for these alternatives because I remembered you before your fall, Vanity. You were always… different. Questioning. Perhaps this mortal existence truly is where you belong.”
Van looked devastated, torn between impossible choices. I squeezed his hand, drawing his attention back to me.
“Van,” I said softly, “it’s okay. Let me do this for you.”
“How can you say that?” he demanded. “You’d be losing everything we’ve built together.”
“But you wouldn’t,” I pointed out. “You would remember us, remember our work, our love. You could keep it alive for both of us.”
“Keep it alive?” he repeated incredulously. “You’d look at me like a stranger. Everything we’ve shared would exist only in my mind. It would be torture, Lucas.”
Lilith cleared her throat delicately. “Not to interrupt this touching debate, but time is of the essence. The veil will not remain thin indefinitely.”
“Can we have a moment?” I asked her.
She inclined her head. “One moment. No more.” She stepped away, melting into the crowd with supernatural grace.
Chapter 13
I pulled Van to a quiet corner of the boutique, away from the oblivious party guests. “Listen to me,” I said urgently. “This is the only way that makes sense. If you forget your true nature, you lose your entire self. I can’t let that happen.”
“And I can’t let you sacrifice your memories of us,” he countered, his voice breaking. “Lucas, these past three months have been everything to me. The thought of you looking at me without recognition, without love—” He shook his head, unable to continue.
“We would find each other again,” I insisted, though I wasn’t sure I believed it. “If what we have is real, we would find our way back to each other.”
