I kissed her.

That’s not the issue at hand though.

The desire to kiss those inviting pink lips of hers or to bury myself in her ripe, young body isn’t what drives me from her arms and out into the streets of this gloriously hedonistic city.

I felt something.

I tore myself from Heaven and my place as my Father’s favorite. I spent thousands of years buried in Hell and meting out torment to the souls strapped to my rack, bereft of my Father’s love. Still, I felt nothing.

Until a breakable, human girl with Heaven in her blood crossed my path.

Not so breakable anymore though. Those last fetters of mortal weakness have shattered and the true glory of what she is surrounds her, overwhelming her still human mind with its intensity. It’s intoxicating. She is intoxicating.

This will not do.

Friday night and choked with people, the streets echo with the revels of the tourists vying for space with the locals. Their thick drawls fill the air with their eagerness to unwind after an exhausting week of enduring their small, human lives.

What am I doing?

I can still taste her. Innocence tempered with an iron strength that has very little to do with her newly awakened abilities.

And so much loneliness.

I don’t need to read her soul to sense that.

It makes sense. Some unconscious part of her has always recognized the difference in her blood, and that hidden angelic nature kept the world at arm’s length.

Some part of me recognizes you. . . knows you.

Her resolve didn’t waver in the face of my true nature. It only drew her closer. I was the one to put the first crack in the wall holding her powers back, and she tore through the rest like a battering ram to finally free what she really is.

None of this should surprise me.

Every part of me aches to be closer to that taste of Heaven that surrounds her. I want to possess it- possess her until that delicious purity is as sullied as my own. And it would be so easy.

But the tiny shards of me that remember I was once an angel cringe at the thought. Grace is the uncorrupted memory of Heaven before my Father cast us out to survive alone.

She wasn’t made for this world.

Even more, she wasn’t made for me.

I glare upward at the night sky, the steel-grey clouds and faded stars showing no indication of the celestial world they hide.

“This is some cosmic, fucking joke to you, isn’t it?” I snarl, barely knowing myself just who I’m yelling at. “You lock me in Hell for not adoring your precious humans enough, but I seem to be the only one left who gives a damn about this world.”

I stand in the middle of the sidewalk, the fury pouring off me causing the masses to give me a wide berth. “You send her to me as what? A test?” The skies give no reply. “I’m not going to play your games,” I spit. “Not anymore.”

Someone brushes my shoulder, and I turn my attention on the mortal foolish enough to get too close.

Black eyes. Even blacker soul.

I can think of one thing to chase her taste from my mouth.

Blood.

“You’ll do.”

His eyes are black, but beneath the mask of the Hellbound soul riding him, they are brown. His face and build are unremarkable. Even his clothing choices are forgettable, worn jeans and a faded grey sweatshirt. Everything on the surface is deceptively average.

Underneath though, that’s where things get interesting.

The alley smells of spoiled food from the half-filled dumpsters, and it seems only fitting. The soul that has taken over this man is dark, but it pales in comparison to his own.

Like attracts like, after all.

Decay breeds even more rot.

Wrath. A short, skinny boy dropping to his knees as a fist impacts his stomach. The laughter of the crowd cutting off abruptly as he jams the jagged piece of glass into the popular boy’s face.

Envy. Those happy faces, those adored children. Let them suffer as he has. If he can’t have their lives, he’ll take them.

Lust. The red pouring over his hands as he rends their soft, unmarred flesh. Their tears only make him harder.

Pride. He’ll show them. He’ll show them all.

I take a step back. The soul has already twined itself through this twisted psyche, making itself at home in an already blighted mind. Pulling them apart at this point will leave his own soul and mind in shreds as the hooks his guest has snared him with rip him apart.

No great loss there.

“The Devil made you do it then?” I mutter. “Of course. Why claim responsibility for your own choices when you can blame the monster in the closet.” I press my hand against his clammy forehead, curling my lip in disgust at the images that flood me.

“Mommy never hugged you enough, so you decided to make your little corner of the world bleed.”

He laughs. Slowly he tilts his head up, the black eyes focusing on my own. “I’m keeping this one.” The voice slow and garbled as the soul forces unfamiliar vocal chords into speech. “I’m staying here inside this one.”

“Like Hell you are.” I push harder against his skull as the soul resists. A bright drop of blood trailed from the man’s nose, and a low, animal groan of pain comes from his lips as the soul digs its proverbial claws into him.

