LUCIFER'S POV 

I sighed, sinking into my desk chair with relief, and massaging my temples to dispel the headache that was slowly developing. I had had a pretty shitty day, one that had stretched on for an ungodly amount of time. I was drained from work, and if I had to make a list of all the possible things that could have gone wrong today, I would have been able to check every one off.

I'd been having a lot of those kinds of days lately. Work in Hell was beginning to wear on me, and the darkness was eating away at the edges of my inner light with every day that passed. Managing eternal damnation wasn't the easiest task, and most of the time, I took no joy in it. The only happiness I gleaned from my life was the justice I enacted upon the souls that were sent to me by God.

I not only ruled Hell; I governed Purgatory. Each and every soul that died went there first for judgement. If they had been more evil than good, they would be sent to Hell, and vice versa. But if they had been neither one or the other, not extraordinary in any way, they would simply stay to roam in Purgatory.

Since I took my job very seriously, I evaluated each and every single soul that entered Purgatory personally. Though I had many close advisers and high-ranking staff that could take the brunt of the work, I did it all. Part of it was that I wanted to do my best with the task that God had assigned me; but the bigger reason, if I were to admit it, was that I had nothing else to do.

I put on a strong front. My armor appeared flawless; no chinks or gaps to stab through. To the other angels, I was perfect, unstoppable, and, just fine as I was.

That was just a front. An illusion. I was not perfect nor emotionless as I seemed. That was, in fact, directly linked to the reason I had been having a rough time recently. Angels were engineered by God to love and nurture, but like any creature capable of these actions, they needed to be love and nurtured as well. Just as Mates served as a reward for service, God made mates for this purpose. His angels were simply not made to be solitary creatures.

I had heard the angels talk; I wasn't deaf. I heard their claims, their awful rumors that I had been denied my mate. Never once had I heard God step in to correct them. Never once had God come to me and told me that this was falsehood. The only conclusion that I could draw was that the angels were spreading God's word. Perhaps my work in Hell had been unsatisfactory, or perhaps God had forsaken me just as I had forsaken Heaven. Whatever the reason, I was doomed to a fate worse than death; life in Hell, poisoned by the foul evil that lurked in the hearts of God's most corrupt creations, all alone for eternity.

Once I had realized that, Hell had truly begun to wear on me. I was lost and without hope of anything better; I had sunken deep into a depression, and my light was dimming.

I had enough to deal with as it was. The quantity of damned souls had gone up in recent years, and I was dealing with an influx that was as stressful as it was unusual. I kept myself busy enough, I supposed, but that didn't keep me from becoming more and more irritable.

For the first time in my life, I felt lost.

Was this one thing really too much to ask?

I was forcefully drawn from my morbid train of thought when Marcus, my second in command and close friend, barged into the room. I looked up, ready to snap at the daemon for entering so rudely, but stopped in my tracks when I saw the look on my friend's face. He looked absolutely enraged.

"Luce! You must stop them, those goddamn cocksucking bastards!" He roared, veins in his neck and forehead pulsing in his fury.

I held my hands in the air, trying to placate the other man. "Tell me what happened. Calmly. Now." I demanded. I was unflustered by the anger; my friend angered easily, and tended to start ripping off heads when he did so.

"It's your fucking angel brothers! Those idiots are harassing the humans! Rounding up young girls to help the archangels find their mates for money!" Marcus was pacing back and forth, hands clenching and unclenching.

"They're doing what?" I snarled, feeling my body beginning to glow, the room super heating as my fury built. "How dare they!"

Mates were the most sacred thing to supernatural beings. They were God-given gifts, a symbol of the Lord's graciousness. They were meant to be found when God willed it; the violation of that one rule by herding females and selling them to their mates was blasphemous! It not only defied the god that had given them, but posed a threat to the livelihood of the females in question. Many died due to the rough treatment they received in such operations. Raphael, the closest of my brothers, one of the few whom hadn't turned his back on me, had lost his mate this way. He had led the assault on the men responsible and slaughtered them all before disappearing to mourn. Nothing angered me more than this; especially from my own kind.

"They did. And it's daytime there; I couldn't deal with it! You know as well as I that you are the only one here besides me who is powerful enough to take them out." Marcus was frustrated with his inability to act. The helplessness added fuel to the fire, literally. Just as I was glowing, Marcus' fists were sparking. It was a testament to the degree of our anger that such old beings lost control over their powers.

"Don't worry, Marcus. I will annihilate these scum myself." I promised, before transporting myself to the place I saw in Marcus' mind.

When I opened my eyes, I sent a bright flash of blinding light out to show the offending angels the depth of the shit they had gotten themselves into. I saw three of my brothers, Adriel, Ezekiel, and Khamael, and my heart sank in disappointment. I had thought better of them; especially Zeke. But any hope I'd had that this was a misunderstanding vanished as I saw Zeke holding a young girl up by her throat, his intent obviously to kill.

