All I see is her.

Alarms blast around us, dozens of human voices adding to the din. Somewhere outside, Uriel's madness still ravages the streets.

But I forget it all at the sight of her trying to escape through a back door.

I felt her presence long before I saw her, the low-grade awareness in the back of my mind spiking with fear that had to mean Uriel had her within his sights. I’d been rushing towards the street, desperate to reach her before-

Then the rush of power detonating drove me to my knees. The missile wasn't aimed at me, so I only heard the echo of the screams, but it stopped Uriel, if only for a moment.

And whether it was instinct, muscle memory, or a side effect of that damned bond, she ran here. To me.

My hands twitch with the urge to pull her to me and never ever let her out of my sight again. And I’ve never been particularly good at ignoring my desires.

But it only takes a split second for it all to come crashing back. The prophecy. Her sacrifice. The entire reason I sent her away in the first place. I shutter myself against her, ignoring the pang I feel as her face falls at my actions. It only takes a moment for Grace to school her features into an approximation of my own coldness.

Good. She’s learning.

She might live through this yet, and then maybe-

I cut that thought off before it can take root. If the past week has given me anything at all, it’s taught me that hope isn't made for someone like me.

"I'm guessing you met Uriel." The fire alarm cuts off, the sudden silence jarring. I glance around quickly. The hotel has emptied out, and while the crowds milling around in front of the building block the view of the street, we’re still far too exposed for my liking.

I brush my hand over Grace’s shoulder to steer her through the service door, barely hiding the tremor in my fingers when I touch her bare skin.

“Uriel,” she says, artificial levity filling her voice. “Batshit crazy and dresses like the kid who got picked last at the renaissance faire?”

I can’t help snickering at her description. "Very apt," I agree before sobering. "It's him that we're after, not Michael. Shockingly enough, Michael and I seem to be on the same side." The door shuts behind us, dumping us out in an alley behind The Saint, the corridor empty except for a few recycling bins overflowing with cardboard boxes.

Grace trails close behind me down the alleyway and for the next few blocks but balks when we reach the steps of the church, digging her proverbial heels into the pavement.

“Won’t it be even easier for him to find us here?”

She’s right, but if I can stash her somewhere safe, I can double back and end this. Impatient, I snap, “Perhaps, but I don't see a lot of other options. That crowd and your little display will only distract Uriel for so long.”

With the immediate threat of death a few streets away, Grace’s anger flares and she turns the ire on me full blast. “Why does it even matter to you what happens to me? I’m surprised you aren’t offering to trade me to Uriel!”

I clench my jaw hard enough that my teeth ache to keep from grabbing her and shaking her. “Maybe I care because your inability to listen to reason and keep yourself hidden is forcing me to constantly rescue you.”

Grace pushes past me, deliberately shaking off the hand that still rests on her shoulder. She pauses in the doorway, her face unreadable. "Don't do me any favors. You're the Devil, after all. I wouldn't want you to go against your nature." She turns her back on me and strides into the church without waiting to see if I follow, leaving the door gaping behind her.

Stung, I walk into the church, slamming the door shut behind us.

The small church sits empty, the parishioners having abandoned the simple building for the more ostentatious structures uptown. Fire and brimstone always seems much more palatable with a few golden candlesticks and a nice stained glass window to look at. A thick layer of dust covers the plain wooden pews, and the faint scents of incense and candle wax cling to the stones, the silence heavy in the stale air.

Grace stands before the altar – the plain dais as unadorned as everything else in the church. Countless hands have smoothed the raw wood and stone to a satin finish, adding the simple cross carved into the center as the only adornment.

Her head remains bowed when she speaks again. "I never asked for any of this. I didn't want to be special. I didn't want to know that an angel murdered my parents because of some vendetta against humanity that we had nothing to do with. You should have left me in that bar."

She lays her hand on the altar, her fingers tracing the cross. “I should feel something from this, shouldn’t I? We’re in a church. If my blood is so holy why are you the only thing that makes me feel anything?”

I walk the length of the aisle without realizing it, moving as close to her as I dare. I stop at the bottom of the three short steps leading up to the raised platform that holds the altar, knowing that if I take those last steps I’ll never let her go. She turns, and the look on her face is so stricken, so utterly familiar that I mount the stairs and pull her to me in a single heartbeat.

Grace melts against me, and for the first time in days, the bond isn't at the forefront of my mind. A breath away from kissing her, it slips into the territory of the unconscious, as automatic as my heartbeat or blood rushing through my veins.

The Devil lies, even to himself.

But I can’t lie to her. Not anymore. And if I sign her death warrant with my confession, well, it won’t be the first time I’ve stormed Heaven to take back what’s rightfully mine.

"I lied to you. About the prophecy." We’ve returned to the beginning, back to that first night when her powers spiraled out of control, and she begged me to ground her. Only now it’s me who is off balance.

My hands curl around her back, drawing her flush against me, and I hear her breath catch. My lips brush hers, just the barest touch, and the tension drains from her body. She swallows a sound that could be a sob or a laugh or something in between.

