Fiona blinked her eyes, once, twice and thrice as Lucifer stared at her waiting for a reaction.
"What?" She asked.
"You're part angel." He repeated.
"How!"
"It's complicated." He replied.
"There are celestials out there who want to kill me, I had a make out session with the devil of lust, I'm still remembering traumatic things from my past and Satan is sitting in the bed with me. How much more complicated are we talking?"
He let out a deep sigh." I'm not sure about it yet. I'm still looking into it. "
"So you're not sure if I'm an angel or not?"
"Part angel and I am sure."
She stared at him blankly for a moment and then said, "How are you sure?"
"Celestials can recognise other celestials." He gave her a simple answer.
"You're a Celestial?"
"I'm a Celestial by birth, it doesn't matter if I am ruling over hell now."
"If I was an angel, won't there be white feathery wings sticking out of my back."
Lucifer slightly smiled at her, trying to use her failed humorous sense as her denial.
"Part angel. That is why you don't have wings sticking out."
"Okay." She almost whispers lost in her mind. She started to bite on her thumb's nail.
Fiona's mind of state was already fragile, which scared Lucifer. There were a lot of things roaming like a wild storm in her head especially with her memories slowly coming back to her, had her at the brink of losing her senses. It was like a miracle she was still able to sit and talk like that, a normal human would've lost consciousness long ago but as Lucifer had explained to her she wasn't a normal human.
The reason Lucifer chose to tell her about that was to keep her by his side on her own will. He knew that after Yaseen exposed Fiona to Asmodeus, there would be other devils visiting her soon. Since Lucifer and Fiona hadn't signed the contract yet, she didn't belong to him, that meant not only the angels but the devils could take her from him. He needed her to trust him and the only way to do that was to tell her the truth.
Lucifer reached out and carefully held her wrist pulling her hand away from her mouth.
"You're freaking out." He said.
"Of course, I am."
"Don't." He said holding her hand in between both of his. "You have me, Angel."
His red eyes glowed and dilated a bit as he looked her in the eyes.
"You can't comfort me with your temptation anymore, Lucifer." Fiona said and he nodded.
"Then tell me, what can I do to comfort you?" He said.
She pulled her hand away from him and sighed. "Why are you helping me, Lucifer?"
"Because I made a contract with your mother."
"At that lake?" She asked and he nodded. There was a pause as she felt tears burning her eyes. "Is that why everytime I see her soul, it's next to that lake?"
"She relives her death in different ways at that spot. That's her hell."
Tears slid down her cheeks softly. "I was supposed to die. She wasn't supposed to die that day, was she? She tried to protect me from that angel.."
"No, Angel, you don't have a fate, you don't have a predestined time of death. For all I know, you could've been an immortal being if you hadn't had the celestial essence mixed with your soul and no one noticed that you weren't supposed to be."
"Your mother's death was due that day. I just told you, every person has a fate already written, if there's something waiting for them they will get to it. It's the path they choose, to reach their fate, that determines their afterlife. If that day your mother chose to see you die and not help, she still would've died at that spot. Nature has a way of pushing people to their fates."
"She was going to die, and with the sort of life she had led, she would've ended in hell anyway. Making that contract with me before she died, I believe that was the only good decision she had made, Angel. It's not your fault, she is in hell. It's her own."
"So if it wasn't for me, how she would've died there?"
"She could have slipped or someone could have accidentally pushed her. There are infinite possibilities to what could've happened but all of them would have ended with the same result."
Lucifer had tried to explain to her things in as much detail as he possibly could but Fiona was still confused. She could've asked him again but chose not to, since she didn't want to appear stupid not even in front of the devil.
"Why are you so nice to me?" She asks after a long pause as her golden ambers questioned him with their gaze.
"What?" He asked.
"You can just keep me safe. You don't have to be nice to me. You don't have to comfort me. You don't have to treat me with such care."
He softly smiled at her as his red eyes beamed into her honey like ambers.
"You're right, I can just keep you safe but I have to make you feel safe too."
"Why?"
Lucifer let out a breath softly as he reached out and pushed her hair behind her ear. "I don't know." He traced his finger gradually down his ear and held her cheek. "Maybe, I'm just fond of you."
As the words left his mouth, Fiona's eyes widened as she looked at him with a surprised expression embedded on her face.
"Fond of me?"
He let out a little laugh as he pulled his hand back to him. "What's with that reaction?" He said with amusement mixed in his tone.
"It's-" She paused. "As-domo?"
"Asmodeus." Lucifer corrected her.
"Well, whatever her name was, she said something." There was a bit of hesitance evident in her words as she paused again.
"What did she say?" He asked.
"I don't know if I remember it correctly but.. It was something about you being in love with me. She said something about others being worried about that…"
"She said others are worried that I'm in love with you?"
"I mean I could be wrong.."
"Are you wrong?"
"I don't think so. I was drunk and Asmodeus did something to me that made me feel like… you know I was really.. I can't get the word right.."
"Horny?" Lucifer said and she looked at him and nodded embarrassingly. "It's okay, that's her temptation. She uses lust against humans and in high dosage too."
"So I could be hallucinating her, saying that?"
"You could be." He nods.
