Days of New: The Complete Collection (Serials 1-5) (56 page)

Her hand fluttered to the column of her throat. “Oh, my,” she said, breathless.

Only then did she look at Lucifer. He hadn’t followed her gaze upward. Beneath his unblinking stare, heat spread across her cheeks, and she felt the madding urge to curtsy. It was so ridiculous that she let out an impolite snort of laughter.

“What’s so funny?” Lucifer asked, smiling.

“This.” Maya flapped her arms around to encompass the beautiful room and her even-more-beautiful dress. “Us.”

“I don’t think it’s funny at all,” he said, growing serious. “You’re beautiful, Maya. You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”

The heat spread to the tips of her ears. She hoped the room was dark enough that Lucifer didn’t notice her embarrassment. “I’m sure you’ve seen plenty of pretty women. Besides,” Maya said, running a smoothing hand down the feathered skirt, “my sister was much prettier than I am.”

“I highly doubt that. No offense to your sister.”

“She’s dead.”

Lucifer stiffened. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“The firstborn plague,” Maya said, like that was answer enough. In today’s time, it was. “Clark loved her.”

“Oh.” Recognition dawned on Lucifer’s face, and he shifted his weight, looking suddenly uncomfortable. “He talked about her some while he was in Hell.”

“Oh,” Maya said, her heart constricting at the thought of the sister she never really knew.

“Right, then.” Lucifer clapped his hands and demons poured in from the door behind Maya. They carried trays with elaborate silver lids. Others brought in crystal goblets and uncorked bottles of wine. The scents of the food hit Maya’s stomach, making it growl with hunger. She hadn’t eaten a real meal in a long time. Food was too sparse at the compound to indulge in something this grand. Thinking of the Descendants and the refugees sent a wave of guilt crashing over her. She cringed as the demons spread the limitless food on the table until almost every inch was covered.

Lucifer didn’t notice her discomfort as he crossed the room to her and dropped into a low bow. When he straightened, he took her hand and pressed a gentle kiss across the tops of her fingers. Though his lips were on her skin, the gesture felt aloof and cold, too polite to mean anything special.

Maya forced herself to smile. She didn’t know what else to do. Gone was the easy banter they’d shared earlier. All she could think about was the bloody dining room where he’d tortured Camille. For a brief moment, she wished they were sitting out on the front porch, drinking tea and eating cold sandwiches in their pajamas. Anything besides this, where his aloofness allowed her to picture how he must have cut Camille with a little dagger. She wiped her clammy palms on her bodice.

“Are you hungry?”

“Starving,” she said, trying for humor. But Lucifer only nodded and guided her to the other end of the table with a hand on her back. He pulled out her chair for her as she sat, carefully arranging her wide skirt around her legs so that she didn’t crush the feathers. With that, Lucifer walked back down the table and took his seat at the other end without sparing her a glance. Maya gritted her teeth. A demon flapped out a napkin and draped it across her lap. Before her was a spread of fine china plates and numerous utensils. Her glass was filled with wine before anyone asked her if she even liked it.

A bowl of soup clanked down in front of her. The demon’s hand shook as he stepped away, eyes averted. No one met each other’s eyes in this house, Maya noted. Even Lucifer. She glared down the table’s horizon until he finally looked her way.

“Do you like the soup?”

“I don’t like wine,” she said instead of answering him.

Between them, candles dripped hot wax, and the trays of food steamed beneath domed lids. Lucifer regarded her coolly, distantly. He could have been a million miles away for all the warmth he was sending her.

“Would you prefer a white wine?”

“I don’t—”

“How’s your soup? You shouldn’t let it get cold.”

“What if I don’t like soup either?”

“Maya,” Lucifer said, sighing. “You just said you were hungry.”

“And you’re acting like the king of Spain. What’s your deal? What’s with this dress and your suit and those candles and all these damn demons not looking anyone in the eye?”

