Of Light And Shadows
Chapter Forty Four...

“It’s nice to see you too, darling,” Jezebeth simpered. Lucifer took hold of her wrist and removed her hand from his chest, taking a step back from her.

“Why are you here?”

“Well fine,” Jezebeth huffed. Her voice was sickly sweet and it set Jia on edge. “If you don’t want to small talk I’ll just get right down to it. Your father is here for our wedding tomorrow.”

“Hold up, what?” Mammon asked.

“I’m sure if it were tomorrow our father would have told me,” Lucifer replied, arching an eyebrow. “Where is he?”

“Oh he’s downstairs in the drawing room tormenting Michael’s children,” Jezebeth giggled. In an instant Lucifer was gone, swallowed by a cloud of black shadows.

“Crap,” Mammon muttered before disappearing as well. Belphegor pressed a hand to his face and sighed.

“Nothing is ever simple in this place. Come on Jia.” He held out his arm and she took it, looking back at Jezebeth. As the darkness rose up to transport her, the red haired woman winked and blew her a smug kiss.

“Ignore her,” Bell muttered as they were deposited outside the Drawing Room. Jia shuddered; the last time she entered that room Lucifer was murdered in cold blood and she was kissed by the Devil.

She pushed open the door and stepped inside to replace Beelzebub, Asmodeus and Leviathan kneeling in front of Satan with pained looks on their faces. He was staring at them intently, his red eyes glowing as he did something to them Jia couldn’t see, but it obviously hurt.

She could sense pulses of energy emanating from him sharply and reached out to try and interpret them, careful to make sure he didn’t notice.

What she found was him forcefully searching their memories for any involvement in disrupting his plans. He crashed through their minds like a raging bull, sending pain ricocheting through them with every lumbering step.

“Father,” Lucifer said softly. “You’re hurting them. They’ve done nothing wrong.” He moved to stand in front of him and flinched almost imperceptibly when the full force of Satan’s power hit him like a freight train. The three brothers sagged forwards on their hands and knees the second they were released, panting heavily.

Lucifer stood in the onslaught like a mountain in a storm, immovable and unwavering. He kept his chin up, his shoulders square and his eyes firmly fixed on his father.

Jia marvelled at the sheer strength of his mental defences, cultivated over thousands of years to be impassable to anyone he didn’t want in his thoughts. While Satan’s jabs and strikes of power were painful, they were useless. He would learn nothing from the mighty first born.

“Stop,” Lucifer said just as softly, no anger or hostility in his tone. “You didn’t come here to battle with them or with me. Tell me why you’re really here, sir.”

Satan stared at Lucifer for so long Jia thought he was going to strike his son again, but eventually he folded his arms across his chest and nodded.

“You’re to marry Jezebeth. Tomorrow. Everything is arranged already. I’ve waited too long for you to choose a partner and I’m tired of it.”

“I’m not marrying her. If it were essential to maintain a steady rule then you’d be married as well.” Lucifer’s reply was clear and brooked no argument, which made Satan bristle.

“You’ll marry Jezebeth, or you’ll witness others suffer because of it.” Satan’s eyes slid to where Jia stood and her stomach flipped.

“I won’t.” Lucifer folded his arms across his chest and stared his father down.

“You,” Satan hissed, pointing at Jia and speaking with such forceful venom that she flinched. “Come here.”

The weight of his command slapped down on her like an anvil, then wrapped around her and moved her body like a puppet. She let out a startled yelp as her legs carried her forwards towards him.

He gripped her chin tightly, his fingers squeezing hard enough to make her jaw ache as he brought his face closer to hers.

She thought he was going to kiss her again and had to swallow her nausea, but at the last second he turned her roughly, wrapping one arm around her from behind and moving his grip on her chin to her throat.

“Stop,” Lucifer snapped, taking a half step forwards. Satan chuckled.

“You’ll marry Jezebeth.” His hand tightened enough to force a startled cough out of Jia. “Won’t you?” Lucifer looked at Jia silently with obvious fear and pain in his eyes. She shook her head slightly, unable to speak around the crushing pressure on her neck.

“Yes,” Lucifer sighed, his head dropping. Satan smiled and his grip on Jia loosened fractionally.

“Say it.”

“I will marry Jezebeth.”

“Say it to her.” Right on cue, the harpy opened the door and sauntered across the Drawing Room, positioning herself in front of the floor to ceiling window so she was framed by the eerie light of the Demonic Realm.

“I believe you have something to ask me, Lucifer?” she giggled, holding out her hand to him. He ground his teeth silently, looking Jia right in the eyes.

She shook her head again, knowing that if he married Jezebeth he was signing his death warrant. When he nodded and walked towards the harpy at the window, Jia sagged in Satan’s grip.

