It felt as if a hand clutched his throat, making it hard to speak. “I’m so sorry, Eden.”
The smile she gave him then was enough to chill him to his very core. The coating of hellfire did nothing to help warm him against that emotionless expression, so different from what he was accustomed to. It was as if she didn’t care about what had just happened and what it meant.
A human was their soul. It was their personality, their warmth, their goodness, their joy. When it turned dark, so did everything else. The black of her soul wasn’t a color, it was a force that absorbed everything good.
Even a demon understood that.
“It’s okay,” she said softly. “There’s no other way this can be. I see that now.”
Darrak took her by her shoulders. His fire wouldn’t hurt her, he wouldn’t let it. “You’re wrong. I’m going to be the next Prince of Hell. I can fix this. You won’t come to any more harm, I swear it.”
Lucifer approached. “It won’t matter if I take her celestial energy now, will it?”
“Take it,” Eden said firmly. “We had a deal. It’s yours.”
Darrak had failed. He’d started out with such good intentions — destroy Lucifer, save Eden. Instead, Lucifer had pulled him out of the Void so he could return to see this. See that everything he’d done had led to losing Eden even if she was standing right in front of him.
Eden’s angel half wouldn’t save her now. It was too late.
“Take it,” Darrak growled. “Before I change my mind. Take it and I take your throne. Go back to Heaven. Find a fluffy cloud and learn to play the harp and leave us the hell alone for the rest of eternity.”
Lucifer looked at him. “For the record, I think you were right.”
“About what?”
“A very long time ago I’d agreed to do a job, one that never had an end date. No yearly assessment. No pay increase. Somebody made me forget about that. Or maybe it was no one’s fault but my own. My memories”—he held his hands to his temples—“they’re cloudy when the years grow long and there’s no one who truly understands how lonely it can be.”
Darrak rolled his eyes. “Maybe I’ll learn how to play a harp. Anything to block out the self-pitying whining. Seriously. Just do it, Lucifer, and get out of my face once and for all.”
Lucifer smiled. “So you, my lowly creation, no more than hellfire with a personality, are going to take over my throne, my responsibilities. You will control the shadows. You really think you’re worthy enough for that?”
“I guess we’ll find out, won’t we?” Darrak’s patience was at an end. The sooner he took over Hell, the sooner he could do something, anything, to help restore Eden’s soul. She was standing right here in front of him. She wasn’t lost to him. Not yet.
“Not yet,” he remembered the entity using Theo’s face saying. “But soon and forever.”
“Do it,” Darrak growled. “Now before I change my mind.”
Lucifer approached Eden, who stood up from the chair to face him.
“Ready?” he asked.
She nodded. “Take it all, Lucas, and then go away. I never want to see you again.”
“As you wish.” Lucifer pulled Eden against him and crushed his mouth against hers. Darrak fisted his hands at his sides, only sheer determination keeping him from pulling the prince away from her and pounding him into the ground.
This wasn’t jealousy, not anymore. This wasn’t a kiss of passion. It was one of a thief. He was stealing her angel half so he could use it for himself.
Greedy bastard.
Darrak had never felt so much hate for anyone in his entire existence. But that hate made him stronger. It would have to. He needed to be strong, stay strong, for Eden. For what was to come.
When the kiss ended, Lucifer staggered back from Eden and inhaled raggedly. Eden collapsed but Darrak was able to grab her before she hit the ground.
And then something caught his eye. Her amulet.
It had turned white. Completely white.
His gaze snapped to Lucifer.
Dark veins appeared around his mouth. His eyes were not brown anymore, but black. Completely black, even the whites.
Darrak’s eyes widened. “You didn’t take her celestial energy. You — you took her black magic.”
Lucifer grinned, but it was shaky. “Not delicious, let me tell you. It was a bit on the bitter side, actually.”
Confusion crashed over him. “Why would you do this?”
Lucifer swallowed hard. “Look after her. Look after both of them. They need you more than I do.”
Eden stirred, her chest hitching as she gained consciousness.
None of this made any sense to Darrak. “But I said I would do your job. I would be the Prince of Hell.”
Lucifer smiled then, an eerie look on his haunted face. “Oh Darrak, I don’t hate you that much.”
The next moment he gasped and hunched over as pain wrenched his body. Flames poured out of him, covering his form in an instant. He grew taller and broader as if taking on a new visage — one Darrak recognized immediately. Nine feet tall, four hundred pounds. His skin turned black as coal. His upper lip peeled back from his teeth to show they’d grown sharp and long as knives.
Eden trembled in Darrak’s arms. “Wh-what’s going on?”
“The darkness he consumed… it’s turning him into Satan.”
Large, batlike wings spread out on either side of Lucifer.
No, not Lucifer. Not anymore. This was a true monster from the fiery depths of Hell. The shadowy beast that controlled everything, that wanted to break free and destroy anything it touched.
It was pure evil made flesh.
“You can’t be here,” Darrak snarled, holding Eden closer to him as if he would be able to protect her from something this horrific. “It’s not allowed! Go back where you came from!”
Satan couldn’t take form in the human world. It was a safety precaution. The only reason Lucifer could be here at all was because he took mortal form. He had some power, but not enough to truly harm anyone, apart from one of his own creations like Darrak.
And yet, here he was. Satan was making his first personal appearance on human soil.
Black eyes tracked to Darrak, and a cold smile snaked across the creature’s face.
Satan snarled at him. “You wanted this for yourself. All this magnificent power. And you would give it up for a mere woman?”
Darrak shielded Eden as the monster drew closer to them.
“Hey, Satan,” he said evenly. “Go to Hell.”
Satan’s smile disappeared.
Lucifer was still in there somewhere, and he knew exactly what he was doing. He was the one chosen for the job in the first place, after all. He’d wrangled this beast many times before.
With a last, soulless, black-eyed glare, Satan wrapped the huge, leathery wings around himself, and disappeared in a violent flash of fire.
He was gone.
That had been too damn close. Pun fully intended.
Darrak pulled Eden closer. The room was lit up by his own fire, the same hellfire from which he’d been created once upon a time. He controlled this fire, it was a part of him in this form, and it would do no damage unless he wanted it to.
He grabbed hold of Eden’s face, checking to make sure she was okay.
“Eden,” he rasped. “It is you? Is it really you?”
She nodded and threw her arms around him. “It’s me.”
“I thought I lost you.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“That makes two of us. Only…” He swallowed. “There’s a problem.”
She pulled back. “What?”
“My form… I–I think this might be it. I might be stuck with this demonic visage for a while.”
Her gaze moved over Darrak’s fearsome face, along the curved horns. She touched his sharp cheekbones, ridged jaw, and down his heavily muscled arm until she entwined her fingers with his that were tipped in sharp talons.