Lucifer’s brows rose, but he directed his attention to his soup, ladling up a bite before he responded. As she waited, Maya grew angrier. “The demons aren’t supposed to meet your eye. It’s a sign of disrespect. They’ve been trained better than that.”

“Trained?” Maya snapped. “Like a dog?”

“Exactly like a dog. Although I find that rewarding them with rawhides doesn’t work nearly as well. They learn better through punishment. A good whip to the shoulders or cheek is quite effective.”

“What happened to you?” Maya whispered.

Lucifer frowned. “Well,” he said, choosing his words carefully, “I was created in Heaven—”

“No. Between bringing me to your home and now. Now, when you’re acting like a pompous asshole! What the hell happened in the hour or two it took me to get ready?”

“An hour?” Lucifer snorted with laughter and ate another bite of soup. “It took you much longer than an hour to get ready. I was waiting quite a while for you to come down.”

“Oh, well, I would hate to keep you waiting, Your freaking Majesty!”

Maya jerked up from her seat, sending the delicate, hand-detailed chair crashing back against the floor. She heard wood splinter, and from the paleness of Lucifer’s face and his wide eyes, she knew the chair was likely expensive. She didn’t care. She lobbed her cold soup across the table, breaking the china and sending broth splashing across Lucifer’s crotch.

The soup must not have been too cold, because Lucifer reared out of his chair with a violent hiss. Blotches of red spread across his cheeks. “What are you doing?”

“I don’t like you acting like this! What happened to the nice guy who talked to me about my beliefs in front of his house? Who talked for five minutes about post-war antiques? Where’s that guy? Because this guy,” Maya yelled, waving her hand toward Lucifer, “sucks!”

She lifted her skirts and strode out of the room, sending demons scattering like bowling pins. They watched her go with bright, too-round eyes. No one spoke as she left, heading for the stairs like a bat out of Hell. From the sunroom, Lucifer must have slung another chair, because she heard glass breaking and scattering across the floor. She spun back around and raced back to the room.

“What did you do?” she screamed.

Lucifer stood in the middle of the room, glass dusted across the shoulders of his tux. The beautiful light fixture with all the thousands of tiny candles was ruined, reduced to shards littering the floor amongst the disembodied limbs of the poor chair that Lucifer had thrown at the ceiling. Demons scurried about to put out the little fires cropping up from the overturned tea lights.

Lucifer growled at her, fists clenched. Not knowing what else to do with all her anger, Maya just screamed at him, reaching for the closest thing possible. Her hand closed around a delicate vase from who-knew-what-era. She turned it into a missile launched right at Lucifer’s face. She didn’t stick around to see if her aim was accurate.

She stormed back through the foyer and up the stairs, her heels banging against the hall’s finely crafted runner. Maya flung open the doors to her room and stomped inside. In the center she stopped, chest heaving with anger, fists clenching at her sides. The dress’s bodice constricted her breathing and made little beads of sweat roll down her lower back. Suddenly she felt ridiculous in the grand gown, and she wanted nothing more than to take it off.

She wanted to rip it off of her, but it was too beautiful. She eased the zipper down and stepped out of the feathery skirt. Only after it was properly hanging up in the closet did Maya change into the silk pajamas Dante had laid out for her. He’d also turned down her bed and placed a sprig of lavender on her pillow. His kindness eased the hurt in Maya’s heart and she lay down with a heavy sigh.

Just as she imaged, the bed was like a cloud settling around her, but she couldn’t get comfortable. As the night turned into the early morning hours, Maya tossed and turned, her thoughts continuously circling Lucifer and the disastrous dinner. If she was meant to save the world from another war, she wasn’t off to a very good start.

Hours later, a floorboard outside her bedroom door squeaked, and the gap beneath the door darkened. Maya sat up in bed, clutching the comforter to her chest, eyes roving to the window to plan her escape. Her heart raced as the knob twisted and a shadow spilled through her door.

“Lucifer,” she breathed when his scent hit her nose. Her shoulders relaxed and she lowered the comforter. “You scared me.”

