38 That’s the Ground

Lily

Lily followed Bel across the lawn to the open area that they’d used as a landing site, ignoring the wolf whistle from Asmodeus. She wasn’t scared of heights, and she trusted that Bel would rather chop off his own tail than hurt her, but adrenaline crackled through her veins anyway. She paused to braid her hair. Sharkie might have been able to pull off the windswept look, but ’80’s hair metal wasn’t a style she personally favored.

“I’ll try not to make you scream too loudly.” Bel smirked.

“Please,” Lily scoffed, finishing her braid. “I seriously doubt you’re going to make me scream.”

Bel’s heated are-you-kidding-me expression had muscles low in her belly clenching.

She smiled sweetly at him and patted his cheek. “With clothes on, anyway.”

His scarred eyebrow arched higher. She could practically hear his mind coming up with a plan, or plans.

Dirty boy.

“Quit flirting in front of the kids.” Someone laughed.

“Leave them alone, he needs the practice.” This from a smug sounding Asmodeus.

They both rolled their eyes, and Bel stepped closer, half shielding her from their onlookers.

“Ready?” he asked.

“Are you? You’ve already created one flying enthusiast today. Do you think you can handle having two of us on your hands?”

Bel’s eyes crinkled. “I’ve got two hands, and I love flying. It’ll be fun to share it with you both. Now, hold on.” He dipped, swooping her into his grasp, one arm beneath her knees and the other around her back.

She reflexively threw an arm around his neck and gripped his broad shoulders. Being picked up was a deeply unfamiliar sensation. In fact, before Bel, her feet hadn’t left the ground under someone else’s power since she was small.

Oh, wait…

Hazy memories of being lifted from her bed or the couch in those last days of being sick swam to the surface.

Different. That was different.

She shoved the memories away, focusing on the solid feel of Bel’s arms around her and the warm wall of his chest against her side. She hadn’t been picked up for fun since she hit her big growth spurt at thirteen.

“On three, yeah?” he murmured, brushing his nose against hers. She stole a quick kiss that had his arms tightening around her. “Cheeky. Now, one.”

Lily sucked in a preparatory breath, mortal instincts reminding her that flying wasn’t a natural occurrence, the buzz of excitement in her veins beginning to shift to something less cheery. “Two—”

He launched into the air.

Lily yelped, gripping his shoulders with all the strength she possessed as her stomach was left behind on the ground. She buried her face in his neck, the wind whipping strands of her hair free. Over the wind and the thump of his wings, she could feel his chest shaking with laughter.

Her arms started to ache from holding him so tightly. They leveled out, his wings beating less frequently.

“What happened to going on three?!” she asked over the wind, refusing to open her eyes until she was certain that she could do so without having them pop out of her skull.

“It’s like ripping off a Band-Aid. You can’t overthink it too much, and I could see you starting to overthink it.”

Lily bit him in retaliation. Gently, where his neck curved into his shoulder, tongue flicking over the soft skin. His whole body went taut, claws pricking through her clothes where they hadn’t before. She kissed the spot and smiled.

“Do you feel properly avenged, Lils? Because, if not, tell you what, you can bite me more later. It’s a bad idea to fly distracted.” His laugh was deep and rumbling. “Now, open your eyes, princess. It’s almost as beautiful as you.”

Lily took a moment to mentally steady herself, then turned her head and opened her eyes.

She’d seen beautiful mortal places before both in person and in pictures, and visited incredible, impossible places in the Afterlife. None of them could compare.

The level of Hell stretched away into the distance on all sides, laid before them like a hauntingly beautiful map made up of fiery rivers and streams, with glowing red lava-falls tumbling down black stone. Bioluminescent vegetation glowed in a kaleidoscope of colors, breaking up the palette of blacks and grays and reds. Hundreds—thousands—of orderly and not-so-orderly gardens glowed around beautiful homes. Outside of the central “city,” a feral tumble of colors and plants dotted the landscape, while a wide swath of forest gleamed in a hundred shades of green.

They were high, but the glowing ceiling of the cavern was still far above them, and the wind was pleasantly warm as it brushed over her skin. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from the landscape before her; the darkness of the ground and the architecture that the demons preferred a stunning contrast to the light of the plants and ribbons of lava.

And she never would have seen it from the ground.

“Bel,” she murmured, awestruck.

He chuckled softly. “Yeah, that was about my reaction when I was old enough to fly this high.” He angled to fly over a wide river of lava that spat molten chunks into the air as it dropped over the edge of a ravine. The heat of the molten rock surged upward, and so did they, buoyed by the thermal air.

