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I wouldn’t let any part of her escape me, wouldn’t let any bit of the woman I’d come to crave more than my own freedom sever from what made her her.
It was the same one she had when I watched her sleep, the same heartbeat that echoed with her breaths.
“The plans can fucking wait,” I snarled, leaving the archdemons to wreak whatever havoc they wished upon the Coven. None of them mattered. None of it mattered. Only the witch in my arms.
“You’re all right,” he murmured, and I wondered if the words were more to convince me of it, or himself.
“There is no end for you and I, Witchling.”
“Whatever helps you sleep at night. I don’t know what spell you’ve cast, but it serves you right that the very trap you set to make him love you is what imprisoned you in the end.”
“That’s enough, Beelzebub. Unhand my errant wife,”
“Everything I did in that Tribunal room was to keep you alive.”
This was the magic of love, of mutual respect that came from a symbiotic relationship that could not be taught. Willow was one with the earth around her, in a way that would have been a tragedy to take from her.
Not knowing just how severely it would have broken her. Where others might have wanted to control the fire in her veins, I only wanted to watch her learn how to embrace what it was to burn.
That her future started and ended with me. I would tolerate nothing less than an eternity with her by my side, guiding her along the path that she’d always been destined to walk.
It wasn’t the physical activity that made my heart race, but my blinding panic at what I would do if Willow left.
If she made it out, I’d have no choice but to honor my end of the bargain. I’d have no choice but to let her leave Crystal Hollow—to let her leave me. It was unthinkable to go back to being alone in such a way.
It faded eventually, returning her eyes to the mismatched stare I’d fallen in love with as the magic sank into all the corners of her soul and body.
To acknowledge that while I might be the devil, she’d made her home in my soul and felt comfortable there.
“You’re mine now, Willow Morningstar.”
“You’re still my witchling,”
He watched me like I was two words away from a breakdown, and maybe I was.
The future is ours to write,”
Because necromancy wasn’t about death, but about giving life to those that had already lost it.
To love was to lose. To love was to hurt. Whether it was a father who put his own needs before ours or the siblings we would be forced to leave, love was pain for beings like us.
No one else would have mattered to me at all, simply a means to an end to achieve what I wanted, but Willow didn’t just matter. She was fucking everything.
“Your safety is all that matters to Lucifer.”
It had been so many years—centuries—since I’d had feelings and emotions that could impact the decisions I made. Even when I knew Willow was mine, even when I felt that bond to her, it hadn’t been this.
Loving Willow and accepting that I wanted her to love me back would mean putting myself at risk of rejection all over again.
“Let me love you,”
I didn’t like not being in control of every aspect of my life and my home, except for Willow Morningstar. She was the exception to every rule I’d ever made for myself and my kind.
She didn’t appreciate my gifts, in spite of my intention to court her.
“I intend to marry you in every tradition, Witchling. You’ll wear my rings, and as soon as we are able, you will summon the Goddess and we will seek her approval for our union.”
Reaching into my pocket, I removed the single golden band and slid it onto my own, marking myself the same as her.
“You can choose anything else you want, anything, as long as you choose me,”
“I have given enough. I have lost enough. I am not going to lose you, too.”
“Because until you’re willing to let me go, you’re never really going to have me at all. You’re always going to wonder if I would stay—if I would choose you if given the chance, and not knowing is going to haunt you for the rest of your days.”
“Would you?” he asked. “Stay? Would you choose me?” he asked, and the vulnerability in that question reminded me of someone so much younger than Lucifer Morningstar.
“I’m not an easy man to love, Witchling, but if anyone stands a chance of doing it and coming out the other side, it’s you,”
I want a partner. I want a woman who loves me enough to be willing to challenge me to see the world a different way. I want you, Willow, and I understand that I cannot have you if I tell you to do what you’re told,”
“Never stop surprising me, Witchling,” Gray said, turning to stand beside my newly crafted throne.
“Willow is my wife, and soon we will make it official before your Goddess.
Margot slumped in relief, her breathing turning ragged at the words finally being spoken. Beelzebub was there immediately, tucking her into his chest so that she could hide the emotions.
“I thought you’d try to stop me.” “I don’t, but I care about you. If this keeps you from being happy? Then I care about it.”
“You’re as beautiful as you were the day I met you,” I said, even knowing that her eyes would be swollen and her face red.
“I love every side of you, Witchling. Even the parts that make you human.”
I watched her turn into Beelzebub’s embrace as if she were well familiar with it. For a witch who didn’t like to be touched at all, but by men in particular, she’d found solace in him.
Sometimes, you could love someone and still admit that they were an absolutely terrible person.
“He sees me,” I answered, trying to ignore the hurt look on Iban’s face. “He sees all of me, and he accepts me as I am. Not just who he wants me to be.”
I needed the reminder that there was something more to me, that I was allowed to have feelings and thoughts of my own in spite of what the world seemed to think.
“You cannot be interested in him when I already have your heart.”
“So you threw him over the railing because he said something you didn’t like? Even though it was true?” I asked,
“I think you like the idea of me being so consumed with jealousy that I would kill anyone for you, so let me make something very clear to you. I was willing to look past this once, but the next time? It won’t matter if he’s your friend or not; the next person you let touch you will die by my hand, and I will make sure he suffers.”
Life had broken me. My father had broken me. But Gray had shattered me.
