Page 356 of The Spider Queen
He lifted his head from his beloved’s cheek. The fallen angel was terrifying in his devil form. Hideous and sickening to look upon. His eyes were yellow flames, and his voice sounded like a snake’s rattle.
“Yes,” he whispered. “I want her back.”
“No matter the cost?” the Prince of Darkness inquired.
“No matter the cost.”
“So be it,” Lucifer stated. He lifted his hand to his mouth and breathed out demon fire. He walked over to her dead form and opened his hand. Flames rained down, sprinkling her body before disappearing.
Satan vanished in a cloud of gray smoke.
The Guardian felt her chest rise and then fall. It was a long time before she opened her eyes—her body had needed to knit back together.
“You’re alive,” he whispered in disbelief. “I didn’t think it would work.”
“Didn’t think what would work?”
His smile was slow and crooked, filled with relief and tenderness. He hugged her tighter as he buried his face in the crook of her neck. “Begging.”
“Who did you beg? God?”
He lifted his head to look at her. “You, Poppy. I begged you not to leave me. And you listened.”
I was back in my own body. My hand fell from the mural. I’d just witnessed an intensely private moment between my mother and father, a moment that explained how much he’d loved her, even back then when they’d just found one another.
“Did you know?” I asked. My voice sounded like it was echoing through my head, through the throne room, through all the emotions we hadn’t yet navigated.
“Know?” my father asked.
“That he would want me?”
“No,” he said immediately. “I thought he’d demandmylife in payment. To be taken at a time when I was at my happiest.”
“Thank you,” I whispered.
“For what?” my mother asked.
“For giving me a chance at freedom. For allowing me to live before he… Anyway, I know how hard it was for you both to let me go.”
My parents looked at each other and smiled. “We’ve missed you, Stella,” Mom said.
“This way,” my father said, leading us to a door. He pushed it open to reveal one of their favorite rooms, an old-style salon complete with comfortable chairs and couches. A fire roared in the fireplace, and a tea service was already waiting for us. There was also a bottle of amber liquid and tumblers.
“Sit,” my father said, gesturing to a chair by the fire.
I sat and watched as my mother took her own seat on the couch across from me. She leaned back. Her shirt got trapped against her body and she quickly made a move to pull it away.
But she wasn’t fast enough—and I saw her rounded belly.
“Thane,” she said softly, her eyes darting from me to him.
My father was pouring tea and kept his gaze on his task. “Hmm?”
“Thane.”
Something in her tone had him pausing to look at her and then to me. He sighed and set down the teapot. He lifted the bottle of amber liquid and poured two splashes into two tumblers and handed me one.
I sniffed the liquid and took a cautious sip. Liquid honey. I downed it fast.
