“I have to confess that sex isn’t the first thing on my mind right now. But I want to help you however I can. Would it hurt you? Even if it heals?”
His lover shook her head gently. “Do not try to force yourself, Alex. I could endure, yes, and soon it would only help me, but even I have limits to my lusts. Beaten and weary as I am, I want only to be with you. All else will come in time.”
Alex nodded. He stroked her matted, bloodied and filthy hair. “You don’t have to hide what you look like from me, y’know.”
“It doesn’t take much effort at all.”
He shook his head. “Show me.”
Lorelei nodded. She looked down for a moment, then back up. It was as if Alex had blinked, but he had not. One moment, he stared at a beautiful but bruised woman. In the next, she was still beautiful, but even more bruised and bloodied, and now there were horns. Wings. The tail. An animalistic, predatory change in her eyes. Her skin turned red. She reached up to touch his face again. “I was so afraid, my love.”
“You stopped calling me master,” he observed with a slight smile.
“You didn’t go so far tonight to rescue a slave,” Lorelei smiled back. “I suspect we would both prefer to save that word for play from now on.”
He swallowed hard, afraid to ask the question that plagued him. “You could have freed yourself from me with that crown, couldn’t you?”
“Yes,” she nodded. “To seize a crown in Hell is to break all bonds. I would have been freed. Other lords would have fought to conquer me, and perhaps triumphed…but perhaps not.”
“Why didn’t you take it?”
“To what end?” Her gentle tone contrasted sharply with her wicked features. “To rule a corner of Hell would be to lose you-unless I were to keep you there. How could I do either? Alex…you are a bright young man, but you are young. I could have found a way to escape you at almost any turn had I wanted my freedom.
“Lydia did not lie to you about everything. I have manipulated you. Used you for my own needs. Pressured you into things you found uncomfortable simply to further my desires. I have been awful. You suffered so much pain and your friends were endangered, all because of me. I am a monster. I will always be a monster. Whatever they did to you tonight…you were hurt so much. And you see what I am. I don’t understand why you do not reject me. I don’t know why you still want me.”
“I owe you everything,” he shrugged. “I knew what you were all along. I made my own decisions.”
“But they hurt you so much. All because of me.”
“I’m over it.”
“You’re not,” Lorelei countered. “You’re different now. I felt…Alex, you wanted to die.”
He searched for words. “I remembered a lot of things that never happened to me. It’s all stuff that happened a long time ago to other people. Maybe they were me. I don’t know. I remember a lot of fighting, and dying over and over, and being lonely and hurt.” He shook his head. “I remember pieces still, but it’s mostly fading. But when Lydia tried to make me choke on that stuff, I remembered everything like it had all just happened two minutes ago.
“So in the beginning, yeah, I guess I just wanted it all to end. But I didn’t want to lose you,” Alex said. “I would never want to lose you. I was so afraid of what they would do to you. So once I could sort out my head again, all I could think about was finding you.”
“Do you feel sorted out now?”
“I think so. It’s not so hard to think straight anymore.” Alex glanced at the tub. It had filled up enough to get in. Alex finished undressing. Lorelei studied him as he moved. He didn’t feel the least bit self-conscious in front of her. He helped her out of the remains of her nightgown and carried her into the warm, comforting bathtub.
“You are changed,” Lorelei told him. “It’s in your movements, in your face. In your voice. You’re still my Alex, but something seems to have settled for you.”
Alex reached for a washcloth, pulling it through the water before raising it to Lorelei’s face to gently clean away blood and grime. “I kinda feel like my life just makes more sense now. Not all the craziness. Not you, no offense,” he grinned a bit, “but everything else. Like why I’ve always felt so lonely, y’know?”
“Drew said that you always seem to expect things to come to a bad end. Perhaps this is some holdover from another life. Or lives.” Her eyes held a slight shimmer. He continued his gentle work. “You must have done a lot of fighting in your past.”
“Yeah. I guess so. Or whoever I used to be.” He didn’t know where to begin.
Lorelei allowed him his silence for some time as he bathed her. “My love,” she finally said, “there is such sadness in you.”
“I think I’ve had my heart broken a lot,” he told her. “I remember that more than the fighting or the dying. The faces are there, but I can’t describe any of them. It’s like I’ve got one name after another on the tip of my tongue.” His eyes fell away from hers. The words came out slowly. “I’ve been cheated on. A lot. I’ve been abandoned. Rejected. Betrayed. And I’m pretty sure that whenever it looked like it might actually work out, I’ve…died. Or she did. Or both of us. But I don’t ever remember being happy for long at all. Just long enough to know that I was in love, and then it all fell apart.” He took a long breath. “Mainly I just remember being hurt and lonely.”
“Then perhaps we are not so different after all,” Lorelei suggested. Her words sank in. She could feel it. Lorelei touched his jaw with her fingertips, turning him to look up to her.
“I love you, Alex. And while I cannot speak for Rachel, I can promise that no angel would give her heart to a mortal lightly, or frivolously, or by mistake. She may seem a bit…odd,” Lorelei granted, “but she knows exactly what she does.
“We will both love you for the rest of your days. We have no intention of allowing those days to be short. And when those days finally pass…I speak only for myself, but I will find you in your next life, and I will love you then, too.”
“You don’t know how much it means to me to hear you say that,” Alex managed to mumble.
“Says the man who literally followed me into the Pit and slew a Duke of Hell because he would not give me up. Who rejected the charms of a succubus because she had harmed me. I know, Alex,” Lorelei said quickly, raising her other hand to his opposite cheek. “I feel your desires, even those that repulse you. You know she taunted you to torment us both, don’t you?”
“Yeah,” Alex nodded. “I’m so sorry for how I-”
“Do not be. You have no reason to apologize. None know better than I what one such as Lydia can do to a mortal man. Had you fallen to her charms, I would have…I would have been hurt by her, but you would be blameless.
“Being with me makes you terribly vulnerable to seduction. I hoped this would be a happy flaw. You know what I expect of you, and what I do not. You like being pursued. Anyone would. But this…Alex, you have no reason to feel guilt or shame.”
“I almost… If she had kept coming onto me like that, I don’t know how much longer I could’ve held out.”
“You held out more than enough,” Lorelei told him. “No one is unbreakable, Alex. But you are made of stronger stuff than anyone might ever guess.”
Gingerly, she moved in on Alex in the tub. “Let it go, my love,” Lorelei told him. Her head leaned against his neck, her arms coming around his body. “You bear too much sorrow tonight already. Let it out.”
He sniffed. “I’m not sure I’ve got more tears,” he said. “Kind of sorry for that. I won’t hide anything from you.”
“I know.”
“It’s…it’s kind of awkward to ask this. Something I’m afraid of. How much did you get from Rachel and I being together?”
Lorelei smiled fondly. “I regained my wings.” It was an obvious enough thing, but worth pointing out. “You asked once if I enjoyed being with you less than I enjoyed you being with others. Alex, you and Rachel…it’s as if I’m a part of you both. I know how you love her. Your feelings for her are every bit as beautiful as what you feel for me. I would do anything to keep you together.”