Chapter Five

 

 

 

The words had come from somewhere she didn’t care to examine too closely, especially considering the merry-go-round that had been her emotional state as of late.

But something about watching a scene unfold when she knew the ending, when she could tell where Lucifer was going and how Roman would pay for a crime of which no man was innocent, something in her had snapped.

Because that was what it was—Roman had fallen for Lilith. No surprise there. Anywhere Lilith went, men fell at her feet. The devil was no exception. The fact that he’d been her first victim didn’t make any of those who came after him less significant. Roman had been an easy target. That much was easy to see.

Hell, the man called his cock a phallus. He probably hadn’t even known what it was for before Lilith had taken him for a spin.

And now, because of Lucifer’s wounded pride and misplaced outrage, she had not only toed that infamous line he’d referenced—it was about as far behind her as she reckoned it ever had been.

Still, for all the blustering in the world, and even with the devil in one of his infamously bad moods, Invi couldn’t summon a single shiver of fear. Dread, yes, because there was nothing she hated more than being yelled at, especially when she was right. But any unholy terror Lucifer thought he could still exercise over the Sins had been thoroughly dried up. Funds insufficient due to repeated withdraws of deity testicles. Ava hadn’t been punished for committing what Invi and her siblings had always assumed was the only unbreakable rule. Since then, Lucifer’s actions had seemed not only less fire-and-brimstoney, he’d busted his balls proving the lengths he’d go to protect the Sins.

Yeah, her bullshit meter had hit its limit. If Roman was to be believed—and she saw no reason why he shouldn’t—then she and Lucifer and the whole of Hell had a lot more to worry about. Things that had been only rumored for years were looking to graduate to cold hard fact territory.

So she didn’t have time for petty shit. Even from the devil.

Once the door had clicked closed behind her, Invi whirled on her heel and clashed gazes with the pissed off god behind her. “What the fuck is your problem?” she snapped.

Lucifer didn’t flinch. His expression was stony and uncompromising. “Funny,” he said. “I was about to ask you the same question.”

“Look, boss, I get it—”

“Do you?”

“Well, actually, now that you mention it, no.” She planted her hands on her hips, her jaw tightening. “But here’s a wild stab in the dark—you’re looking to deal out some pain because of what happened in Paris. But if Roman is telling the truth—”

“I have no doubt he is telling the truth,” Lucifer replied, his tone no less cold but slightly less hostile.

“Then what is the problem?”

“My dear, there is a lot I will tolerate. What just happened is not among them.”

Invi’s eyes narrowed. “So you won’t tolerate people calling you a hypocrite and being right. Got it.”

“You’re playing a dangerous game.”

“In case you didn’t notice, boss, the game’s been over a long time.” She gestured at the closed door. “Far as I can see, you’re pissed with him for falling for the same line of bullshit Lilith fed you, only in your case, you had a molecule of experience to fall on. You can’t treat him like a co-conspirator. He had no idea what he was doing.”

“Do the words you’re saying make sense to you, or are you just wasting my time?” Lucifer retorted. “Roman—like all Guardians—was created with one purpose. To protect the Seal until the time came to end the world. Only then was he to interact with the Seal. He damn well knew the consequences of opening it. We made sure of that.”

“Yeah. Killer job there.” She snorted. “For as much as you guys bicker, you and Big J are the same damn thing in different wrapping. You left him and the other Guardians alone for an eternity. If their job was so important, would a fucking birthday card be too much to ask?”

He rolled his eyes. “They wouldn’t know a birthday card from a hole in the ground.”

Invi blinked. “I’m gonna give you a moment to think about what you just said so you can realize how ridiculous it was. And maybe if you take a moment to get your head out of your own ass, you’d realize that the person talking right now might sound like you and look like you, but he sure as hell ain’t you.”

Lucifer paused at that and looked at her, a frown depressing the corners of his mouth. There was enough fight rearing behind his eyes to inform her the anger wasn’t too far behind, but for a moment, she seemed to have caught him at a loss. It was something, at least, if nothing else. She didn’t much care for this version of the devil.

When he didn’t speak immediately, she took his silence as tacit permission to continue. “You haven’t been yourself since Fugie died,” she said. “And I understand that. I really do. All of us want blood for what happened to him. But taking your rage out on Roman is like…I dunno, beating a puppy. A handicapped puppy, at that. Anyone who’s looked at him knows he feels responsible for what happened, but people fuck up. All the time. You fuck up even if you won’t admit it. Sometimes you set us up to fall down so we learn a lesson. He broke a rule. It was a big one, but so was Ava’s—”

Lucifer held up a hand. “Stop.”

“What?”

