The Things That Bind Us- Damirae

Chapter Twenty-Two

Raven shook of the residual carnality and turned a stern, raised eyebrow against the devil.

"I won't play your games Lucifer. I want answers." She said.

Leaning forwards slowly, Lucifer rested his elbows on the desk. His shoulders seemed to sag with defeat. The shadows that draped themselves across the walls and floors, sneaking in to the corners and crevice's of the devil's lair, clung to his features. He sighed; it might have been a hiss.

Raven stared at him, all black and red: shadows and the sensual, synthetic glow from somewhere overhead. For a moment, her senses were flooded and her soul thudded with the overload. She caught the dainty dust particles as they drifted in the redness; heard the whispering brushing of skin on skin worlds behind her, on the dance floor, over the torrent of otherworldly music.

Then came the snap.

And fingers gripped her soul so tightly that her very life force froze. Blood ran once more through her veins, and her arms (enraged and terrified and demonically scarlet) clawed at the hand clasped around her neck. The facade of man fell from the beast before her; the skin and bones were meaningless, eradicated by the ancient monstrosity that Raven's empathic eye was sensible to. Like starlight, the brightest of all, the light of the great morning star- but poisoned. The first of the fallen.

A stifled spluttering crackled from Raven's throat. Her soul seemed to shrink back, seeking refuse in the furthest recessed of her physical being, leaving her bones ice-cold.

You would test me child? His fury penetrated her mind, booming in its caverns.

Her eyes met mere flesh but the third eye within was towered over by the hellish being. And within this creature, in its black eyes, Raven found a trigger. In the visage of this King of demons did she see a trace of a face most abhorred.

A great stirring kicked within, as Lucifer's grip tightened on her gasping neck.

Raven's demon awoke with a vengeance.

Black-talons tipped crimson fingers that pried his hands away from her, flinging the being from her enough to retreat. Crouched, defensive, peeking out of wispy shadow, Raven glowered at the great creature with four terrible, golden eyes. Her very blood was compelled to run close to the ground, below the terror of Lucifer the Morningstar.

Do not mistake my fondness as weakness. I am ancient and changeable.

Raven's head lowered. She dared not remove her eyes from him- as an animal keenly away of its status as prey. Curtains of dark hair fell in to her eyes.

She bowed her head deeper.

"Forgive me, my Lord."

At those words the violence in Lucifer's aura began to wane. He collapsed back in to his desk chair defeatedly.

"Not that. Don't you go saying that, my dear..."

Raven, skin once more alabaster and heart still hammering at her ribcage, rose cautiously. She eyed the being in the chair. It was a great mass of bloodshed and bloodlust, vengeance and regret, contained in a startlingly human-looking shell.

Fingertips propping up his forehead, Lucifer rested an elbow on the wooden desk and sighed.

In his presence, as those dark eyebrows contracted and he huffed once more, Raven's empathic senses seized hold of her soul. Her hands turned to fists and a sweat began to build at her temples. The anguish of the greatest of the fallen ones was too much.

"Do not press me..." Lucifer began, "on this matter child. I have chosen to delegate it for a reason." Almost in sympathy, he sat forwards and offered, "The parties involved...are a source of great pain for me." He looked up with a peculiar glint in his eyes, "Angel venom is not so easily acquired."