Even entrenched as this soul is, it has little chance of retaining its vessel against me. Blood pours from his nose as I snap its hold and send it plummeting down to my domain, tatters of its host's soul clenched in its non-corporeal fists.

Like a puppet with its strings cut, the man crumples to the ground, blood smeared across his face. His dull brown eyes stare unblinkingly at nothing.

He still lives, but the damage done is irreparable. He’s nothing more than breathing meat now. Killing him would be a mercy.

I may be feeling many things today, but mercy is not one.

I step over the body and disappear back into the crowd.

I walk for hours, navigating my way through side streets and alleyways without seeing them. I tell myself that I’m hunting Michael, that every step I take retraces his own and brings me inches closer to finally ending this.

It should come as no surprise that the Devil lies, even to himself.

I feel her, rising heat at the edge of my consciousness as she fights to rein in her new strength, and I know I need to return. A piercing note of fear cuts through the assault of sensation as her mind cries out for me.

It’s too much for her. Her skin stretched too tight with the essence of Heaven, and she cries out for me.

And I want nothing more than to answer.

I notice my surroundings for the first time in hours, and I can’t hold back the bitter laughter that wells up in me. The glass doors of The Saint gleam in front of me, beckoning me inside.

Lucifer will destroy you. The memory of Michael’s sneering voice mocks me as I stare at those doors.

I am Lucifer. Prince of Lies. Lord of Hell. The Supreme Tempter of Mankind. And somewhere underneath the blood-soaked memories of Hell, I am still the Bringer of Light. The Morningstar. His favorite.

And I ache for that- for her.

I fucking hate prophecies.

I push open the door.

---

Grace barely notices when I enter the suite. She lays sprawled on the couch with her eyes closed, silent except for her ragged breathing. Her red dress is wrinkled and tangled around her thighs, and equal parts of me wants to shield her from the world and tear her clothes off.

I scarcely believe it’s been only a day since we met.

“Lucifer,” she says, pulling herself unsteadily to her feet. Her eyes are too bright, too unfocused at first, but she repeats “Lucifer” and takes another tentative step towards me.

"You must focus, Grace." I keep my voice low and even, knowing her raw nerves can’t handle more than that. "You need to control this, or it will rip you apart." Grace whimpers, and I doubt she realizes the noise came from her. "The human body isn't meant to contain an angelic essence for long, let alone God's own bloodline. That's why the Nephilim always went mad in the end. Their minds couldn't endure the power flowing through them."

“I can’t.” Her voice is small, and she picks up one of the random decorations scattered around the room as a demonstration, a small bowl made of gilded glass. It splinters under her grip, a bright shard slicing open her palm.

I rush forward to grasp her hand, and everything freezes.

It’s like completing a circuit when my hand touches hers. Her power roars through me, momentarily blinding me with pure white light, and I marvel that she hasn't gone nuclear yet. She could flatten a city block if she breaks, and she’s so close to breaking. I have untold millennia of control under my belt, and I feel drunk on just this brief taste.

My eyes refocus, and I see the fear draining from her, her eyes clearing and her stance growing steadier. Her other hand reaches up to brush my cheek, and I catch it with my own, searching her gaze for the desperate madness of a few moments ago and seeing only clarity.

“Lucifer,” she breathes, and the last cord of restraint snaps within me. It feels like freedom, like free will, and everything I forsook Heaven to experience. I surge forward, hauling Grace against me. She melts, falling into me like she was built for no other purpose than this. My hands and mouth are everywhere, tasting the hollow of her collarbone and the curve of her neck, the line of her jawbone and finally finally those ripe lips.

I kiss her with abandon, and she returns the fervor, her mouth wide and wet against my own, pouring every drop of herself into me. Hesitation and inhibitions forgotten, she holds nothing back, and some tiny half-dead crumb of a conscience that escaped the fires of Hell tries to warn me back. She might be stronger now physically, but there are still so many other ways to bleed.

I stay silent though, tamping down that ember of morality as Grace’s hands trail down my chest. She fumbles with one of the fastenings of my shirt for a moment before impatience wins out and she tears it down the middle, tiny buttons scattering in every direction.

Her slender hands slip through the open folds of my shirt, shoving it and the jacket off my shoulders to the ground before breaking the kiss long enough to catch her breath.

We’re both breathless already, and I’ve barely touched her, something I intend to rectify immediately. The two thin straps holding up her dress snap under my fingers, and she kicks away the crimson puddle of fabric that snares her feet as I yank her closer. Her skin smolders against mine, hotter than it should be as her body tries in vain to fight off her new nature, and her fingers claw at my back as though every cell in her body is screaming for her to get closer.

