Anna (Book 2, The Redemption Series) (16 page)

Lucifer meets my eyes and looks at me in surprise, like he wasn't expecting
a thank you from me. Then again, I doubt he’s done much in his life to be thanked for.

“
You're... welcome,” he replies, and I can tell by the hesitancy in his voice that he isn't used to saying those two words very often. He gently extricates his hand from mine and phases.

I sigh, feeling slightly disappointed that he didn't stay a little
while longer. I have so many questions about my mother, and I feel like he could give me the answers that I need.

“
I see you've been given a new friend,” I hear God say beside me. “And I think you may have already made an unexpected one.”

I look over at God. He'
s sitting in Lucifer's spot now with a pleased grin on his face.

“
Lucifer confuses me,” I admit to God. “I don't understand him at all.”

God nods his head
, sympathizing with my plight. “Lucifer has a way of doing that to people. Not many people take the time or care enough to understand him. I think your mother and Jess were the only two people who ever got close to discovering the real him.”

I look down at the basket and shake my head in dismay at Lucifer's
present.

“
Malcolm's going to hate it,” I say with absolute certainty.

“
You could have refused to accept his gift,” God reminds me gently.

“
Refuse the first gift my biological father gives me?” I say, finding the notion an impossible one. “If I had, he might have taken it the wrong way. I think this might be an attempt on his part to connect with me on some level.”

“
I would have to agree,” God says, sounding pleased with my conclusion. “I think he yearns to know you better. Lucifer has always had a hard time opening up to people. Even when he was in Heaven he tended to use his power to keep his brothers at arm's length. I suppose I shouldn't have made him quite so headstrong.”

“
He really loved my mother, didn't he?” I ask, but seeking a direct answer to my question isn't really what I'm after. God seems to understand that.

“
Lucifer can love just as strongly as he can hate. But his anger towards things and people can cloud his judgment and push him to act out in terrible ways. The line between right and wrong has become blurred to him over the years. I think he simply needs to care about someone more than he does himself to clear his mind and make him want to find himself again.”

“
Are you hoping I'll be that person for him?”

“
Yes,” God admits freely. “If he can forge a bond with you, I think he will be able to find the good inside himself again.” God looks down at the basket. “And I think this small token of affection might just be the start of his evolution.”

I sigh heavily, not knowing if a relationship with Lucifer is what I need at the moment. It could complicate things with Malcolm.

“Will I have to kill him to retrieve his seal?” I ask God, needing to know if that will be the end result of my relationship with Lucifer.

“
It depends.”

“
Depends on what?” I ask, filled with a newfound hope by his answer.

“
It depends on Lucifer, and that's all I'm going to say on the matter, Anna. If I divulge too much information to you, all might be lost, and I don’t think that’s what either of us want.”

I feel frustrated
by God’s reply but keep my mouth shut. It's obvious he has no intention of telling me more. But, his words give me hope that executing Lucifer won't be something that I have to do. Obviously, there’s another way. A way I intend to figure out.

“When will I get my papa back?”

“In time.”

I sigh in disappointment at another non-answer.

“Can you at least tell me if he’s all right? Is he hurt? Is Levi torturing him?”

“He’s perfectly safe, Anna. Levi hasn’t laid a hand on him. I think he might be scared he’ll go too far and accidentally kill Andre in one of his fits of anger. Stop worrying about your father and keep your mind focused on what you need to do. Enjoy the time you’ll have here. Andre would want you to do that.
Don’t spend your energy worrying over him when he’s perfectly fine.”

I feel a sense of relief with God’s words but I know I won’t be able to stop worrying about my papa
. At least not until he’s back with me and my family is made whole again.

Chapter 13

After God leaves, I phase back to Malcolm’s bedroom. He’s still peacefully asleep, and I find myself grateful for that small fact. I still haven't decided how to tell Malcolm about Lucifer's first gift to me yet. I’m not sure how I'll explain that it was a present I couldn’t possibly refuse to accept.

I walk over to the chair near my side of the bed and sit while placing the basket down on the floor at my feet. I lift the right side of the lid and just stare at the hellhound pup for a minute
, studying the way the phantom yellow-orange flames illuminate its coat which helps perpetuate the illusion that the tufts of white hair are moving against an unseen wind. Tentatively, I reach out to stroke the fur on top of its head. Its hair is softer than anything I’ve ever felt before and makes me involuntarily sigh in contentment. I reach down with my other hand and gently lift the pup out of the basket and lay it on my lap.

The movement wake
s the pup, and it lifts its head to look up at me. The hellhound’s eyes are a dazzling aquamarine color which takes me by surprise. I remember the hellhounds Malcolm and I fought at the beach house and their eyes were a soulless black, like pieces of marble, cold and hard. If the eyes truly were the windows to the soul, this animal’s inner spirit was beautiful. It made me wonder exactly what Lucifer and his brothers must have done to the other hellhounds to extinguish such a brilliant light.

