Alone in the scribe vault, Lucifer scribbled furiously onto the papyrus rolled out on the glowing platform. The stem of the feather he’d plucked from his wing grew blunter by the second, and the indents he left as the ink was sliced across the page threatened to cut gouges in the thick paper. Perched atop the severed log and hunched over, every one of his muscles was on fire with strain. The cramping in his twitching calves and biceps was constant now, but he still refused to stop.

“Hundreds more perished,” he spat as he scribbled. “Men, women, and children were dragged from their dwellings out into the dead of night. Throats cut and bodies raped, their blood runs in rivers. Their corpses lay twisted in death, broken and putrid with the decay of their mortal flesh.” Lucifer cringed, seeing as his eyes closed the action of it all, the men wielding blades, swords, and spears that cut down their equals as if they were lambs to the slaughter. In the years that had dragged on, not a damn thing had changed. He smashed his fist down on the platform. A jagged crack rang out, making the inkpot jump and fall. Clay shattered in a spray of black across the overhanging length of the scroll he’d been working on for what felt like an eternity.

Kneeling down, Lucifer retrieved a smaller blank scroll from a wicker basket and smeared at the mess. He paused in his aggravated wiping as a tingling ripped through his body like an electric current. At hearing the swish of feathers across the bright floor behind him, his breath caught, knowing exactly who approached. Letting his breath out slowly, he hesitated in rising to face Gabriel, struggling to contain his polluting anger. Instead, he looked at his stained, patchy black hands. In his mind he saw red, the color of spilled human blood.

Lucifer had not once stopped himself from wondering why God allowed humans to commit the unthinkable, while what Lucifer craved was mercilessly forbidden. He was thinking it now—seething with a question that had never found its answer. How could what he felt in his body, mind, and heart for this ethereal being be so wrong?

“All will be as it should be.” Gabriel’s voice was gentle and warm, free of the depression he had heard in it and seen across her face upon glimpsing through the pond in her garden that very first time. Still, there was desperation underlying it, a hint of upset that she could not hide from him. “God does naught without reason. His Earthly children are showing their true will. The innocent that are lost below are never truly lost—you taught me that. You reminded me of the cycle and eternity of all life. He welcomes the lost with open arms.”

Lucifer whirled up to face her. His long wings brushed over the ground, collecting the spilled ink along their tips. “And all those who commit these heinous acts? What of them?”

Gabriel shook her head and shifted to the other side of the platform as if to create a barrier between them. She drew her silvery tresses over her shoulder, worrying at the long length. “I do not know, though I trust in God’s plan—”

“You trust in his plan?” Lucifer stalked around the platform and grasped Gabriel by her upper arms. She gasped as he squeezed, but she made no attempt to break free. “And what plan might that be? The one where he allows the humans to populate the world without worry for produce to feed them? The one where he allows the weak to starve and die? The one where he lets greed and bloodlust run rampant, while he delivers no orders and no punishments for the lives that are cut down every earthly day?” He squeezed harder, his rage burning bright as the sun. “What about how he allows greedy men to slice other men’s throats and then take their wives, laying them down and forcing themselves into their bodies while the women watch their husband’s blood pooling on the ground?”

“God does not permit these things. Mortals choose their own path. We must trust that they will see the light, that they will see the peril they set upon the earth and change their ways. That his flood to end all that is good and bad will not wipe them all out.” Gabriel winced as Lucifer’s grip turned from squeezing to strangling, her beautiful guilt-ridden eyes pinching. “Lucifer, please…you are hurting me.”

Lucifer gasped, releasing his hands so fast it was like boiling water had scalded him. His palms throbbed and his heart went from steady thumping to a racing staccato. He had been holding her so tightly that his thick fingers and hands had left red welts across her pale arms. Silver welled where his nails had dug in, and a few fattening drops slid down to her elbows. “I—I never meant…Gabriel…” He reached for her, and her retreating step back felt like she’d punched into his chest cavity and ripped out his heart. He fell to one knee. “I am sorry. Gabriel, forgive me, please.”

She was kneeling before him on the ground in an instant, her warm hands soft as she captured his face. “You let your passion control you, your care for others—”

“It is not my care for others that drives me. Not entirely.” Looking up at her, he could barely believe what he saw. His aggressive actions had not stunted her total and unwavering faith in him. Though she was healing, the marks fading and the crescent cuts closing over, she still stood by him. She still accepted him. Now, with her right in front of him, his raw emotions for her, as well as his feelings of injustice, bubbled up. With all the carnage on Earth, their maker—despite his long-ago warnings to Noah—refused to act. Refused to save innocence when he contained the power to do precisely that. Lucifer remembered the pain that had plagued him during his explicit thoughts of himself being Adam and Gabriel being his Eve. Then, as he let his gaze fall to Gabriel’s reddened lips, he conjured up the memory of their first and only kiss. To taste her like that again, to let his rough hands glide over her silky soft skin…it was worth that pain a thousand times over.

Lucifer had seen the repercussions on humans who sinned. There were none. So even if God did punish him for following what his body and soul craved, how bad could it be? How long could it last? Lucifer could not know for sure, but he was willing to find out. A few moments in their eternal lives to feel Gabriel in his arms was worth the risk. It was worth everything.

Gabriel’s thumb caressed his cheek, getting dangerously close to his parted lips. “Then tell me, Lucifer. What drives you?”

Lucifer fought to control his breathing, to keep control of his body and its reactions. But he was failing. Still, he couldn’t utter all that fogged up his mind and made his body hum like a song. So he settled for a simple answer, one that spoke volumes in hidden meaning. “Your faith in me. Your total acceptance. They drive my every thought and my every action. You are my sun, and I will forever be your Morningstar. A light that beams brighter in your presence. A light that would surely die if I ever lost you.”

Seeing her long lashes fall over her blushing cheeks as her tongue peeked out to wet her lips, Lucifer came undone. Touching her heated face with excruciating gentleness, he dipped his head. Their lips brushed, soft and sweet. Gabriel’s breath hitched, but she didn’t push him away. Staring up into his eyes, she seemed to be begging for him to do something. To let go? Or to touch her? The tempo of her heart that raced with his and the way she bit her bottom lip was his answer. And Lucifer responded, stepping slowly closer until their bodies were touching. His head dipped again, mouth hungry to taste her.

“Lucifer…”

Gabriel seemed to want to say more, her plump lips remaining parted and so close to his, but only an uneven gasp came out as he slowly slid his hand over her collarbone and down along the side of her pumping chest. Looking deep into her eyes, he felt his way to her waist and then her hip, his seeking hand sliding down between their bodies—

“Huh-hm.”

Gabriel gasped and Lucifer jerked back. Spinning around, he found Azrael looking back and forth between them from the entry. Even though Lucifer’s wings would have concealed their actions, a look of dark irritation crossed the archangel’s face. “Lucifer, a mission below awaits you. Extended cleanup.”

Lucifer looked at Gabriel, desperate to gaze into her eyes after what he had done, desperate at the thought of being so far away from her. Except she refused to look at him, keeping her eyes down and hands clasped in a knot in front of her. “It will not be forev—”

“God waits for no man, and certainly no angel.” Lucifer glared up at Azrael who hiked his chin. A gentle glow radiated from his hand. “Your Below attire is ready. And your immediate departure awaits.”

Lucifer considered risking the pain Azrael had the potential to deliver with God’s gifted light—but he would not risk Gabriel being caught in the crossfire. Nodding once, he let his wings graze hers as he walked away. “I will return,” was all he said quietly as he looked back at her one last time.