52 Not Back Yet

Bel

He’d always wondered what it was like to die.

He’d asked Lily about it once, as they’d lain tangled in each other, all sweat-slicked skin and gentle, exploring touches, coming down from their respective peaks.

“Death itself isn’t bad,” she’d said, her beautiful eyes soft in a way she rarely allowed herself to show. “Dying though, that’s a bitch. You can fight it, but there’s a sense of inevitability that just swamps you, no matter how hard you fight. There comes a moment, or it did for me anyway, when you’re more dead than dying, and it stops being so bad and it was just…a relief.”

She was right, his Lily. Dying was a bitch.

He fucking hated it.

Lying on the muddy battlefield, in the dim in-between of consciousness and unconsciousness after the gegony had flung him aside and clawed helplessly at its own throat, where he’d made sure his sword had embedded itself deep, Bel had been swamped with pain like he’d never known. He’d felt his body fighting to keep him alive, fighting a losing battle. Every pump of his heart, every pulse of blood through—and out of—his body had felt like one step closer to the moment when the sense of inevitability would set in and—fuck that.

Fuck that.

He was Beleth, a general and a prince. He loved a mighty woman, and she loved him, and he loved a child who had more bravery than an entire army as if she were his own— their own. He was the son of Lady Lilith and Samael, two of the original great beings of the Afterlife, of Hell, and his siblings were all incredible in their own rights. He had a life. He had a family. He had a purpose. They were waiting for him, and he had only the faintest opportunity to fight against death.

He would be taking it.

So he’d gone deep within himself, and during brief flickers of consciousness had done everything he could to stem some of the bleeding before black spots blinded him to the world. Even overwhelmed by the black nothing, he’d snarled at it, clinging to his memories of all the things that made his life beautiful and worth fighting for.

The sensation of being lifted had ripped him away from the internal battle, and he’d come to vague consciousness furious that death was taking him against his will.

He still had fight in him, dammit!

He’d swiped at the sneaky fucker—or tried to—before the white-hot pain of his broken arm had him choking. Strange hands firmly kept him down on something, while voices said urgent words that he should have been able to understand, but everything had been so garbled.

Then there’d been nothing but numb blackness and the thud of his heartbeat. Brief flashes of other sensations. Being carried. Being on something solid and moving. Hands. Voices. Lying on something soft. Then agony .

The agony of healing was unique—like the pain of getting the injury, of his body being forced apart, combined with the unnatural pain of having his body forced back together again far faster than it naturally wanted to heal. It drove him into nothingness again, to only blackness and his heartbeat.

He’d been little, barely old enough to form memories, but he remembered crying at bedtime because his wrenched wing hurt so badly. The stupid little kid with the dark red skin and the stupid name in his first-ever combat class was terrible at wrestling, but had managed to twist his wing when they’d both lost their tempers and attacked each other.

Greg. The meanie.

Bel had gotten in a good stomp on Greg’s tail before the teachers had pulled them apart. They’d sat in time-out together until they’d grumpily made peace and grudgingly realized they could help each other learn. Bel couldn’t figure out the stupid rubber knife, and Greg couldn’t follow the wrestling instructions to save his life. Bel happened to be very good at wrestling, and Greg had picked up the knife with disgusting ease. They’d agreed to help each other.

His wing still hurt though.

His mother tucked him in and smoothed his sticky-uppy hair back from his face, her cool fingers soothing on his forehead, through his hair, around the itchy nubs of his horns, as she murmured comforting things until his wing didn’t hurt so much and his eyes grew heavy. He barely registered the kiss on his forehead before he dropped completely into sleep.

Old memories and new sensations blurred together as the darkness lifted. His wing hurt. Both his wings hurt, as did most of his body, but not as sharply as before. A deep ache had settled into every fiber of muscle, every tendon and joint, every bone. His skin felt raw in places, not exactly painful per se, but oversensitive. It was too disorienting.

Death was supposed to be peaceful nothing.

The pain was his first clue that maybe, just maybe, he wasn’t dead yet.

If this was real.

Was it real?

His tail was wrapped around something warm and smooth and familiar, something that kicked his brain into gear. He knew that thing. He knew that feeling. It was important. He needed to follow that feeling. It was real. It would guide him up out of the nothing.

It took a moment for his brain to catch up with his eyes opening, to make sense of the colors and shapes and shadows. The first thing that came into focus was deep-auburn hair splayed over black silk, glinting faintly in the dawning red-gold light.

Lily.

His throat grew tight.