The pup
opens its mouth, curling out a little pink tongue while yawning and rolling over onto its back to expose a soft, lily white belly to me. It's completely vulnerable in such a position and looks up at me expectantly, waiting for me to pet it. I immediately see that it’s a girl pup as I reach down and gently stroke the tender flesh of its abdomen. It’s as if the hellhound is asking me in action form whether or not I accept my newly given role as her master, and after proving that I do consent to the responsibility, she promptly goes back to sleep on my lap.

I continue to stroke
her little belly until I feel certain she has fallen back into a deep slumber. I cradle her in my arms and walk over to the bed, gently laying her down on top of my pillow. I take off my jacket and crawl onto the bed to lie down beside Malcolm. It feels a little strange to be lying sideways on a bed, but I don’t care. I wrap an arm around Malcolm's torso and breathe in his fresh, clean scent.

H
e smells like freshly ground cinnamon mixed with vanilla and some other spices I can’t readily recognize. I know it’s from his shampoo, but for me, the smell of cinnamon from that moment on will forever be linked with Malcolm. It adds to the natural sense of being home when I’m around him and the aroma will always remind me of the man I love.

I snuggle
in as close as I can get to Malcolm and rest my head on his shoulder. Just before falling asleep, I feel my new little friend find a spot at the base of my back to nestle up against.

In the world of dreams, I
soon find myself standing inside Malcolm’s workshop in Lakewood. Malcolm is steadily working on the large birdhouse he was making for Lucas in the real world. When I enter his dream, he doesn’t seem to notice me right away. It gives me a moment to secretly watch him as he concentrates on nailing a section of the roof onto the structure. I smile to myself and my heart lurches slightly inside my chest at the sight of him. Every time I look at Malcolm, complete happiness touches my soul, slowly filling it with quiet moments like this that I will never forget.

After he finishes his task, he looks up at me in surprise
and smiles.

“
Hey,” he says. His smile is so bright I know for a fact that my presence affects him in the same way his does me. “I was wondering if you would come.”

“
Will we always be sharing dreams like this?”

“
I honestly don’t know,” Malcolm says with a confused look on his face, making him look irresistibly adorable to me. “I never thought to ask Lilly if she always shared Brand’s dreams when they slept together.”

I walk over
to Malcolm on the other side of the work table. He puts the hammer in his hand down and instantly brings me in close to his body. I wrap my arms around his waist and lay my head against his chest, just enjoying the dream world feel of him.

After a little bit
, I pull back and look up at his face. With the mention of Lilly, it brings to mind a question.

“
You know you asked me what Auggie would think of us together, but I haven't asked you what Lilly would say about us being in love.”

“
She’s happy for us,” he says, like it’s a point of fact and not just conjecture.

“
How do you know that with so much certainty?” I ask.

“
Because she told me so.”

I pull back even further from Malcolm.

“She came to see you?” I ask. Malcolm nods. “When?”

“
The night you said you were letting me go,” he tells me. “I walked over to her old family home on the lake afterwards, and she found me.”

And then the rest of the events from that night immediately begin to fall into place for me.

“She’s the reason why you came back to me, isn’t she?”

“
Yes,” he says. “Lilly was never shy about telling me when I was doing something stupid, and pushing you away was one of the most foolish things I’ve ever tried to do. She made me realize that the love I feel for you isn’t something I should walk away from but run towards.”

“
I want you to know that I don’t expect you to ever stop loving her,” I tell him, truly meaning every word. “I’m ok with sharing your heart with Lilly. If there’s one thing I learned from your memories of her, it’s that she helped you realize what a wonderful person you could be and made you believe in yourself again. I would never ask you to love me more than her.”

Malcolm shakes his head at me like he can’t believe what I just said.

“My love for you is so different from the love I have for her,” Malcolm tells me. He raises a hand and places it behind my neck, almost like he wants to make sure I keep looking into his eyes as he continues. “I won’t lie and say I didn’t love her very deeply. You know I did, but my love for you goes beyond anything I’ve ever felt for anyone in my life, Anna. Every time I look at you or even think about you, my heart fills with so much love I’m surprised it doesn’t burst at the seams inside my chest. You alone hold my heart Anna Greco. I think you have for a very long time, even before you were sent to Earth. I simply didn’t know it until I saw you for the first time. Please, never doubt in my love for you and forgive me for trying to push you away. I thought you deserved someone better than me to give your heart to.”