Another knot came loose in her chest, a sense of rightness similar to the one she’d experienced when she arrived in her Paradise. She rested her cheek against Bel’s, loosening the grip of one hand to stroke over his chest, allowing herself to relax in his hold.

“Why do you ever spend time on the ground?” she asked, only half kidding. Tears— tears —of awe stung her eyes. Flying like this, with him, was about as close to a religious experience that she’d ever had. The motion of his wingbeats, of moving through the air had a soothing quality, like sitting on a porch swing.

“People I love are on the ground,” he said, hands twitching a bit. “Life is on the ground. Flying is a gift; it’s a part of myself that is intrinsic, necessary. But the things that are the most important to me? Those are on the ground. Besides, I’m sure this will shock you, but not everyone likes to fly.” He chuckled. “It took Sariah years to really get comfortable with it. My mother refuses to fly unless it’s practically an emergency. The little ones like it, for the most part, though there are a few outliers. I always dreamed—” He stopped himself and shrugged against her, muscles in his chest flexing as he beat his wings once. “Anyway, it’s part of why I enjoy working with the aerial legions. Flight isn’t optional for anyone there; it’s our way of life.”

He was quiet for a moment, flying them away from the river of lava and out towards the glowing forest. He kissed the corner of her mouth softly. “I love sharing this with you.”

Lily tore her gaze away from the impossible beauty of Hell and focused on Bel, whose handsome face was more captivating and certainly more important than some glowing trees. He’d stopped himself. The little lines by his eyes were tight. She brought her hand up from his chest to cup his cheek, making his lashes dip. “I love sharing this with you too,” she said softly. “But what did you always dream?”

There. A lightning-fast flicker of some powerful emotion rippled over his features before he steeled himself. He held her gaze as best he could mid-flight.

“We promised to be honest with each other, but I don’t want you to feel bad.”

“Tell me, big guy.”

He swallowed hard. “I always dreamed that, if I had a partner who was willing and able to bear children, I’d have kids of my own to fly with. I loved flying with...with my father, and Asmodeus loves flying with his mom. My dad always talked about how much he enjoyed teaching me to fly, because it was like he got to rediscover the joy of it again through my eyes.” He studied her face, thumb stroking up the side of her leg. “Having a family has never been a guarantee, and having winged kids certainly never was, but it was a dream.”

Was.

Her stomach dipped. She didn’t want him to think in terms of “was” because of her.

“I know the feeling,” she said quietly, brushing away a piece of hair that was being especially annoying. She offered him a smile, praying that it looked genuine—because it was—but it also hurt badly. “I’ve always wanted to be a mom. Always wanted a couple of kids so they could have siblings, and so I could experience the full mess and joy of it all, every stage, every step, multiple times over. So, I get it. I know you’ll be an amazing father, Bel.”

His face whipped her way so fast she was surprised she didn’t hear his neck pop, and they bobbled in midair. She gripped his shoulder again.

“Sorry,” he said quickly, leveling out again. “I just…Are you…Fuck it, hold on.” He tightened his grip just as she opened her mouth to ask what he meant, half folding his wings and sending them diving towards the ground.

Lily snapped her mouth shut to keep her shriek contained.

Bel knows what he’s doing, Bel knows what he’s doing, Bel knows—THAT’S THE GROUND!

He flared his wings, slowing their descent, and flapped hard to set them down gently in a clearing filled with tiny, softly shining flowers and grass gilded with its own light. He didn’t set her down as expected, he just frowned at her.

Lily was fairly certain that her fingernails were embedded in his skin from the adrenaline rush of their dive, but she held his gaze. “What?”

“I ‘will be’ an amazing father? You’re talking about Sharkie, right? We—souls can’t have kids in the Afterlife, unless you’ve found some loophole I don’t know about.” A glimmer of hope flickered in his eyes. “ Is there a loophole I don’t know about?”

That vision of an impossible future flashed through her mind again. Her insides felt like they were made of broken glass.

She wished. Oh, how she wished for that.

“If there was,” she said, voice cracking a little, “I would have told you about it. Sharkie adores you, and you are so good with her, so of course we’re a family. But I was…After Sharkie grows up and I…I reincarnate, I want you to be happy. You don’t have to give up your dream forever.”

His frown verged on a scowl. “But you won’t be there.”

“You can’t have the life you want with me,” Lily said past the lump in her throat. The idea of Bel with anyone else made her simultaneously want to rage and cry.

“What kind of life do I want?” Bel asked.

She got the sense it was rhetorical and stayed quiet.