Lily slept on her side a few feet away, curled around a pillow instead of him, her arm reaching out, fingers resting on the back of his hand. Under the sheets, her leg rested near him, his tail curled firmly around her calf, just as he liked. His anchor. He studied her face with the intensity he usually reserved for the battlefield. Her brows were slightly furrowed, dark lashes fanned across her pale cheeks, soft lips parted slightly. A tiny spot of drool on the pillow told him everything he needed to know about how tired she was. She drooled a little when she slept hard. He loved it.

Too far away. He needed her in his arms. If his tail around her leg had brought him out of consciousness, maybe holding her would keep him in his body, keep death away.

He reached for her, ignoring the flaring ache that pulsed through his arm, shoulder, and back, then paused.

Lily. He was with Lily. He ached. He felt . The room around him, it was his room, his bed, his sheets that they were lying on. His heart still beat, pounding away in his chest, the rhythm picking up as the realization sank in.

Alive. He was still alive. And he was home .

Bel’s hand shook as he traced a line down the arch of Lily’s cheek with the backs of his fingers, over the soft line of her jaw, down the satiny skin of her neck, then back up again to cradle her lovely face, trace those lips with his thumb. She was so real .

A contented little hum was all the warning he had before Lily’s eyes eased open, obviously not fully awake. She pressed into his touch with a little smile, just like she had so many other mornings.

She went rigid, eyes snapping fully open.

He loved her eyes. So bright and pretty, her intelligence and heart shone through them, capturing him every time. Her gaze darted over his face before meeting his, a whirlwind of emotions dancing across her features in a heartbeat before settling on concerned relief. Her hand came up to cover his, hazel eyes going glassy. Beautiful.

“Hi,” she whispered.

“Hi,” he said, his voice a broken rasp. Clearly his vocal cords had been low on the priority list of the healers. He opened his mouth to say something— everything —to her, but his throat couldn’t make a sound. Emotion welled up. The battle, the whole damn war, the blood, the death, the horror, the pain, the loss, the fear ...

“I’m alive,” he rasped, not sure if he was saying it for clarification or in wonder.

Lily nodded slowly, not looking away, reaching out to skim her fingertips over his jaw. “You’re alive.”

His eyes burned, breath catching. “I’m home.”

“You’re home,” she said. A tear dripped down the side of her nose.

“I…” His heart raced, breath stuttering in his lungs, mind swirling. She saw it. She always saw him. “Princess,” he choked, and then the dam of his composure collapsed. The sobs seemed to come from his soul. He wasn’t sure if he pulled Lily to him, or if she moved under her own power, or both. It didn’t matter. Somehow, he ended up with his face buried in her chest, arms gripping her too tightly, but it didn’t matter because she was gripping him just as tightly back. She’d ended up higher on the bed, curling herself protectively over him as he wept, her own tears dampening his hair.

Bel wept for the soldiers, the friends he’d lost, the orders he’d given that had led them there, the things he couldn’t control. He wept for their families. For their pain. For the grief that he knew all too well would never fade but would become more bearable with time as it wove itself into the tapestry of their lives. For the nightmares. For the scars that the survivors would bear, inside and out. He wept for the gegony, the little ones who had been tortured and their parents, forced into a war that was not their own. He wept for himself. For the parts of himself that had been irrevocably changed on that gory battlefield.

No matter how many times he’d seen combat, he always came back changed again. And he wept for that too. For the echo of the times before, and the fresh pain of the now.

Lily held him through all of it. She never moved, never wavered, just held him, wept with him, her quiet strength and understanding the only thing keeping him from spiraling into a place that was harder and harder to come back from.

It could have been hours later when the mountain sitting on Bel’s chest lifted. Not entirely—a lifetime of experience told him that it would always partially be there—but he could breathe easier than any other time he’d come back before, thanks to Lily and her grounding presence. He wasn’t alone. He would never be alone. Not in this.

He smoothed his hand up the small of Lily’s back, pulling in a lungful of her sweet scent, mixed with the salty tang of his tears in her shirt. She kissed his head.

“Asmodeus?” he asked, his voice more broken than before.

“Alive and in slightly better shape than you. Your mom said he’s an ornery patient.”

“Understatement,” Bel mumbled, more weight lifting off his soul.

Lily’s fingers ran through his newly clean hair, her voice soft. “It’s over, apparently. Luci said you managed to push them back enough so that they could get the rift sealed up.”

“Not me.”

Her fingers paused in his hair.

“I was…injured before the final push.”

“Your armies,” Lily said softly, lightly tugging on a strand of hair.

Bel grunted, letting the information soak into him like a balm.

Over. Done. Safe.