“
Deserved someone better than you?” I ask, completely sure I misheard what he said. When he continues to look at me and not say a word, I can tell by the strained expression on his face that it’s what he truly thought, and it brings to mind what he said in his letter to me. “That has to be the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard, Malcolm! Why would you even think something like that? It’s like you don’t even realize how wonderful you are.”

“
I don’t understand how you can say that after the way I treated you, Anna. I can’t tell you how much I regret being such an ass to you all that time.”

“
I knew you were trying to push me away,” I tell him. “I just assumed it was because of Lilly.”

“
It was partially,” he admits. “But, mostly I just didn’t feel worthy to be the soul mate of someone so perfect.”

I let out a half laugh.
“I am
far
from perfect.”

“
Name a fault then,” he challenges, like he's sure I'll fail at the task.

“
I’m stubborn and opinionated.”

“
I wouldn’t want to be with a woman who didn’t know what she wanted.”

“
I’m hot-headed.”

“
So am I,” he says with a nonchalant shrug of his shoulders. “Next?”

“
I’m impatient.”

“
Patience is overrated. Next?”

“
I have a feeling whatever personal fault I admit to you would find a way to make it a positive,” I tease.

Malcolm smiles.
“There’s just nothing you could say that would make me think any less of you, Anna. You need to know that. I'm all in, for better or for worse.”

I wrap my arms around Malcolm’s neck
and kiss him thoroughly. Just like before, it’s pleasant enough but not nearly as satisfying as kissing him in the real world. When I pull away, I let out a deep, frustrated sigh.

“
I can’t wait until we can do that for real and not have you suffocate to death because of it.”

Malcolm chuckles and nuzzles the side of my neck.

“It probably won’t be too much longer,” he says reassuringly, even though I hear a note of doubt in his voice.

The truth is neither of us know
s exactly how long it will take for the poison in my body to flush itself out. All I know is that the time in between is bound to make my patience even less manageable.

“
Do you come here a lot when you dream?” I ask him.

“
I’ve always liked this workshop,” he says, lifting his head from my neck to look at me.

I
chew on my bottom lip in worry because I need to tell him what’s happened to one of his favorite places. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I can’t withhold such important information even though I know it will hurt him.

“
I have to tell you something about this place in the real world,” I say.

“
Levi burned it to the ground,” Malcolm tells me before I get the chance to.

“
How did you know?”

“
He gloated about it,” Malcolm says with a sad smile. “While he had me, he tried to hurt me in every possible way he could think of, not just physically.”

It was what I assumed of Levi. I knew he would try to cause Malcolm as much pain as he could
, both physically and mentally.

“
Did he say anything to you about me?”

“
Of course.”

“
What did he say?”

“
Lies.”

“
What kind of lies?” I ask, needing to know what was said.

Malcolm shakes his head and looks away from me like he doesn’t want to
repeat what Levi told him.

I p
lace my hands on either side of his face and make him look at me.

“
What did Levi say about me?” I ask.

Malcolm doesn’t
reply right away, but then he says, “He said there was a darkness inside you that he could sense and hoped to exploit in time. He seems to think you have a lot of your father in you.”

“
And what do you believe?” I ask, wondering why Levi’s words would bother Malcolm so much if he considered them lies.

“
When we learned about the prophecy surrounding you, God said that we needed to keep your heart pure. It was almost like a warning.”

“
He hasn’t mentioned that to me,” I say. “What do you think it means exactly?”

Malcolm shrugs.
“I have no idea.”

“
Do you think I could ever become like Lucifer?”

“
No,” Malcolm says adamantly. “Your heart is one of the purest I’ve ever encountered, and I intend to keep it that way by loving you so much you won’t have any room left in there to hate.”

“
Do you think that’s even possible?” I ask. “Because I already hate Levi a lot.”

“
But you haven’t let your loathing for him tarnish your soul, Anna.”

I wasn’t so sure about that, but I didn’t want to upset Malcolm by voicing my concerns
over the safety of my soul.

Instead,
I hug him close.

“
As long as you love me, I don’t care about him. I know he’ll try to break us apart, but I won’t let him. He might be my husband legally, but my heart belongs to you and always will.”

“
I will always treasure your love, Anna,” Malcolm promises hugging me even tighter. “I promise you I will never take it for granted again.”

When we let go of one another, I turn to face the birdhouse on the table.

“Do you think you could show me how to build something?” I ask. “I want us to be able to do things like this together.”

I feel Malcolm move up behind me and press
himself against me. He leans down and whispers in my right ear, “I can think of a lot more pleasurable things that we can do together.”

I smile and roll my eyes.
“Well of course we'll be doing that... eventually,” I tell him, “but I would like for us to share common interests. I don't only want to be your lover, Malcolm. I want to become your best friend too.”