Page 68 of Shadow Fall: Part Two

I winked. “I like you.”

“I like you too,” she replied, her grin softening to a smile.

“Sorry, Lucy, but I’m stealing your girl,” I said and pulled Lili into a tight hug, her wings knocking into mine as we both squeezed each other. It was a long, grateful to be alive type of hug, and emotion choked off my throat, burning my eyes. I was lucky to have her, to have Renna and Tali and Asta—friends who had my back even if it meant facing down a titan and his shadow army. And sure, Asta had been furious because Cronus took Renna, and Lili had been there to save her man, but they were there with me, and it meant more than I’d realised until I got home.

“My name is Lucifer.”

“Sure it is, Lucy,” I agreed, finally letting Lili go and surprised to see her eyes shiny like mine.

“Go, be with your mate,” she said, pretending her voice wasn’t choked. “And just—thank you. For killing him. None of us could have done it, and I would have lost everything. Thank you. I’ll never ask for your help ever again.”

“More beautiful words have never been spoken,” I joked,2 giving them both a smile significantly weaker than it was before she mentioned Wane. I backed towards the hallway to the infirmary. “Maybe keep an eye on Asta and Renna… They might have started a war with the spirits by the time Lucy here gets back to work.”

“Noted,” Lili agreed, fighting a laugh. “We have a plan for handling that. And Cronus’s army.”

“Uh.” I gave her a weird look. “Harvey obliterated Cronus’s army.”

Lucifer winced. Oh boy, this was gonna be bad news.

“He… didn’t actually bring his army to the Damned Realm,” Lili said, her tone carefully neutral. “He wasn’t expecting a fight he couldn’t win, so he stashed them away somewhere.”

“Presumably we have no idea where,” I groaned.

“Nope. And we don’t know who they are, what species, or if they were freely supporting him or compelled like the soldiers on the field.”

I stuck my fingers in my ears. “Can’t hear you. Didn’t hear a single word you said. Living in blissful ignorance from this day forward.”

And with that, I turned my back on them and hurried into the infirmary before they could drop any more unfortunate truth bombs.

Sure, I was the Fury, and I’d killed a titan, but I wasn’t having anything to do with any more quests of greatness and save the world missions. I was settling down and living happily ever after.

Non-fucking-negotiable.

It had been two weeks since the battle at the Damned Realm, and Wane was stable but still doing his best Sleeping Beauty impression.

“Hey, you,” I said, sinking into the chair at his bedside and frowning when it was more padded and comfortable than usual. “What the…” I reached behind myself for the cushion that had appeared magically from thin air, and choked back a sob. “That stupid, thoughtful, romantic psychopath.”

The cushion was dark navy blue with a grey rabbit sewn onto it in clumsy stitches, its eyes massive compared to its face, eldritch and foreboding and insanely cute. One of its ears was folded over, the other sticking straight up with a bow stitched in baby pink thread.

It was a throwaway request I made weeks ago in the safe house near the Kyora mountains. I never expected Kai to remember, but I should have known my romantic mate better. I settled back in the chair with the cushion clutched to my chest, tears rolling down my cheeks.

I cried at literally everything and I was only six weeks into my pregnancy. The next seven months were going to be very, very interesting. But at the end of it, we’d have a tiny, red-faced baby. Not a trick, not a lie meant to break us, but a real child. Cronus had all-but confirmed it with his cruel taunting.

The child you’re carrying would be the one to survive if only I wasn’t about to kill you.

I was still being extremely careful, walking on eggshells, giving up sparring and thievery for the time being, but… I was hopeful in a way I’d not been for years.

Funny how things work out. The titan who put us through nightmare after nightmare had given me hope in the end. It was still satisfying to remember him exploding into smears of blood, though. Good fucking riddance.

“Kai actually needlepointed me a pillow,” I told Wane, reaching out to brush the backs of my fingers down his cheek. It was warm, the main thing that staved off my panic that I’d lost him, and stubbled since he’d been unconscious for weeks. It gave him a sexy ruggedness that I didn’t hate at all. “He’s insane.”

Like I did most days, I curled up in the chair and reached down the bridge between our souls for Wane, checking for new damage, making sure he wasn’t fading away. He was so much stronger than he’d been a week ago, Harvey’s healing magic working wonders as well as all the healers who worked in the palace. But it wasn’t just being cut open by a massive sword that had hurt him; we found out much, much later that Cronus had been pulling from Wane to keep his shadow army replenished. He used the one shadow he stole from Wane as a connection, and like a leech sucked his magic.

“Stop running, you’ll break your neck!” Wynvail yelled from the hallway outside the small, warm room where Wane had been set up in a bed, hooked to magic and machines.

“Bite me, asshole!” Verena yelled back, slamming the door open and skidding into the room with her red hair flowing down past her shoulders, blue jeans scuffed at the knee, and a chaotic grin on her face. “Hey. Any change?”

“No. And Wyn’s right; those corridors are death traps. Be careful.”

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