I deepen the kiss, and her hands find their way around my back, fingertips digging into my shoulder blades as she unconsciously searches for my wings.

She tastes like light, and I’ve been in the darkness for so long.

I draw back just enough to speak again. “The prophecy. It wasn’t about stopping Michael or Uriel.” I push her against the altar, kissing my way down the column of her neck. I brush aside the strap of her dress, the black fabric the only thing keeping me from her skin. I kiss the bared flesh.

"It was a sacrifice." My movements still, and I look up, meeting Grace's eyes for the first time. "Your sacrifice."

Her face softens as understanding dawns on her, but instead of looking afraid for herself her grip merely tightens, pulling me impossibly closer. "I won't have you die for me," I say with a surety I want to believe I can guarantee.

“Then I won’t,” she replies, and we both heard the lie.

I kiss her again, her lips warm and pliant against mine, and I wonder, not for the first time if the inferno I feel when our skin connects is some remnant of Hell scorched into my DNA. Or if she’s bringing the memory of the Lightbringer to the surface after he’s been buried for so long in the shadows.

She pulls back, and I follow, trying to reclaim her mouth, but she presses one slender finger against my lips. “Don’t try to save me again.” I ignore her words and lift her up to sit on the edge of the altar, raising her height closer to my own.

“Lucifer.” Her tone forces my reply.

“I can’t promise you that, Grace. I won’t promise you that.” I pause before speaking again, feeling like a supplicant standing in this derelict church begging for understanding from this pitiless creature in a black sundress. “Don’t ask that of me.”

For an instant she looks ready to protest before nodding in agreement, accepting the stalemate. "I love you, you know." Her soft voice still seems to echo in the church, and I almost stagger under the weight of those pure, human words. "I don't expect anything from you. I don't even expect to survive this, but I needed you to know." The soft grey of her eyes hardens to steel as she reaches out to me, twining her fingers through mine. "Maybe all this pain, this trail of broken lives can mean something.”

I press my lips to hers, silencing her words of a meaningful death. Every person who martyrs themselves for some worthy cause still dies, and there is never any meaning in that.

Instead, I push her down on the altar, her body arching upward to press against mine as the cool stone touches her back. Once I would have been laughing inside at this, taunting my Father with the prospect of defiling His house with one of these flawed creations.

How things have changed.

I hear a low moan as our mouths touch, and I don’t know if it comes from my throat or hers. Around us, the room buzzes, the weight of her words pressing against me to the point that even drawing air into my lungs becomes a challenge. I’m drowning on dry land.

One hand comes up to cup the back of her head, shielding it from the unyielding stone, the only protection she seems willing to afford me right now. The kiss deepens, turning from something light and cautious as we relearn each other and the changes these revelations have wrought into something fierce and sudden as a hurricane.

In that moment, I understand why storms are named for people.

I am the Devil. The Fallen One. As unyielding as the tides, as unforgiving as nature. But in that moment, I feel the landscapes shifting as she carves new fault lines and fissures, reducing my walls to ashes and rubble.

And to think, when I met her, I was the one searching for cracks.

“Lucifer.”

She sits up, resting on her elbows and watching me with a confidence that leaves me stunned. Every day she sheds a bit more of the fear that holds her back, the remnants of her old self crumbling away. If we survive this, Heaven will tremble at what she’ll become.

If we survive this.

Her knees rest on either side of my legs, her skirt rucked up to her hips and it should look profane. She had tamed her hair into a tight braid, and I take the end of it between my fingers, snapping the thin tie and carding my fingers through her liberated curls.

“You’re obsessed with my hair.”

"Utterly," I agree, twisting one lock for a moment before trailing my fingertips down the curve of her neck and shoulder. When I encounter the strap of her dress this time, I push it off and let my meandering hands cup her bared breast, brushing my thumb across the nipple until it tightens and her breath hitches.

“Lucifer.”

I hear the impatience in her voice, but this very well could be it. If this is the last time, I have no intention of rushing. Every touch, every movement is with the intent of learning every cell and atom of her, branding myself into her muscle and sinew.

On this altar, I am devotion.

I wonder if Heaven is watching and what they think of their fallen brother now.

Grace has long since passed the point of laying back and allowing herself to be taken. She sits up fully, pushing me back onto my knees, and her fingers made quick work of my buttons, tugging the shirt-tails out of my pants. Her face is half in shadow, the high dusty windows of the church casting the room in murky light. With my shirt out of the way, Grace’s fingers drift lower, tracing the muscles of my stomach to pause at my belt.

“This isn’t goodbye,” she says with vehemence. “This isn’t one last time before we go off to war.”

Her thoughts and past are still the pure white wall of nothingness they’ve always been, but under it all, I sense her absolute belief that we are going to win. We’ve both suffered enough, paid our dues to Heaven a thousand times over, and still come up short. Heaven has robbed us of so much. Heaven isn't taking this.

I haul Grace onto my lap, shifting back onto my heels, the unforgiving stone digging into my knees. She straddles me, and I use the moment to find my way under her skirt, eager to divest her of whatever lacy creation she’s wearing.