“I want to be a capable general to my legions. I want the other Universes to stay the fuck out of ours so that I have more time to spend with my family and friends. The role of ‘fun and favorite uncle’ is a title that requires effort to maintain. I want to read more of those smutty books from your library—I read the one with the tail, by the way, princess, and I took notes . I want to watch our Sharkie grow up and lose her fear and probably take over the Afterlife. But that’s fine, I have confidence she’ll be a wise and benevolent, if chaotic, ruler.”

His eyes were intense, and she couldn’t look away as his voice deepened. “I want you. I want you as my friend. I want to send you stupid texts. I want to make you blush. I want to fuck you and make love to you and do things with you that would probably get us sent to Hell by silly mortal standards, and I want to laugh with you during and after. I. Want. You. For as long as I can have you. And”—he cleared his throat—“when it’s time for you to go live the big, beautiful, amazing life you deserve, I want to cheer you on every step of the way, just like I promised I would.”

“Bel, I want that with you too—” she started, but he stopped her with a single shake of his head.

“After you? After you, I’ll focus on work, family, friends, and Sharkie, if she’s still in the Afterlife. I’ll do all the good I can, and I’ll keep doing that, to the best of my ability, until I either die in combat”—Lily couldn’t hide her horrified jerk—“or…the other option.”

The Void. He was talking about the Void.

Lily tightened her grip on him involuntarily.

“Don’t you dare feel fucking bad, because I had given up on the dream of any kind of family before you arrived and made my life better than it was ever going to be without you. You’ve given me a family, Lily.”

Lily’s nose stung. Dammit. “Bel…”

He had told her that he’d cheer her on if she left him, told her that he wanted to love like mortals. But he’d never mentioned this. Never told her that there would be no one else after her.

No one had ever made her so permanent a fixture in their lives. No one had ever felt so entirely right to her in every way.

Because I love him. Totally and completely.

As she finally admitted it to herself, every fiber of her being settled. Paradise had felt right. Kissing Bel had felt right. Their intimate moments had felt right. Playing in the rain with Sharkie had felt right. Working at the Hellp Desk had felt right. Flying with him had felt right.

But holy fuck, realizing that she was in love with Bel?

It lit her up like the first warm, sunny day after winter. It felt right .

Right enough to never go back? To give up all those dreams?

To give up life? Forever?

The idea of going back to the mortal world wasn’t…soothing like it used to be. She tamped down the roil of doubt and fear hard, locking it away before Bel, with his eyes that missed nothing, could see and push before she was prepared.

I can love him and not know the whole future. Love like mortals, remember?

“You okay, princess?” he asked quietly.

“I just realized something,” she managed. “I’m not ready to talk about it yet.”

Bel watched her. She could see the curiosity eating at him, but he nodded.

“Is it about my butt?” he asked slyly.

His question jarred her out of her head and made her laugh so hard she leaned back to breathe. Bel spun her in a circle, laughing with her. A breeze riffled through the trees in a gentle susurration, the flowers and grass around them rippling like waves on a pond.

It seemed so glaringly obvious that she should have owned up to loving him for a while now, butt jokes and all. Or perhaps especially because of the butt jokes. She sat back up, wiping at her eyes while Bel kissed her cheek.

“Thank you for that. We’re supposed to be having a fun flight, not going all heavy and deep,” she said finally, smile still pulling at her lips.

“Princess, I’m always down to get heavy and deep with you.” Bel sobered a bit. “But I’m sorry,” he said quietly, meeting her eyes with a rueful smile. “I kind of dumped that on you, didn’t I?”

Lily tilted his chin her way and kissed him long and slow, then rested her forehead against his. “You did not. We’re honest with each other.”

“One of my favorite things about you and I”—he tilted his head with a smile that carried a wealth of emotion—“is that we deal with stuff together. We like each other, we respect each other, we trust each other. Plus, we’re both hot as fuck and have great senses of humor. Whatever it is, we’ll figure it out.”

She traced the point of his tattooed ear. “That’s one of my favorite things about us too.”

“Good,” Bel said. “We will talk about it, when you’re ready?”

“Yes,” Lily promised, then spoke again. She saw Bel, and she was plenty observant herself. She’d picked up enough pieces to have an idea of what wounds he carried on his heart. “Just like you can talk to me. Whenever you’re ready.”

His eyes widened, a hint of vulnerability flaring before he collected himself.

She raised a playful eyebrow and leaned in. “In the meantime, we should probably get back to your family before they think I’m doing naughty things to you and send out a search party. Now that I’m a little more used to flying, I want to see if you can make me scream, because I have doubts.”

All seriousness evaporated from his face. Lily had thrown a gauntlet, and had been fairly confident in doing so, right up until she saw the look in his eye.