“You were doing fine until you referenced your sister.” He smiled weakly, some of the familiar twinkle returning to his eyes, and it was such a welcome sight Invi nearly threw her arms around him. Nearly. She wasn’t the hugging sort. “Avaritia broke a rule,” he agreed a moment later, “but it was a superficial rule.”

“What does that mean?”

“I think you know,” he replied. “I couldn’t keep telling you Santa was real after she had him unmasked.” He looked away for a moment, his face contemplative. When his eyes found hers again, they reflected an eternity’s worth of fatigue, combined with the recent hurts that time was slow to heal. “I am reacting poorly to Fugie’s death,” he confessed. “I know I am.”

Invi felt her inner cynic go soft and mushy. “None of us saw it coming.”

“I suppose not. After all, what’s time to someone who will live forever?” He sighed and rubbed his jaw, flicking a glance at the closed hotel room door. “I might have been overly eager to cast stones, but Roman still cannot be trusted. I hope you realize that.”

“Why?”

“Because,” he replied, “we cannot know under whose control he really is.”

“You mean Lilith?”

He lifted a shoulder. “He is an unknown, if you will. Guardians were never meant to live in the real world. That wasn’t their design, and that Lilith managed to awaken some latent…”

“Desires?” Invi offered.

“I suppose that’s as good a word as any.” Lucifer fell quiet, considering. “We don’t know how much he’s been influenced by what he’s learned. Tabula rasa. He is a blank slate, ready to be imprinted. If Lilith still has her hooks in him—”

“She doesn’t.”

One cool eyebrow arched upward. “Oh? How do you know, pray tell?”

She opened her mouth to respond, then realized she had nothing with which to back up her assertion. Nothing aside from the want to believe in him, and want alone was a very dangerous thing. The man was a mystery to her, aside from his impressive build, enigmatic eyes and lost sense of self. The vulnerability she’d seen in the bathroom might be genuine—in fact, she would bank on it—but what did that mean, really?

She wanted him to be someone she could trust, but want had rarely worked out in her favor.

Invi found herself nodding, a numb sensation stretching through her veins. “So what do we do?”

“I start by returning to Paris,” Lucifer replied. “We have another opened Seal to contend with.”

“Yes, I know. Ava told me earlier.”

“It left quite a mess.”

Invi looked to the closed door. “And him?”

“He stays with you, under your guard.”

She jerked her attention back to Lucifer, her eyes narrowing. “What?”

“New York is likely to be targeted sooner or later,” he said. “Ira and Cassie would be better served paired with Luxuria and Grayson, hunting down those who escaped…or rather, trying to figure out where they disappeared to. Furthermore,” he added dryly, “Ira has been…vocal about his objections to exposing dear Cassie to another Seal. I can appreciate that. Poor girl didn’t really get a break, did she? Now that Roman has been found and your assigned task fulfilled, you can assume your brother’s place at the Seal. I would prefer to have someone here.”

Invi supposed that made sense, but she didn’t follow all threads of logic. A Sin guarding the Seal right now, alongside the assigned Guardian, was only practical. Two Guardians, one with wobbly self-esteem, seemed overkill. “But why leave Roman?”

“Why not?”

“You’ve… If we’re worried about another Seal opening, wouldn’t the sane thing to do be to remove the Guardian who slipped from the equation?”

Lucifer pinned her with a sharp look. “Neither Heaven nor Hell can accommodate a Guardian. He is not pure of heart, nor inherently wicked. Your available brothers wouldn’t handle him as delicately as you—”

“You also wouldn’t have to worry about one of them fucking him.”

“I have ordered you not to. Is there any reason I shouldn’t trust you?”

She didn’t much care for the way he was assessing her. “No.”

“Good. I need you to remain in New York,” Lucifer said. “Simply as a precaution. The Seal’s Guardian has been on alert, so I doubt she would be caught unawares as was poor Paris. Were something to happen, I have a reasonable amount of faith in her. She also lacks a phallus, as your friend would put it—it would be difficult for Lilith to manipulate her.”

“You’re suggesting this female Guardian couldn’t be into chicks?”

“I’m stating frankly that women as a whole have more self-control, something Jev and I clearly didn’t take into consideration when we diversified the sexes among the Guardians.” Lucifer frowned. “As it is, after what happened in Paris, Yorke was debriefed along with the other remaining Guardians. I trust she would know what to do should a situation arise.”

“And if Lilith does come to town, what do you want me to do with Roman?”

“If he is sincere in his regret, he could prove a valuable asset. What Guardians lack in deductive reasoning, they make up for in strength.”

“You’re so sure his head is full of straw?”

A muscle in Lucifer’s jaw ticked. “No one who nails Lilith is terribly smart.”

“Even you?”

“Especially me. And for the record, her bedmates are hardly my concern. I am serious, Invidia. Nothing can come from pursuing the Guardian.”

