Page 40 of Found In Destruction

“Luci, you need to sedate her. The doctor is on his way, but her soulbond keeps pushing her to fade back to Azazel, even though I’m trying to keep her here with a lockdown ward. I don’t want her to hurt herself.”

“Consider it done,” Lucifer said right before the room went black.

17

MICHAEL

“Luci, you don’t understand…” I sighed as he tested my patience with every word he spoke.

We had been here for almost an hour waiting for Doctor Greene. The staff has been buzzing around from room to room, triaging injuries in order of priority. I understood that Diana’s pain wasn’t life-or-death. It stemmed from a power drain, an adrenaline drop, and something they may not be able to fix...

“I know the longer we keep her sedated, the worse she’ll feel when she wakes up,” Lucifer snapped.

“Do you know how painful it is to have your soulbond tested? To feel the agony of it breaking?” I tried to separate my own feelings from this, to not bring up what had happened between us, but Lucifer was clueless.Or willfully ignorant.

“No…” he responded, not used to my sharp tone. Things had been better between us since I came back to the compound, and I hadn’t used it in a while.

“Yeah, you wouldn’t. You’re the one who broke our soulbond, so I had the pleasure of feeling the agony for both of us. If I can keep her from feeling that pain, you best believe I will. My babygirl isn’t going to go through that unless she absolutely has to,Lucifer,” I raised my voice, unable to help myself any longer.

“I didn’t know you felt pain…” he admitted in a solemn voice, understanding seeping into his words.

“Pain isn’t even the word to describe it. Our souls were bonded, Luci. Then youbrokethem apart. My soul has been wounded ever since, and it won’t ever heal,” I choked on my tears, but held them back. I refused to cry in front of him.

“There’s nothing the Doctors can do?” He went right into problem solving mode, completely missing the point again.

“I checked with many doctors and even asked God to take the pain away. There’s nothing to be done,” I partially lied.

The only thing that would fix my soul was to bond with him again, which I vowed I would never do. I couldn’t put myself through the pain of him breaking my heart and leaving again. If he broke our bond a second time, I wasn’t sure I could cope.

Before Luci could reply, my bonus son peeled through the door, banging it off the wall and creating a crater sized hole in his haste to see his sister. Oisín had impeccable timing.

“Is she okay?” he asked, sitting in one of the free chairs by the side of her bed. Luci and I were too nerve wracked to sit in them.

“Your father sedated her until the doctor comes,” I replied. “Any update on Azazel?”

I waited on pins and needles in the seconds before Oisín responded. It wasn’t like him to choose his words carefully.

“He’s alive, and they’re trying to see if they can heal the damage to his wing…” he paused, glancing at his sister with a furrowed brow that floored me. Oisín Morningstar never worried. He was the fun-loving, mentally questionable man who used blood to paint best-selling artwork and picked fights with Diana’s boyfriends for fun.

“All of the pain he’s feeling…Diana feels it too. Their soulbond has undergone a lot of stress recently with her leaving,and now this…and it’s starting to fray,” a tear trailed down his face, and it felt as if the world ended. I had never seen Oisín cry. “I don’t want her to be in pain, Michael.”

He rose from the chair and hugged me. Rubbing his back, I took a moment to just hold him. Regardless of where Lucifer and I were in our relationship over the centuries, I always stayed close with Oisín–he was my son, even if it wasn’t by blood. Maybe it was because I raised him alongside his mother and Luci, or because he took a liking to me. Not all of Lucifer’s children had shared his thoughts on having abonus dad.

“Oisín, she’ll be okay. Diana is stronger than any of us know, and she’ll pull through this,” I assured him.

“Yeah, she’ll overcome. She’s a Morningstar,” Luci agreed. He gave me a strange, mournful look.

Before I could ask him what was wrong, Diana’s men walked through the door. Ares immediately sat on the edge of her bed, then used his fire magic to warm her blankets.

“Is she still sedated?” Desmond stood next to Luci, his golden eyes focused on Diana.

“Yes, and I prefer she stays that way until Doctor Greene comes.” Luci glanced at me. “Oisín updated us on Azazel and if she doesn’t have to feel his pain, she shouldn’t have to.”

“Agreed. I know since they’ve been spending a ton of time together, their soulbond has matured to the point where they feel each other’s pain. He’s going through it,” Bash murmured.

“Feathers was in a ton of pain after Diana left–his heart had broken. It sucks he has to go through this,” Ares said as he rubbed Diana’s arm.

“I wonder if that’s why she was so depressed when we were traveling,” Mal asked. “They were probably feeling each other’s pain then, too…”

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