It is incendiary. I’m more than accustomed to having this effect on the mortals I chose to bed. My presence strips away their reserve, those desire killing hang-ups that tell them this wanton hunger is wrong and that the craving yearning want inside them is sin on par with murder or blasphemy. I’ve played thousands of bodies like instruments until their souls threatened to break under the onslaught of sensation, but I’ve never known how it felt from the other side.

Grace's touch threatens to consume me entirely as her mouth grazes my jawline, her movements showing a desperation that neither of us can put into words. I lift her up, and those long legs twined around my hips, pulling me against the center of her, her last secrets concealed by nothing more than a thin scrap of black lace.

I stumble to the bed and press her back into the king-sized mattress. Seeing her spread across those pale sheets, her body nearly writhing has my mind short-circuiting, some central processor overloading at this endless feedback loop of arousal we seemed caught in.

I kick off my shoes and shed my pants, no doubt tearing zippers and ripping fabric in the process and no part of me cares. The bed dips under my weight, and I skate my hands over her body, barely grazing the globes of her breasts, sliding across each rib before clutching her hipbones and pulling her upward to straddle my waist.

Her lips find mine in another searing kiss, and I want to map every inch of her, to memorize the topography of every dimple and curve, taste every freckle or scar. I shift underneath her, easing her off my lap and hissing at the momentary loss of contact. I’m nothing though, if not patient.

I slide off the edge of the bed, the plush rug flattening under my knees, and tug Grace closer, ripping off the tiny triangle of lace like an afterthought, leaving her spread out like a feast before me.

Heaven never made me kneel, but for a taste of her I’d gladly prostrate myself.

I kiss my way up each thigh, feeling them trembling beneath my lips as I hover so close to where she wants me. Her fingers tangle in my hair, the grip just painful enough to incite me more.

“Lucifer please!” she begs, her voice rough. I glance upward and see her staring down at me, lips swollen and pupils blown, the grey of her irises swallowed up by hunger, and I know I must look the same.

Never let it be said that the Devil can’t be merciful when it suits him.

At the first touch of my tongue on her fevered flesh Grace arches off the bed, her hips rearing upward as I press deeper into her, tasting heat and musk until she’s shaking. Her nails bite into my scalp, and a litany of yes and more and now pours from her lips.

When she comes apart beneath me, it isn’t Heaven she cries out to. It’s my name on her lips.

“Come here,” she demands, her body still shuddering from my attentions. “No more teasing.”

"No more," I echo, settling myself atop her, skin to skin, unbroken by clothing, by posturing, by the expectations of Heaven or Hell. If the world burns down around us tomorrow, whatever happened tonight was something real.

Her hand snakes between us, grasping my length and drawing me closer to her. I catch her lip between my teeth as I press against her heat, swallowing both our moans as I fill her with a single deep thrust.

Grace clings to me, fear of her new strength forgotten as she rakes her nails down my back, trying to force me to speed my movements.

I can’t help smirking just a bit at her frustration, but still I take my time, drawing out every movement like this press of skin on skin is something worth savoring and not just another night's amusement.

Grace rolls her hips, and I finally relent in the delicious, torturous pace, sliding my hand underneath and lifting her up off the bed, thrusting deeper with a hard snap of my hips. I give Grace the taste of the Devil she’s been craving since the first time I touched her, wild and forbidden, fearless with the knowledge that she isn't just another fragile human with skin that bruises and bones that shatter.

I set a new, devastating rhythm, fucking Grace until she knows nothing else – the hard perfect slide of my cock inside her, the stretch and heat of every shift. Everything else disappears.

Grace’s hair is a tangled halo around her, and she kisses me. It’s almost gentle, the press of her lips against mine, and it anchors us both to this world again, to something real and something worth fighting for.

I feel her clench around me, crying out as she shatters with a rough indecipherable yell wrenched from somewhere in the center of her being.

So close, and there is a moment where everything hangs still, heat and breath suspended heavy in the air, and I can feel myself- my true self- unfurl from inside this human form that I wear like another dark suit.

Like a star going supernova, I drag my own angelic pleasure through Grace. I know she can feel the tendrils of what I am now and what I once was pressing at her skin from every direction, weaving her together and tearing her apart with every pulse.

If she were fully human, the pleasure would kill her or drive her mad. But she isn't and it doesn't, and she just hangs on tighter as I spill within her, the shadows of my wings blocking out the growing light of the dawn, cocooning us in darkness for just a bit longer.