Pray for Scars (Unsainted, #2)

by K.V. Rose

Jeremiah’s moods rise and fall like the tide in a hurricane, but if I swim out far enough, I can find the calm in the storm.

I knew he was sick. I guess I just didn’t know he was diseased, too.

“I know all of your secrets, Lilith.”

“I know all of your sins.”

And Sanctum is a cathedral.

his snake ring. The symbol of the 6.

The reason I’m like this? I was like this long before Jeremiah came back into my life. Mayhem’s

Your life. Your heart. Your fucking soul. All of it. I want it. I want you. Covered in my blood, bound to me in yours.

“She’s got a little of the devil in her.”

I run. Ezra and Atlas make music. Cain fights. I don’t know what the fuck Maverick does. There are long stretches of time I don’t know where he is. Maybe he skewers people on poles in his backyard while he writes fucking sonnets about it.

Don’t run, Lilith. You can’t hide from your own mind.

Because we’ll kill each other. We’ll fucking rip each other apart. Because his family wants to kill me. Because he wants my brother dead, and no matter what I feel about my brother, I know I don’t

Who hurt you? he asked me. Not as many people as I hurt back.

As usual, we’re keeping secrets and hoping the other bleeds first. So we can lick the wounds. Taste the trauma.

You’ll be the most beautiful corpse I’ve ever buried. Fucking bury me then.

“Your funeral.” Anger flashes through me and my eyes narrow, but my fight isn’t with him. It’s with the demon boy I want to drown in. My funeral indeed.

Of how we met at the intersection. Of his first words to me. I think you’re supposed to come with me.

“I’ve always given a fuck about you. I would bleed for you. Kill for you.” He steps closer, reaches for my trembling hand, pulling it from my mouth, to his chest. “I would die for you, Sid.”

“What would he do for you, Sid? What would Lucifer Malikov do, for you?” He pulls me close, hand on my low back. His lips press against my brow. “You deserve the world. I’d burn it down before I let anyone give you less.” I still in his arms.

He’s a monster with a vast pit so dark where his soul should be that I don’t think it can ever be filled. It just might fucking swallow me whole.

Maybe we can be a team again, Order of Rain against the world. Because even though I hated that hotel and that life, some broken part of me liked the safety he gave me.

There she is. The angry girl. The violent god. The orphan with nothing and no one but herself to stand up for her.

When he’s loud, I can calm him down. When he’s quiet, no one can reach him. He

“Quid pro quo.”

I see the scars on his abdomen. Scars for me.

But I guess when you’ve got Satan himself on your side, you don’t need the darkness. You are the darkness.

So many men out for my blood. I always thought, eventually, I’d get to dance some more in theirs.

Lucifer. My fallen angel.

Heroes back down when blood spills. Villains fucking dance in it.

“Ego sum deus,” Lucifer growls. “I am a fucking god.”

“But I’m not. I’m selfish. And I want you to know what I’d do for you. What I’ve done. And why,” he pauses, adjusting my limp body on his shoulder, “why I’ve got to burn this place to the fucking ground.”

This war between us has become so volatile. We’re not shooting to kill anymore. We’re aiming to hurt, and that’s worse. At least death puts us out of our misery. But we like to suffer.

He’s the worst I’ve ever had, and I don’t want better.