“Princess, not only can I make you scream, I’m going to make you beg .”

Bel

By the time he landed them on his mother’s lawn, he was laughing so hard he could barely see. He was fairly certain that Lily’s nails had made marks on his shoulders that would be there for days, and the primal satisfaction of that was eclipsed only by his glee at the sounds he’d gotten her to make. She panted and laughed as he settled her on her feet, her eyes bright and cheeks flushed, looking so damn kissable—

“UNCLE BEL!” A chorus of little voices interrupted his plans, and they both turned to watch the pack of kids sprint across the lawn.

“Did you guys do what I asked?” he said, running a critical eye over them.

There were grass stains where there hadn’t been grass stains before, one of Lezzie’s braids was wonky, and they aimed scowls at each other when they thought he wasn’t looking. They all nodded, some with more enthusiasm than others. Behind them all, Sharkie’s expression was cartoonishly wide-eyed and grim as she slowly shook her head.

Frankly, it was a relief to not have to give them rides. He felt...raw. Not from their conversation about kids and life, or even from the mystery of whatever had clicked in that brilliant mind of hers in the clearing. Her simple offer to hear him when he was ready had floored him. He wasn’t surprised that she knew something. His princess was smart and sharp-eyed, and he’d been edging towards telling her the full story for some time. But it was his closest, most painful secret, and he had no idea how to share it.

“So, what order are you going in?” Lily asked mildly, threading her fingers with his.

Bel smothered his grin.

The cracks in the children’s lie showed almost immediately. Two hands raised at the same time, followed by a brief stare-down that had one hand lowering slowly.

“Sorry, I forgot,” Nimmie said through her teeth, tail lashing as she stared at her cousin. “I’m going second though.”

This was apparently too much of an injustice for the rest of them to cover for, because they all erupted into arguments that, based on the sighs of some of the adults, had been thoroughly argued before.

“Well,” Bel said with as much disappointment as he could muster without laughing, “I guess there’s no more flight rides today. You guys will have to try and work together on a solution next time.”

Their faces ranged from heartbreak to out and out betrayal.

“Uncle Bel, you’re not the favorite uncle anymore,” Furfur said with a pout that made him look exactly like his father, Orin.

“Is the new favorite uncle Asmodeus going to give you all flight rides?” Bel asked loudly.

“No, he is not!” Asmodeus called back around a mouthful of food.

More disappointed moans.

“Tell you guys what,” Lily said brightly. “If you’re not going on flight rides, how about we play a game?”

They all perked up.

“What game?” Sharkie asked.

“Have any of you ever heard of the game Ninja?”

A chorus of nos.

Lily squeezed his hand and let go, guiding the kids to a clear patch of the lawn and directing them into a circle, explaining the simple rules of the game. Bel watched her go.

I’ve always wanted to be a mom, always wanted a couple of kids.

He could see it. She was an incredible mother to Sharkie, her love for the kid palpable and fierce. He smiled. He’d met battle-hardened warriors, millennia old, who weren’t as inherently fierce as Lily. The woman had a warrior’s soul. Even Odin had commented on it during a tactical meeting. He held both Lily and Sharkie in fond regard, but Lily had his respect as a warrior. Warrior soul, mother’s heart. Fierce.

Bel hadn’t missed the little flicker of emotion on Lily’s face when Anyaet had gurgled at Lily and grabbed a chunk of her hair. The flash of pain, of grief, in her eyes when she’d empathized about wanting to have multiple children had gutted him. Not just because he knew how it felt to want that so badly, but because he knew that she could have that. Just not in the Afterlife.

He’d cut off his own wings to have that chance with her. The real bitch of it all was that he could practically see it. He could see her, round with their child, or holding their newborn and probably still working at the Hellp Desk, wielding that gloriously sharp tongue with devastating effect. He could see Sharkie being the best big sister, teaching them her special brand of chaotic joy from day one. He’d already wondered a dozen times what their child or children would look like. Would they have human coloring? Would they have his eyes? Her nose? He hoped that they’d have her laugh.

He could see them both chasing toddlers, could see how his soldiers would adopt his kids when they came to the training fields like they adopted each other’s. He wondered who their kids would grow up to be, what their passions would be, who, if anyone, they would love.

It wasn’t like they couldn’t be a family without that, they already were. The day he’d gone to Lily’s Paradise and allowed himself the comfort that she and Sharkie had offered, he’d felt safe for the first time since he’d been small. They hadn’t patronized. They hadn’t made a production out of it. They’d both just been there. Them and the cat.

