Page 172 of Wicked Believer
I told my Father I thought the mix of free will and fate might be too much for them, might have been a mistake. His design is too bloody convoluted and celestial a concept for His precious creations to comprehend.
Though I think Charlotte may be coming to understand how they interplay.
Now that I’ve given her the choice to pursue her own fate.
Even when the whole of all our paths were created by His and my Mother’s hands.
Don’t make her choose, Sammael.
The priest’s prophetic warning comes back to haunt me.
I failed to realize until it was too late that it wasn’t my Father I had to watch out for. Azrael was the dark horse I never saw coming.
Placed in her path by my own hand.
“Go,” I say again, giving her hand a reassuring squeeze. “I’ll be waiting for you when you come back.”
And she will. Come back to me.
In this I must trust, must believe.
Or risk forever losing all that she is to me.
Chapter Fifty-Six
Charlotte
The moment Lucifer tells me to go after Azrael, I hesitate.
I don’t want to lose Lucifer, to risk him—riskus—but I know this is the right choice.
For both of us.
I reach up, hands shaking, and unlatch my collar. My heart thumps against my chest painfully as I pass it to him, but despite how much it pains me, how much I’ve longed to be his, I try not to let myself linger on the pride and hurt in his gaze.
Not pride for himself, but in me. At how far I’ve come. Thanks to him.
If I look too long, I might never allow myself to do this.
Risk everything.
Lucifer is my fate, my purpose. My very reason for existing, but Azrael is my ...
My choice.
The first celestial decision Lucifer’s gifted me.
We both need this. The freedom of certainty.
And while I don’t know where any of this is headed or what any of this means for him, or for me—hell, for all three of us—we can figure the rest out later.
So, I kiss Lucifer on the cheek before I dart into the crowd to find Azrael.
I don’t see him anywhere in the playroom, or on any of the other floors, and it isn’t until I notice the glow of the city lights below, where one of the party drapes has started to fall away from the window, that I know exactly where to find him.
I stumble out onto the rooftop a few minutes later, nothing but a thin satin robe wrapped around myself, so I’m instantly shivering.
Azrael’s perched on the roof’s edge, his dark wings folding and unfolding, and my breath hitches. I rarely ever see them, and they’re so beautiful, I wish he didn’t have to hide them regularly.
