The Devil's Wife (21 page)

      Get out of bed, you lazy humans! Aspen yowled, meowing and hissing in the living room. It's time to get ready for work!

      "I hate that cat," I murmured, making Clarissa laugh. "Are you sure I can't get rid of him for you?"

      Lucifer, get off her or I'll sink my claws in your ass!

      "Please?" I asked, still lying on top of Clarissa. "Better yet, can we just leave him here to take care of Jayce?"

      "Lucifer!" she laughed, kissing me.

      I'm coming in, Lucifer!

      "We're getting up, Aspen!" I called, rolling off Clarissa. She pulled me down for another quick kiss and I felt a small

weight appear on the bed next to me.

      I won't hesitate to sink my claws into you, either, Clarissa. Aspen squeezed between our bodies, pushing us apart. Don't make me tell you again.

      I laughed, pushing the cat away from me. "Okay, okay, we're getting up. You're worse than a bloody alarm clock."

      Good. He shot out of the door before I could throw a pillow at him.

      I glared after the cat, throwing off the covers and looking for clean clothes.

~ * ~

      "Jayce?" I called, unlocking the front door of Clarissa's apartment and letting myself in. Clarissa followed me, carrying her bag and laughing.

      Jayce's head appeared around the doorway to the kitchen.

      "You have something on your nose," Clarissa said, making Jayce laugh and wipe at it with her sleeve.

      "Yeah, I've been making chocolate cake." She smiled. "I didn't make it from scratch, but I think you'll be proud of me, Lucifer. I don't think I've tasted yummier chocolate cake in years."

      I laughed, rounding the kitchen to stop still when I saw the mess. There was chocolate batter all over the counter, and egg shells on the floor. The cake mix packets were on the counter as well, some of the mix dusting every surface.

      "Good God," Clarissa laughed, looking around at the kitchen. "It looks like we let a five-year-old loose in here."

      Jayce smiled, trying to look offended. "Tastes nice, though."

      I shook my head at her, pulling off my boots. "Clean this up, then the three of us have to talk."

      "You're getting married, aren't you?" Jayce asked without a thought, then blushed to match my skin.

      "No, we're not getting married," Clarissa said with a grin. She picked the eggshells up off the floor before they could be crushed and walked into her living room rug. "Not yet, anyway."

      "Oh good," she sighed in relief, then turned red again.

"I mean—"

      I laughed again, heading for the washing up. "Don't worry about it, Jayce."

~ * ~

      The kitchen was clean and Jayce supplied us with tea, coffee and cake. She sat down on the couch opposite the windows, leaving Clarissa and me to sit together facing the kitchen on the L-shaped couch.

      Clarissa sat on my lap, looking at Jayce. Both of us were chewing on the cake, ignoring our hot drinks for the time being. "Jayce, we have a choice for you. I'm going to move into Lucifer's house, and I—we—want to know if you'll move in with us, or if you want to keep this apartment."

      "I arranged for a new room to be added to my house this morning," I added, finishing my cake. I rested my hands on Clarissa's leg and opposite hip, steadying her. "I'm going to move my library into that room, and the empty room will become a spare one. Or yours, depending on what you decide."

      "You can keep living here, if you want, with all the furniture," Clarissa added, having finished her cake as well.

      Jayce watched us carefully, thinking it over.

      "You can afford the rent on your salary. I'm just worried that you'll run into trouble without me here to keep an eye on you."

      "If you stay here," I added quickly, "we'll leave Aspen here to keep you company."

      Clarissa elbowed me in the stomach. "I never agreed to that," she said, glaring at me. I smiled innocently back at her.

      Jayce frowned, looking between Clarissa and me. "So, you're moving out, but you're offering to take me along with you?"

      Clarissa glanced at me, then smiled at Jayce. "We don't want you to think you're a third wheel or anything—"

      Jayce smiled. She immediately put Clarissa at ease. I could feel her muscles relax as Jayce laughed.

      "Oh, Clarissa, you don't know me very well! As long as you and Luce don't do that lovey-dovey crap in front of me, I'll be fine. It'll just be like living here, only in a bigger house."

      Clarissa relaxed completely, and I moved her so she sat next to me instead of on top of me.

      "That was easier than I thought it would be," I said, relieved, then thought of something. "There's one condition with you living in my house, Jayce."

      "What's that?" she asked, sipping her coffee.

      "You're not allowed to cook in my kitchen!" I laughed.

Jaselyn Haraford

      I loved my new home with Clarissa and Lucifer. Occasionally I was freaked out about just how well I got along with the Devil, but then I would remember the tale that Aspen—a former Angel—and Lucifer spun, each with obvious hate for the other. Their accounts of the Fall matched, only differing on the minor points, like whose fault it was that the Fall happened at all, or who ultimately killed Sera.

      I asked Clarissa later if it was weird to be dating the Devil, and she replied that it wasn't. We often had little talks about Lucifer while he wasn't there. I'm sure he knew. I took it upon myself to keep Clarissa's soul as clean as I could in exchange for all the things she'd done for me, which Lucifer seemed to find funny and took every opportunity to tease me about.

~ * ~

      I watched Clarissa and Lucifer as they slept, my head resting on the doorframe and Aspen purring in my arms. I wished that I could have what they did. Even if it meant I did have to go to Hell for it. I would gladly do it, I'd brave eternal damnation for a love like that.

      Hell wasn't the right word for Lucifer's Kingdom. After I'd taken a quick trip there with Clarissa for dinner once, I couldn't say that I had even been in Hell. I feared for my soul the whole time I was down there, but the Demons were all so nice, I couldn't think of them as terrifying or threatening, not really.