“Jezebeth Harrow,” he said softly, taking her hand and getting to one knee in front of all of the Devils. “Will you marry me?”

“Of course!” Jezebeth simpered, tossing her crimson mane of hair. Lucifer got to his feet and Jia bristled as she jumped on him and pressed her lips to his. He broke it off quickly and turned away, ignoring his future bride and striding towards Satan.

“Let her go.” His voice was cold and edged with steel. Satan smiled coolly and stepped back, releasing Jia’s throat with a satisfied chuckle. “Go home, father.”

And then Lucifer took Jia’s hand and pulled her away from Satan, stepping back into a cloud of shadows and stepping out in his room.

Jia watched as he walked to the door, locked it, then pressed his hand to it and whispered an incantation that created a glassy sheen over it like the one that had been on Evander’s windows in the old dormitory. When he was done he turned back to Jia, looking like a deer caught in headlights.

“You can’t marry her, Louie,” she said softly. He crossed the space and touched her throat where his father had assaulted her, and she saw the faint imprint of a hand bruising its way into his throat as well.

“What else am I supposed to do? If I don’t he’s made it clear he plans to harm you.” He laid a hand against her cheek. “I don’t know if I can beat him, Jia. If I can’t...”

“Don’t.” She stretched up onto her toes and kissed him softly. “Don’t torture yourself with what ifs. You know why he wants me. You know what we have to do, Louie.”

“I do?” He frowned at her. She took a deep breath and nodded. It took several seconds before he realised, and his eyebrows shot upwards. “Are you sure?”

“I am. Anything to stop Satan from replaceing a way to replace you.” She took his hands in hers.

“The bond is forever, Jia. Once it’s done it can’t be removed. There’s no divorce, no splitting up. It’s eternal.” He pressed his forehead against hers gently, looking her right in the eyes. “You have to be certain.”

“I love you, Lucifer. No matter what else is going on, I know that. I won’t let her take you from me anymore than you’d let Satan take me from you.”

“Alright then,” he replied with a soft smile.

“How do we do this?” she asked, ignoring the hammering of her heart.

“Place your hand over my heart.” She did as he asked. “Now repeat after me.” She listened as he coached her through what to say, then took a deep breath.

“I, Jia Vandemeer, bind myself to you, Lucifer Morningstar, before our God, now and for eternity. My bond shall not be broken, for in the eyes of our Lord everything that I am belongs to you.”

“I, Lucifer Morningstar, accept your bond and in turn bind myself to you, Jia Vandemeer, before our God, now and for eternity. My bond shall not be broken, for in the eyes of our Lord everything that I am belongs to you.”

The sizzle of magic raced across Jia’s skin, concentrating in a tight ball over her heart before stretching out and linking itself to the same thread stretching from Lucifer.

When they met it was like everything anchoring Jia to her life was cut away, a thousand tiny threads floating in the ether, replaced by one huge, unbreakable chain that was Lucifer. As long as he was with her, she would be okay.

When the magic subsided he bent his head to kiss her softly and at his touch she felt what he was feeling.

The power of the emotions coming from him and flowing into her made her knees weak, but it didn’t matter because he was holding her up. When he pulled back he looked as surprised as she did.

“Wow, so that’s what it’s like,” he murmured. “I’d heard stories about the mate bond and its effects but I never knew it could be so potent.”

“This is insane.” Her heart was pounding and she knew, she just knew that it was in time with his. They were intertwined, joined forever by an unbreakable link. She knew then that if either of them died, the other wouldn’t be far behind.

“Your name is officially Jia Morningstar.” He rolled up his sleeve to show an intricate pattern swirling over his forearm. “And we have the marks to prove it.” He took her face in his hands and gave her another earth shattering kiss.

“I basically just married you,” she gasped when he pulled back.

“You did more than that. You bound your soul to mine. We now can’t live without one another. If you die, so do I.” He pulled her close, resting her cheek against his chest.

“Doesn’t it scare you? Compared to you I’m fragile. Any one of the Demons in this realm could kill me, which means they could also kill you.”

“I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

“What about Satan? I know we’ve stopped his plan to put Jezebeth in the Academy and to snatch me away, but won’t he just go crazy out of spite now?”

“There’s only one way to replace out.” Lucifer squeezed her gently. “We show up to tomorrow’s ceremony already bound and see what happens.”

“Is there a way to keep the others out of it tomorrow?”

“Unfortunately not.” He ran a hand through his dark hair, a shadow passing across his red eyes. “All we can do is stand up to him and see what happens. Tomorrow might be the day Satan and I face off for good.”

“And if you lose we both die?”

“Basically.”

“Well then,” Jia said with a nervous smile, “we’d better make sure you win.”