He rubbed at his chest and headed towards the chatting adults, aiming for the empty chair by Sariah.

Asmodeus squinted at him over his plate of food. “Interesting noises we heard from up there.”

Bel smirked and mimed zipping his lips, locking them and throwing the key away.

“Smart move,” Sariah told him.

“Wait, before you sit down,” Annika, his oldest sister said, handing him the squalling baby unceremoniously and beating a hasty retreat. “She’s been fed and burped. Good luck,” she called.

Anyaet was deep purple with what Bel assumed was blind rage. She’d stopped screaming like she was being skinned alive when Annika had handed her over and settled into tearful fussing. He checked her diaper, made sure nothing had worked through her onesie and was itchy or painful, pulled off her socks to make sure she hadn’t gotten a hair wrapped around her toe again, and, finding nothing, settled her against his shoulder and bounced. She subsided to shuddering gasps, smushing her wet, snotty face into his neck and seizing his shirt in her chubby little fists.

He loved his little sister with every fiber of his being. However, the kid was incredibly particular about damn near everything, but especially who she was held by. He glanced over at his mother, who scolded a shamefaced Orin for something, and shook his head. His heart had nearly dropped out of his ass when she’d just handed Anyaet to Lily, oh so casually.

Luckily, Anyaet had decided that Lily was one of her people.

On his shoulder, Anyaet had stopped sniffling and rested her head on his shoulder with one fist in her mouth, watching the gathering with her bright green eyes.

“Did we miss anything?” he asked.

“The kids had a battle to do a general proud,” Asmodeus said. “There wasn’t a chance of them getting that one sorted out today. Valafar had great form on his takedown of Furfur though.”

“He’s been working on his grappling, remember?” Bel said.

“It shows.”

Bel let the conversations ebb and flow around him, trying not to get too lost in thought. Eventually, some of the other adults joined in on the game that had the kids captivated, and Lily strolled towards him, shaking her hair out of the messy braid.

Anyaet squealed and launched herself sideways, reaching toward Lily with both hands and a big grin. Bel swore, catching her before she could slither out of his grasp, his heart threatening to pound out of his chest. Lily laughed and reached to take her from him, planting a big kiss on Anyaet’s round cheek.

“You crazy girl, what was that?” she teased. “You trying to give us all a heart attack?”

Ayanet cooed.

“Of course she was. She thinks it’s funny.” Bel stuck his tongue out at her. She didn’t see him, too absorbed with trying to grab as much of Lily’s hair as she could.

Lily shot him a knowing look and reached to untangle Anyaet’s hands, face flushed from playing the game with the kids, eyes bright as she teased the baby in her arms. Sharkie’s laugh rose high and clear over the chatter.

“So, Lily, just remember if you ever have more kids—” Angra, his brother Melchom’s wife, started cheerfully as she approached.

Bel shook his head, silently begging her to stop talking. At his side, both Sariah and Asmodeus also shook their heads; Asmodeus even made a slicing motion across his neck.

Lily smiled politely at her. Bel couldn’t see physical evidence of a reaction, but he watched the walls go up in her eyes.

“—that while they might become the most important person in your life, you have to keep a space for who you were before kids. It’s easier with just one, but once you have more, maintaining your own identity is so…important…” She trailed off, glancing between Bel, Sariah, and Asmodeus.

Lily glanced over her shoulder at them, and Bel did his best to look innocent, heart aching.

Lily adjusted Anyaet and offered her a finger to gum on, smiling at Angra. “Isn’t that the truth? Seriously, some of the best advice out there. I saw a lot of my friends struggle with a sense of self back in the day, even before they became parents. Though, as for us—” Her voice grew regretful, and she didn’t so much as look at him, strain easing into the lines of her body. “Unfortunately, as a mortal soul, I can’t get pregnant in the Afterlife. If I could, I would. Without hesitation.” She offered a genuine, gentle smile to a mortified Angra, who apologized profusely.

“You don’t work with mortal souls. I don’t expect everyone to know the minutia of mortal existence,” Lily assured her. “Even I don’t know that yet.”

“True,” Angra said, wringing her hands together. “But you know what? What I said still stands. You have that wonderful girl there.” She nodded to Sharkie, who had her hood back and was laughing. “And you still have to remember to keep space for yourself.”

Lily deftly and kindly guided their conversation to less treacherous ground, and the apprehension eased out of the people around them. Bel exchanged a glance with Sariah, whose golden gaze was gentle, then made silly a face at Anyaet, who grinned at him over Lily’s shoulder.

Family gatherings. He loved them, loved the chaos and the fun and the conversations. But damn if they weren’t at least a little bit stressful every time.