“The healers had their work cut out with you yesterday.” Her voice went oddly tight. “But they fixed you up enough that you’re out of the woods. They’re going to send someone over today to check on you, then come back tomorrow or the day after and do the final healing.”

Bel mulled that over. He felt like he could spend another three days sleeping, but he needed to deal with bringing the injured home, bringing the dead home, organizing the funeral pyres, prepare to meet with the grieving families even though it would rip at his heart. Maybe he could ask Lily to go with him—

“They also said you’re going to be on bed rest for at least a week.”

“What?” Bel went to lunge upward, but at the last second remembered his horns and how Lily was curled over his head, so he carefully maneuvered himself onto an elbow to stare at her.

“I’ll be completely healed after the second session. Other than a nap, there’s no justifiable reason for me to lie in bed for a week when there’s so much that needs to be done!”

Lily propped her cheek on her fist and raised an eyebrow. The effect of her arch expression was somewhat ruined by her puffy, red eyes. “I feel the need to remind you that you almost died.”

He winced. “Fair. But by the time I’ve had two sessions with a healer—”

“Four,” Lily said plainly, though her voice wobbled. “There were four healers working on you all day yesterday, and they drained themselves and you completely dry of healing energy. Whatever that means. One of them practically fell down the stairs when they left.”

Oh. Bel frowned, indignation fading. Four of his mother’s best healers. Drained. And he still felt as bad as he did.

“I don’t need to be in bed for a week,” he said slowly, not actually sure but too worried about his soldiers to rest without a fight.

“I seem to recall more than a few promises to spend an entire week in bed with me ,” Lily said smoothly, then her expression softened. “I know you want to take care of your soldiers, Bel. I get that. But you won’t be any use to them if you don’t heal. You’ll end up right back in bed again anyway. Hell is rallying to support them; they’re not being abandoned.”

The pounding ache in his body grew worse. Just holding himself up on one arm had the first sharp prickles of pain piercing through the dull soreness. She was right. He knew she was right. But…

“Well, if you’re going to be in bed with me all week,” Bel said, lowering himself down with a groan he couldn’t stop and which Lily pointedly ignored.

“Until you can fuck me in the manner to which I have become accustomed—and have been cleared by a healer to do so—you’re not getting any,” she said, a smile in her voice. “Guess you’d better focus on healing real quick.”

Bel sat up with a pained wheeze and stared at her. “Are you…Lily, are you blackmailing me into resting by putting me into sexile?”

Lily stretched on the pillows with an indolent smile. “Worked in Lysistrata .”

As right as it felt to banter with her again, there was a piece of him that wondered if he was disrespecting those who had fallen by engaging in something so light so soon after their time in the dark. What right did he have to a non-serious conversation when too many lay dead?

Survivor’s guilt.

The thought brought him up short. They’d all heard about it, studied it, seen it in various forms throughout their training. Bel had felt it before, but not so intensely as he did now. His father had had it; Bel had read so in his journals. It had played a major part in Samael’s reclusion, which had then made living that much more unpalatable for an already hurting soul.

Bel grieved the ones that they had lost. Would grieve them until the day he joined them. But he would not do them the disservice of scorning the gift of life that they had fought and died to ensure for others.

Lily’s hand on his cheek brought him back. He’d been quiet too long, and she must have seen the processing on his face.

He kissed her palm and eased his increasingly painful body back down. “‘Fuck you in the manner to which you’ve become accustomed.’ Which manner is that, princess?” He slid his hand up her bare, tattooed thigh. “Rough? Slow?” He skimmed his claws along the hem of her panties.

Lily grabbed his chin firmly, tilting his head up. “Well.” She kept her lips just out of reach. “Until you can fuck me well , you’re shit out of luck, big guy.”

She was right, but he pouted anyway.

She snorted. “And your mother said that Asmodeus was the worst patient she’d ever seen.”

“It’s true. They’ll have to keep him out until he’s healed enough to get out of bed.” He ran his hand down towards her knee, letting any heat from the moment fade. “He’s really okay?”

Lily wiggled down so that they lay face-to-face on the pillow. “Yeah. You’re the one who…” Her nose went red, and she seemed to be fascinated by the little spikes on his chin. “You’re the one who scared the shit out of us.”

“Sharkie?”

“With Luci. She was worried, but she’s always thought that you would be fine. I believe her exact words were He’ll be okay. He’s huge. ”

He chuckled, able to hear Sharkie’s voice in the words.

“She’s going to be really excited to see you.” Lily smiled. “Your mom’s here, or at least she was last night. Kasdeya, Orin, Angel, and Greg are here. As far as I know they stayed overnight, and I’m not sure if anyone new has arrived. As soon as the healers left, I came up here.”