"Ezekiel! Adriel! Khamael! What is the meaning of this?" I demanded, causing Zeke to drop the female. I hoped that she wasn't dead; she could very well be someone's mate, and we didn't need another tragedy among Heaven's ranks. I was disgusted when, instead of the explanation I had ordered of them, they cowered in fear, pathetic and quibbling. These may not be archangels, but despite that, I expected a modicum of dignity and pride from my brothers. They were pathetic excuses for angels; it did not surprise me that they would stoop so low as to traffic mates.

"Please, please, no! Bright One, we did nothing wrong-" Zeke pleaded, and that was the final straw. Sucking up with their praise, calling me 'Bright One' when they slandered me and taunted me constantly for being mateless? For falling from Heaven? They deserved none of my pity.

"Nothing wrong? Brother, you plead for my mercy, yet treat you treat me like some half-baked FOOL!" I stormed, my normally iron-like grip on my control gradually slipping with every passing second.

"We beg your forgiveness!" was this pathetic embarrassment to Heaven and God actually sobbing in front of me like a child? He gave all angels a bad name.

I didn't plan to let it continue.

Then Ezekiel, the ingrate, did something incredibly stupid. He attacked me, Adriel and Khamael quickly following in hopes of overwhelming me.

Without pause, I intercepted Zeke's first blow with my palm, casual and unruffled. He was a powerful warrior, in his time, one of Heaven's best. But he had forgotten whom he was facing. He was young when I left Heaven; it had been a long time since I had shown my powers. It felt good, in a way, to kick his ass.

As I thought this, I clamped down on his fist, crushing it in my hand as easily as one would crush a soda can. The resulting scream of agony was shrill and disgraceful.

"Try again when you are willing to die like an angel." I snarled, kicking him in the abdomen and letting go of his hand simultaneously so that he flew into the wall on the opposite end of the building. I had barely registered the slam when Adriel was on me. Ezekiel had been a devote angel of Heaven before this, and I sought to give him some level of redemption before I killed him; that was why he was currently still alive. With Adriel, I simply ducked beneath his blow and drove my fist into his face, taking satisfaction as I saw it crumple inward before he fell. I just stared at the mutilated corpse without emotion. He hadn't been worth my efforts.

My head jerked up as I heard a thud of a body that had my stomach flipping; an odd reaction, coming from me, which set me on edge. I saw the female thrown to the floor by Ezekiel as he towered over her, ready to finish her off. Rage gripped me, and before I knew it, I was there, hands on either side of his face, breaking his neck with no regrets.

As he fell, I got my first look at the female whom had caused such uproar among my brother angels. I froze in place, absolute shock paralyzing me.

Father, if she wasn't absolutely fucking gorgeous.

Even as beaten down as she was, I had never seen one as beautiful as her. Her hair was long and curled in almost-ringlets, sporting a breathtaking shade of red-I think it was the brightest natural red I had ever seen; dark, but not auburn. Her skin was pale and dotted with freckles-angel's kisses, as I had once heard, and I wanted to kiss each and every one of them. Her lips were full and pink, her eyes a bright green; the kind I though only existed in the imagination. At first glance, I wanted nothing more than to protect her; she seemed so fragile and breakable. But the square jaw, stubborn chin, and well-defined body told me a different story. She was a fighter, independent, stubborn. Even her stare was challenging me; and she was half-conscious.

"I had that under control." Her voice was hoarse and weak; I was livid, knowing that the three 'angels' had come goddamn close to killing her. I wished I could go back and kill them over and over again for that. But all I could do was continue to stare into her eyes, feeling my light brighten past a level I have ever achieved in my existence.

"Mate." The word slipped past my lips, lovely, invigorating. I wanted to shout it to the Heavens, to thank God for not forsaking me.

I saw her eyes slide shut, and her body begin to fall. I was there instantly, catching her and holding her close. She was still breathing, thank my Father. Closing my eyes, I placed my lips on her forehead, utilizing my rarely needed ability to heal her wounds. Her ragged breathing calmed, and she slept peacefully, but I was still pissed the hell off. Those three angels would never get anything but eternal torment if I had anything to say about it.

Wait...three.

I had only killed two.

I swore, setting my mate down reluctantly, and scanned the room, sure that he had escaped. I would hunt him down, torture him relentlessly...

"What the...?" I was beyond confused. There was a body on the floor. As I strode forward, my suspicions were confirmed-it was Khamael. He was dead, strangled. The purple bruises on his throat were easy to read. Zeke and Adriel didn't have time to kill him, and even if they had, they had no reason to. I glanced back at my precious mate, and back at Khamael. I was impressed, to say the least. Not only that, I was proud and extremely turned on.

It had been a long time since I felt that way. The delicious feeling slammed into me like a freight train, and I had to clench my hands and grit my teeth from the force of my arousal. If my pretty little mate hadn't been recently wounded and asleep, I would have fucked her senseless. As it was, I struggled to maintain control. The need for her safety was my main priority right now; I had to get her back to Hell, where she'd be safe, ironic as that may be.

I gathered her up again, bridal style, and without any more delay, flashed from the bloodied hall. I'd have Marcus send some cleanup later. I had more important things to deal with right now.

And I couldn't be happier.