She moves in for another kiss, wriggling against me, our bodies already aligned oh so perfectly except for the layers of fabric separating us.

For all my fondness for Italian suits, moments like this make me miss the robes.

She catches my bottom lip between her teeth, her fingers resting in the hair at the nape of my neck, and I ease her back down. When her back touches the stone this time, her hands fly to my belt again, steady and sure, all remnants of shyness forgotten. I peel off the bit of lace that had hinders me, gasping as her hand wraps around my length. I spread her knees with my own, and she pulls me closer without another word, drawing me up and into her.

I shift my weight, bracing myself on my elbows just enough to avoid crushing her. Beneath me, Grace looks shattered, a look no doubt mirrored on my own face. She pushes against me, her hips rocking upward, taking me in to the hilt. In sharp contrast to every frenzied coupling we’ve shared, I feel oddly restrained. In all likelihood, the world is burning to cinders outside the doors, my insane brother doing his best to bring the Hell he so despises to Earth.

But for now, I don’t care about anything beyond heat and friction, the slow, deliberate snap of my hips as I drive into her, and the ten points of pressure as she claws my back beneath my shirt.

I bury my face in her neck, the curtain of her hair falling around me, and I mouth the hollow of her throat, breathing in her scent. She sighs my name, and it sounds like a prayer on her lips, and I’m selfishly grateful for the curse that followed her family and lead her here. To me.

She rolls her hips, the slick slide as we fit together speeding up, the slow savor forgotten as need takes over. I feel her coming apart, feel both of our broken edges being ground down by this. Her tremors surround me, and she arches up as her release twists and coils through her, her cries of pleasure echoing off the bare walls of the church. I lose myself a moment later, my forehead resting against hers as shudders run through me from head to toe.

Quiet but for our ragged breaths, we are still. Grace presses her lips against my hair, her soft fingers tracing the length of my spine. I know I should pull myself together, but I clung to our sanctuary, however temporary it might be. Finally, I roll off her, straightening my clothes and letting myself enjoy an appreciative glance as Grace rights her own.

She slides off the altar, her shoes making the barest click on the stone floor, but beyond getting to her feet, she makes no move to leave the circle of my arms. I allow myself this last indulgence, allow the emotions I discarded long ago to swell in me as she tucks her head under my chin, her messy curls tickling my nose.

It isn’t just affection, ease, or the need to protect. Not anymore.

I love her, with the same consecration I’d felt in Heaven.

I only hope she can forgive me for what I’m about to do.

"Let's take a few moments to regroup," I murmur, my eyes focusing on the heavy wooden door tucked away at the edge of the nave. An open padlock hangs down, the metal dull and corroded with dust. "I think that might be an office. If it's all the same to you, I'd rather not sit on a pew during our war council." I keep my tone flat, almost bored.

Grace giggles, the carefree sound reminding me with screeching certainty just how young she is.

This is the only way.

The walk across the church floor is short, but every step seems to echo with finality. I open the door and peer inside, seeing a heavy wooden desk too large and cumbersome for the priest to bother bringing to his next parish. Other random detritus of the church lays scattered around the small room – a broken candlestick, the cheap metal not worth the effort of melting down to scrap, two high-backed chairs stacked with musty smelling bibles, a cracked mirror hanging on the back wall. The only window is scarcely larger than a sheet of paper and coated with a thick layer of greasy dust.

"Homey," Grace says, disdainfully. As she moves past me into the room, I grab her waist, pulling her back that final foot of space between us and capturing her lips with my own. Her head tilts upward, and she rises on her toes, her mouth opening under mine, stealing my breath. Or I steal hers. At this point, I’ve long since lost the ability to tell.

She breaks the kiss first, pulling back just enough to speak, our foreheads touching. She smiles, and it’s like the sun coming out from a cloud, and I almost falter.

"What was that for?" she asks, a teasing edge to her voice that speaks of comfort, of familiarity, and I draw my resolve into myself.

"Whatever happens, this was real." I tuck a strand of her hair behind her ear, my voice wavering the slightest bit. "You made the Devil love you. Remember that."

A look of alarm crosses her face an instant before I shove her through the door, slamming the heavy oak and fastening the padlock, trapping her inside.

The thick glass of the tiny porthole window on the door distorts her features, but I see the betrayal and shock clear as day.

"Don't do this Lucifer!" she pleads, pounding on the door.

I feel her trying to gather her scattered emotions through the bond, and I rest my hand against the doorjamb, calling up the memory of Hellfire and the blistering heat. The metal grows hotter under my touch, the molten steel of the frame binding with the decorative brass edges of the door, sealing her in.

Grace will be able to break it eventually, but it’ll buy me the time I need.

“You don’t need to protect me, Lucifer. I can help you stop him!”

I shake my head before speaking. "Even if we win, Grace, there are consequences to killing an angel. Consequences that will leave your soul in tatters." Her hand rests on the glass as she watches me, her wide eyes pleading me to reconsider. "There are some things Heaven doesn't forgive, no matter what your bloodline might be."

I turn and walk away to the sound of Grace pounding on the door and screaming my name.