She rolled her eyes. “So you’ve said. You might wanna take that album off repeat.”

“Well, there is also a certain historical precedent with you, wherein if one of your sisters has something, you have to have it too.”

Ouch. Invi winced and took a step back, though out of anger or a need for self-preservation, not even she was sure. She rubbed her arms and focused on a spot behind him. “You think I wanna hook up with the first guy I see because Ava and Luxi found their fairytale endings? And I’m so desperate I’ll throw myself at anything to see if it sticks? Is that it? ’Cause, I gotta say, that’s fucked up.”

Though wasn’t she just a little bitter with the way things had turned out? That Perfect Ava and Perfect Luxi had fallen in perfect love and everything was just perfect? That even her brother Ira had found someone who’d turned his life upside down, and how their nauseating happiness made her sick if only because she didn’t want to be the last Sin standing?

Fuck. She also didn’t want to be that girl.

“That was mean,” she said at last, sniffing. “I don’t need everything they have.”

“Perhaps not,” Lucifer replied, his tone softer. “But, my dear, you’re forgetting I know you. You might not need what your sisters have, but that doesn’t stop you from wanting it. And wanting in the past has led in some cases to disaster.”

Invi shuffled her feet. How was it he could go from being the world’s biggest asshole to giving her the ‘just looking out for you’ dad speech?

“And there is no shame in wanting, Invidia,” he continued. “Especially in light of everything that has happened recently…and what is yet to come. I just need you to remember Roman is not someone you can have that sort of future with. Everything he senses and experiences is superficial. He wasn’t cut out for life above, or with anyone in it.”

It was an odd sensation, feeling at once indebted and annoyed beyond all measure. Invi didn’t know what to say, so she held her tongue. For a moment, at least. While the wheels in her head turned, and the odd series of events this night had presented pieced together. The truth in his observation might sting, but the notion that she would be so careless downright hurt. That she would put herself before the world, pursuing something designed to fail.

Yet the other part of her, the calmer, rational part, knew this was Lucifer doing what he did best, which was essentially looking out for those beings he considered his children. The Sins might not have a conventional set of parents, but Lucifer had always claimed them as his own. His need to protect them, even in times when the world could be torn apart, was one of the things she loved most about him. And whatever else, Invi knew he wouldn’t have said anything about Roman and his prospective as a bedmate if he hadn’t seen something in her to warrant it. He wasn’t cruel with his observations, and perhaps that was what hurt the most.

Ever since Roman had stepped out of the shadows, Invi’s mind had been in the gutter, even when it made little sense. She wasn’t ashamed of her sexual appetites—never had been—but even she could admit this was fucked up.

“I want you to be very careful, Invidia,” Lucifer cautioned. “Until we know more, we must assume Roman cannot be trusted.”

She nodded. It was all she could do.

It wasn’t until Lucifer said his farewell and moved to step away that she snapped out of her stupor and whirled on her feet. “Wait.”

The devil paused.

“His energy signature,” she said. “You told me I’d know it when I felt it. But…it wasn’t…there was nothing.”

A coy smile toyed with his lips. “Nothing? No, dear, there is definitely something.”

“He feels…hollow.”

“Hardly hollow, though I can see how you’d assume so. You and all others radiate your strength,” Lucifer said. “Guardians were never meant to be felt. The fact that his signature is inversed is what gives him and the other six any leverage. Ingenious, really.”

She crossed her arms. “Let me guess. Your idea?”

“All the good ones are.” He grinned, then frowned again. “But that brings up an interesting point. Roman cannot travel as you do—too much room for error. His definitive lack of a signature would make it very simple for an unobservant individual to let him out of her sight. We cannot allow that.”

“Is that your way of telling me I won’t be getting any sleep in the foreseeable future?”

“Don’t be so dramatic. Sins require very little sleep.”

Lucifer winked, then in the space of a heartbeat, he had vanished. She barely had time to register the light in his eyes, and how different he looked upon leaving than he had when she’d first stepped out of the bathroom. The change was welcome, and Invi couldn’t deny the rush of satisfaction at having had some small part in bringing her beloved boss back, even if the pendulum of his mood had swung back to outraged and bloodthirsty.

She was rarely the person who got to talk to him like this.

That was nice.

Until she remembered the Guardian waiting for her in the other room.

The mostly naked, entirely gorgeous, off limits Guardian.

Well, off limits was up to interpretation. She just hoped her translation was up to date.

Invi squared her shoulders, turned then cautiously entered the room.

The Guardian—Roman—was buck naked, standing in the middle of the room with his freshly cleaned skin. His inky hair framed his chiseled face, his well-muscled arms crossed.

His cock—phallus—was at rest, though the glimpse she stole nearly had her mouth watering. He was entirely too succulent for words.

And not for her.