His fingers burned against my skin, not with pain, but with something far more dangerous. A heat that seeped into my veins like slow poison, making my breath come short and my thoughts scatter.
"Perhaps we can heal each other."
The words curled around me, smoky and seductive. I should have recoiled. Should have spat in his face again. Instead, I found myself frozen, caught in the golden fire of his gaze.
The Devil studied me, his thumb tracing idle circles along my jaw. Everywhere he touched, my skin prickled with awareness, as if my body remembered what my mind refused to acknowledg, that this was no ordinary man. This was Lucifer. The legend . The myth.
And he was looking at me like I was something precious.
"You're trembling," he murmured, his breath warm against my lips.
"I'm not afraid of you," I lied, " And I don't heal demons ".
Lucifer's lips curled into something that wasn't quite a smile. "You will." He turned, his wings flexing slightly as he moved toward the great arched windows overlooking the infernal city."Because you're smart enough to know what happens if you refuse."
I didn't need the reminder. The image of Thornvale, of Mara and the others, frozen in terror beneath Hell's gaze was burned into my mind.
"You said your wound isn't physical," I said carefully. "What makes you think I can fix it?"
He didn't answer immediately. Instead, he reached into the air and plucked a single feather from his wing. It shimmered in the hellfire light, black at the root but fading to a dull, ashen gray at the tip. He held it out to me.
"Tell me what you see."
I hesitated, then took it. The moment my fingers made contact, a jolt of something—memory, pain, power—shot up my arm. I nearly dropped it.
The feather wasn't just damaged. It was dying.
"This isn't from an injury," I said slowly. "It's... fading."
Lucifer's gaze sharpened. "And?"
I turned the feather over, my healer's instincts warring with my revulsion. "It's rejecting its own nature. Like a body turning on itself." I looked up. "Your grace is consuming you."
A beat of silence. Then—
"Yes."
The admission hung between us, heavier than any threat.
I exhaled sharply. "I can't cure that."
"No," he agreed. "But you can slow ". He gestured to the feather. "You felt it, didn't you? The way your magic recognized the corruption?"
I had. And that terrified me more than anything else.
"Why me?" I demanded.
Lucifer's gaze drifted to the window, where the screams of the damned rose like a macabre symphony. "Because you're the first earthling in years who didn't beg for mercy when faced with me." His eyes flicked back to mine. "That makes you useful."
Useful. Not safe. Not protected. Useful.
I clenched my fists. "If I do this—if I even try —you leave Thornvale alone. No retaliation. No demons lurking in the shadows."
Lucifer tilted his head. "For now."
It wasn't a promise. It was a stay of execution.
But it was all I was going to get.
I nodded once. "Then show me the rest."
The Devil smiled—a slow, dangerous thing—and extended his hand.
This time, I took it.
The moment our skin touched, the throne room dissolved around us, and I was plunged into darkness.
Not hellfire.
Not torment.
But the cold, endless void between stars—and the thing that waited there, hungering.
"Welcome," Lucifer murmured, his voice echoing from everywhere and nowhere, his hand making a quick sign, and then suddenly a man appeared from the void "the keeper will show you to your chamber."