Lucifer drew to a stop, his face cast in shadows. “I thought you would be asleep,” he said quietly. His eyes were lost to the room’s darkness, but Maya heard the embarrassment in his voice.

“What are you doing up here?”

“I’m sorry. I—” Lucifer backed up, half out the door. “I mean, I…Never mind. Good night.”

“Lucifer! Wait.” Maya flung the comforter back and swung her legs over the bed. “What do you need? Is everything okay?”

“I shouldn’t be up here. I don’t know what I was thinking. I’ll leave you alone.”

“Lucifer,” Maya said quietly. Her voice coaxed him back into the room, his face in profile. He dipped his head in contrition, like he was ready to be scolded and cast out. “What is it?”

“I thought…” Lucifer still didn’t look at her, and it broke Maya’s heart. “I thought you might already be asleep. I was just going to sit close to you. My head…”

When Maya looked closer, she noticed the tight set of his shoulders, the careful way he moved his head as if it were a hand grenade ready to explode. She’d seen the haze of pain in his eyes before, and he’d mentioned headaches when he came to see her at the safe house. She held out her hand for him to take. “Come here. You didn’t need to wait until I was asleep.”

Lucifer darted a quick glance in her direction. “Are you sure? I don’t—”

“Lucifer, I’m sure. Come here.”

She waited, hand still outstretched. Finally, he came inside and closed the door behind him. His footsteps across the carpet were practically silent; the moon’s light and his wings were the only way Maya tracked his slow, hesitant progress. But he eventually made it to the edge of her bed, and she smiled up at him, taking his hand when he didn’t take hers. Without waiting for him to rethink things, Maya scooted over and tugged him down beside her. With his back to her, his weight making the mattress sink and pull Maya’s body toward him, Lucifer paused. She didn’t speak, not wanting to risk scaring him off again. Eventually, he kicked off his shoes and slid his legs under the covers.

“I’m sorry,” he said, staring up at the ceiling. His wings dug into the mattress as if he didn’t want a feather touching her. But Maya pulled herself closer and tucked her body against his side, laying half on his wing so that the feathers warmed her bare arm.

“Don’t be sorry.”

He didn’t move away when she wrapped her arms around him. Unable to resist, she buried her nose against the fine, perfectly tailored shirt he’d worn to dinner. He smelled familiar, and Maya let out a little breath of contentment. “We should have skipped dinner and just gone straight to this part,” she said with a sigh.

“I’m sorry about that too. I don’t know how to…”

“To what?”

“Be with you.”

“This is a good start, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” Lucifer finally relaxed, putting an arm under her shoulders and scooping her tighter against his side so that she was nearly sprawled across his chest. He looked down at her, black eyes glinting in the moonlight. “This is the perfect start.”

“What did you mean about your head? Do you have another headache?”

“I get them a lot,” Lucifer said quietly. “But when I’m around you, they don’t hurt as bad.
Nothing
hurts as bad. That’s why I came up here. I just needed to be close to you.”

Maya smiled to herself; she liked that he would come to her to seek relief. “Why do you think I help you in that way?”

“I think you’re the antidote to my madness.”

Maya thought that over for a long moment. “Clark said you weren’t always like this. That you came back different.”

“After the fire, I woke in a desert. I knew as soon as I opened my eyes that something was wrong with me. I felt a madness stirring deep in my heart. It scared me.”

“But you aren’t crazy.”

“Not when I’m with you.”

“Can’t you just decide to not let it consume you?” Maya asked, clenching his shirt in her hand.

“It was already chosen. Fate marked me the devil. Someone has to do it.”

“Why? Because the angels are so holy? Because to have holy, there has to be evil? That’s bullshit. You’re you. And those holy angels are anything but holy. You don’t need to be the devil just to make them look good.”

She heard Lucifer’s lips crack apart into a smile. “I like your opinion of the holy angels.”

“You should believe it.”

“I can’t, Maya.”

“Why not?”