      There was no burning sulfur, or eternal torture, except in the Pit for the worst offenders. The air was comfortable, the Demons greeted you like old friends, and everything you ever wanted was there. Lucifer's Kingdom wasn't Hell—that was for the bottom of the Frozen Lake, the depths of the Rift, or the Pit of Terror. Lucifer's Kingdom was just like Earth, but underground. An underground kingdom. A dance club that rocks out twenty-four hours a day, all year. There was no judgment there.

      I could now see the damage—the mental damage— that Jason and his thugs had done to me. Clarissa found me in my bedroom crying occasionally, and we'd usually stay up all night while Lucifer slept, talking about my parents, avoiding the topic of Jason and his Hellraiser friends as much as I could. Often we talked about what we both envisioned in our futures.

      Clarissa still wanted me to report the Hellraisers, but I didn't have the courage to do it. I was also worried that it would bring suspicion onto Clarissa because of Jason's murder—she'd been interviewed a few times over the last couple of months by police investigating Jason's death. Lucifer assured me that the police would never be able to blame Clarissa or me for his death, let alone Lucifer. Most of the humans who had claimed to see the Devil there were being sidelined as hysterical.

      It was a couple of days before Clarissa and Lucifer's one-year anniversary when I really broke down all my barriers. Clarissa wasn't home—she was held up at work, looking after the secretarial stuff for her boss—and it was Lucifer who found me curled up on my bedroom floor, rocking backward and forward, bawling into a pillow.

~ * ~

      "Jayce?" Lucifer asked gently, standing in the doorway. "Are you okay?"

      I shook my head, burying my face deeper into the pillow. The room was dark, but not enough to hide the tears on my cheeks, especially with his night-sight.

      Lucifer stepped gently inside my room. He was barefoot, wearing only his black jeans, as was his habit when he was at home, regardless of who was here. He crouched beside me, resting a hand gently on my shoulder. "Do you

want to talk about it?" he murmured.

      I could tell by his tone of voice that he was at a loss for what to do. I was willing to bet he'd never been confronted by a weeping woman before. I nodded, wiping my eyes.

      "Hang on a second. I'll go grab you a box of tissues."

      I watched him leave, admiring his body. I could really see why Clarissa liked him, not just on a physical level, but a mental one as well. They were really well matched. I couldn't help a bitter sigh escaping my lips. I want someone like that too…

      Lucifer returned shortly with the tissue box and a block of chocolate. I laughed as he helped me over to the bed, sitting against the headboard with me and putting an arm around my shoulders. It felt cozy, like the chats I often had with Clarissa.

      "Okay," he said, cracking the chocolate open and handing me a tissue. "Tell me what the tears are all about."

      I didn't know where to start. How would I explain to this Devilish God all of the things I'd done under Jason's control? About the degrading sex acts he'd forced on me under the threat of beatings? About the countless gang rapes he'd watched, when he'd set his friends on me?

      Lucifer frowned, breaking off a piece of chocolate and popping it into his mouth. "The tears are for Jason, aren't they?" he asked, trying to start me talking.

      "No! No, they'll never be for him again," I said darkly. "At least, I hope so. Every now then I just start to remember all the things he and his friends did to me, made me do, and it...it just—it keeps building until I can't stand it anymore and all I can think about is killing myself to stop it."

      Lucifer squeezed my shoulders, trying to be understanding. "I don't know what you've been through— Clarissa would never betray your trust like that—but I know that when she finds you crying, it scares her more deeply than friendship dictates. She said that you were once as strong as her, that you would have won a physical or mental fight with her. Then Jason came along."

      I shrugged weakly. "That might be true, it might not. All I know is that from the first time Jason hit me, I was scared for my life with every breath I breathed. I learned not to fight him because fighting made it worse. I stopped running to Clarissa because he would just drag me back and do worse things to me. Clarissa would try to help and he'd get her arrested for beating him."

      "You learned helplessness," he said, taking another piece of chocolate from the packet and sucking on it. "You thought that with neither flight nor fight working, you would take the third option: give up."

      I shrugged. "I don't know. When he realized I wasn't going to run or fight back, the beatings let off for a while. Then he came up with a new game. He would invite his friends over to drink and lock me in a room, binding me to a bed. He'd let his friends do whatever they wanted to me, under the condition that he get to watch and take over when he was ready..."

      Another tear fell down my cheek and he wiped it away with a tissue.

      "He was the worst of them all, including the one who loved to burn me, and the other one who would take to me with a kitchen knife, hitting and stabbing at me to get me to scream."

      "He was meant to love you," Lucifer said, a dangerous note in his voice. I was suddenly glad I was his friend, in a round-about way, and he wouldn't direct such a tone at me. "How could he do such things to the woman he claimed to love?"

      I could tell that he didn't understand why Jason did it. Just from that one statement, I knew that he loved Clarissa properly, loved her more deeply than I thought he did, that he would do anything he could to prevent her being hurt.

      I really began to respect him, to believe him to be not what the Bible claimed, but the last true gentleman on Earth.

      "I don't know why I kept going back, though," I admitted, feeling more tears fall down my cheeks. "The bruises were nothing to the heartache I felt whenever he told me he loved me. It always led to him hitting me."

      Lucifer frowned, pulling me into a hug. "I want you to give me their names," he said, rubbing my back as I hugged him. "I want you to tell me their names and where they live. No one hurts my friends and gets away with it." He growled fiercely, making me shudder and shrink in fear.