'They're planning something against you, aren't they?' Yaseen said in his head and Lucifer chose to ignore him for the time being.
"What is yours?" Fiona asked, pulling Lucifer out of his thoughts.
"What?" He asked.
"Temptation. I know that you have some sort of voodoo hypnosis because of which you had me easily succumb to your presence and made me feel calm but I don't know what exactly is your temptation." She asked, keeping her tone steady.
"Do you know what temptation is?" He asked and she shook her head.
Fiona has heard Lucifer say the term many times but she wasn't much familiar with it.
"Are you familiar with the seven deadly sins?" He asked, his voice was calm and firm even laced with care a bit.
She looked down at her fingers as she started counting. "Lust, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Gluttony, Envy and…." She paused as her mind wand was stuck at the last one, she couldn't remember the seventh sin.
"Pride." Lucifer said.
"Pride. Right." She embarrassingly nodded and smiled.
"There are Seven Devils of Hell. Each devil represents each sin. It's due to their existence that these seven sins exist. If the devil dies, well, it actually ceases to exist in our case, the sin will cease with them."
"So those sins are devils' temptation?" She asked, trying to grasp the concept.
"We use temptation to tempt humans towards our particular sin." He replied.
"So what is your temptation?"
He smiled slyly at her as he moved closer to her, placing his hand beside her for support, he leaned in closer to her face as she felt his crimson rubies burning into her golden orbs. Although she could feel the warmth of his body through her thin linen dress, her body froze there as she couldn't move and even if she could she wouldn't be able to escape as Lucifer had made sure to cage in between his arms.
He moved closer to her ear and whispered something softly. Her eyes dilated in surprise as fear creeped up on her face. He pulled back looking into her eyes with the tip of his nose almost touching hers. She was about to say something but he put a finger on her lips silencing her.
"It's a secret." He whispered softly, moving away from her as he stood up. "Don't think too much into Asmodeus' words. I can't fall in love with you. My kind is not like humans, we weren't designed to feel things like humans do." He said turning away from her.
"Then what do you want?" She said and he stopped in his steps and turned to her.
"What do you mean?"
"I can feel it. You want something from me, don't you?"
He observed her for a moment and then nodded his head once.
"What is it?"
"A contract."
"You want my soul?" She asked and he nodded.
"What will you do with it?"
"You want me to be honest?" He asked.
She thought it over for a moment but then said, "Yes."
"There's no other soul like yours, Fiona. I'm not just talking about the angel part. I'm talking about your human part being pure and innocent too."
"I'll go to hell if I sign that contract."
"You will. But the contract works both ways, I'll take your soul and give you whatever you want."
"I can have anything I want if I go to heaven."
"You won't. Your soul might seem pure but you have committed sins, angel. And no one was there to keep count of those sins. They won't be able to judge you without a record so they won't be able to determine where you belong in your afterlife."
"So if I die what will happen to me?" She asked.
"The same thing that happens to celestials. Your existence will be eradicated. No one will remember you. It'll be like you never even existed."
A devil doesn't lie to you. If a devil wants you to follow in it's steps, it will tell you the exact truth. It will tell you the harshest bitter realities and then let you decide for yourself. Truth and trust go hand in hand, that's a fact that devils use to their advantage most of the time.
"That means I won't exist at all?" She asked and he nodded in a calm manner.
Lucifer knew Fiona had ties, emotional ones, with people in her life. He knew she had ambitions, she had dreams, things she wanted to do, things she was yet to feel. He knew she wasn't ready to just disappear. He knew she wasn't ready to be forgotten, to be removed and he knew that was the one point he could use to manipulate her in whatever way he wanted.
"I'm not in a hurry, Angel. You can sign the contract whenever you want, be it centuries. But remember, you are a target and not only angels but devils and some rogue demons are also after you. I can hold back demons and the devils but I can't fight the celestials for long."
"You can think about it however long you want but right now you need your rest." He smiled at and tucked her in bed.
Fiona didn't say anything, she just silently followed his direction.
"Xulam." He said as the teenage looking pale boy appeared beside him from thin air.
Xulam handed Lucifer a neat looking dark ash colored scroll tied up with a red ribbon. He handed it to her.
"This is the contract. You can thoroughly go through it, read the rules, terms and conditions then make your decision."
She looked at him with a blank expression and then took it from him.
"Xulam will be with you at all times. He can bring you anything you need. Rest up well. I'll be downstairs if you need me. Okay?" He asked and she nodded.
He smiled at her with a kind expression and said goodnight he took the stairs and left. Fiona looked at the scroll in her hands and then up at Xulam who was silently watching her.
"This whole thing is stupid, right?" She said but Xulam didn't give a response. She sighed as she placed it on the bed side table. She was about to pull her hand away when Xulam held it firmly.
She felt a jolt of electricity rush through her whole body as she froze with her eyes wide open and her mind fell unconscious.
She found herself lying in the woods under the moonlight. She stood up to examine her setting when she was startled by someone's presence just behind her. She quickly turned around and stepped away to look at the person.
Azrael stood there with his long raven hair and dark venomous eyes, a smile on his crimson lips as his pale white skin lit up.
"I've missed you, kiddo."