Page 221 of Boy of Ruin
There he is. My husband.
“You let him do this to you?” he asks me quietly, tracing over it with his index finger, but his eyes are boring into mine. He’s blocking the sliver of sun at his back, and his features are shrouded in darkness, but that blue of his eyes is so damn vivid, it’s startling.
I don’t think I’ll ever get used to his beauty.
“Lucifer, I don’t—”
“Answer the fucking question, Lilith.”
I bite my cheek, glancing down at his finger on me, my hands gripping the sheets beside me. “Yes,” I tell him. “I let him do it.”
He stares at me a moment, as if he’s looking for the truth. Trying to decipher it from my fucking bullshit.
“You know what I should do, don’t you?” he asks me, leaning down closer.
“What you threatened at Ignis?” I counter. “That didn’t work out so fucking well—”
He grabs my throat, silencing me as he leans even closer and I can smell the pine scent of him, tinged with nicotine. “Baby girl,” he warns me, “since when have you ever known me to just let things go?” He glances down at his finger over my brand. “Especially when it comes to my feisty fucking wife?”
He reaches over me, his long, lean arm flexing as he grabs something I can’t see from the nightstand drawer.
I tense even before I hear the snick of the blade.
Before I feel it cold against my skin, right over Jeremiah’s initial.
His name.
J.
Jeremiah and Jamie. A beautiful, broken boy that I couldn’t save how I wanted to. But he saved me, in the end.
“Lucifer,” I whisper, gripping the sheets so hard my hands shake. I glance down, see my swollen belly. I’m showing now, due August seventh.
I have another scan next week, because I missed the full anatomy scan. Didn’t see the gender.
But I’m glad, and I told them in the hospital not to tell me.
I wanted Lucifer to be there for that.
But now…
“Don’t,” I tell him.
He runs the flat side of the blade over my belly, making it jump. He glances down, and I see his face soften as he stares at the baby.
If he stays away from the coke, if he keeps a regular sleep schedule, and maybe if I stop breaking his heart…he’ll recover from the psychosis.
He spoke to a psychiatrist at the hospital.
Maverick was in the room, per Elijah’s orders. He told him nothing other than that he’d watched his father die.
His nightmares the past two nights have been non-existent. He’s clung to me but hasn’t spoken much. Mav and Ella have been over, and they told me it was normal, apparently. Because of his withdrawals. He’s just lethargic, lacking energy. Probably craving blow, but he hasn’t said anything about it to me.
We’re back to building our walls.
He’s back to acting angry when he’s really just…scared.
Scared I’ll run. Scared I’ll break his heart again. Maybe scared the 6 will come for us all over again.