“Greg?” Bel asked, surprise overriding his other thoughts.

She smirked. “Yeah, your best friend? Runs Level Nine, quiet and a little creepy sometimes, but he’s actually pretty nice. Has red skin, wears a lot of black—”

Bel snorted. “Yes, I’m aware you’re talking about that Greg. I’m just surprised you’re calling him Greg and not Gregorith.”

“He gave me permission yesterday. We had a little moment on the stairs outside.”

“Was he upset?”

“He tried not to show it, but yeah.”

Bel huffed a wondering laugh, wondering how Lily had gotten Greg out of a mood. His moods were notorious.

“Do you want me to let everyone know you’re awake?” Lily asked.

“Did they hear what the healers said yesterday? That I’m out of the woods?”

She nodded.

“Then not yet,” Bel said, his voice cracking almost into nothingness. Damn it. “I’m not…” He slipped his hand under a chunk of her hair and watched it slide free, gathering himself together. “I just want to be quiet with you. I’m not…back yet.”

He would admit that to no one but her. It didn’t feel right, like he was trying to get out of the responsibility of being him.

Lily brushed his nose with hers, then pressed a sweet, powerful kiss to his lips. It felt like the first full breath he’d taken in months.

Alive.

Home.

Lily

They lay in simple quiet together for hours, tracing slow patterns over each other’s skin, savoring the closeness and being together again. Eventually, Bel drifted back to sleep, but Lily stayed, her hand over his heart, every beat against her palm chipping away at her uncertainty until only a thread remained. Eventually, a knock on the door woke Bel up so abruptly it was like he’d been jolted with electricity.

Lily kissed him, slid out of bed, and pulled her pants on before opening the door for the healer, as well as a parade of Bel’s family and friends. With one notable absence. She exchanged a look with Bel, who gave her a knowing nod, and went downstairs to let the others have their time.

She leaned against the bottom banister, hand curled around the phantom sensation of his thudding heartbeat, and took a long, deep breath.

“Okay,” she whispered, pressing her closed hand to her chest.

She found Greg in the living room, sitting in a chair with a casual elegance that reminded her of a tiger at rest. Though, speaking of tigers…

“Your cat has no sense of self preservation,” he told her smoothly, running a single finger down Max’s head as he purred away in Greg’s lap.

“You’re friend-shaped,” Lily said, dropping into a nearby chair.

“Demons run warmer than humans. He probably just likes the heat.”

“Has he sat on anyone else’s lap since yesterday?”

Silence.

“He might seem like a feckless cuddle slut, but he’s actually quite picky. Always has been, even when he was a kitten. He picks his good people.”

“Good people,” Greg muttered, scratching under Max’s chin. “He’s awake?”

“Yes. There’s lots of naps in his future, and he might give Asmodeus a run for his money in the difficult patient department, but he’s awake.”

Greg nodded, carefully petting Max with hands that seemed awfully uncertain for being so capable. “How is…he?”

Lily wondered how to say it in a way that explained without betraying trust. That wouldn’t make Greg relate the torture he meted out to deserving souls to the experiences of his friend.

“He’s a general who lost a lot of soldiers. He’s a man who lost a lot of friends. He’s seen and done and experienced things that you and I will never see, do, or experience, no matter how big and bad we are.”

Lily took a deep breath. “But he came home. He didn’t come home the same, but he came home. I remember talking to active-duty soldiers in the mortal world who’d come home from deployment, and all of them said that coming home was the hard part. Our war was different, but Bel came home when others didn’t. He’s probably going to struggle with that.”

“He has before,” Greg said. “Nothing too bad, but it was there. But this war… We haven’t lost so many people in a long time.”

Her chest ached. “Patience and understanding can accomplish a lot. And so can you, O Great Master of Level Nine, if you’re there for him.”

Greg’s smile was faint and wry, but he looked like he could breathe easier as he nodded.

Voices floated down the stairs. Bel’s wasn’t among them, wrecked as it was. She hoped the healers made a point to fix that soon. She could tell it bothered him to sound so broken.

A few minutes later, people began to trickle down the stairs, chatting quietly amongst themselves, but looking more relieved.

Greg watched them all, glancing down at Max in his lap, a whisper of frustration flickering across his stoic face.

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

Lily stood and picked the cat up, cuddling him against her chest. His warm fluff was as comforting as it had been when she’d cuddled him for moral support during exam season.

“Go,” she told Greg, “be free.”

He stood, checking himself for cat hair. “I thought you weren’t supposed to disturb a resting cat?”

“I wasn’t supposed to do a lot of things,” Lily said, giving Max a little smooch. “And now I’m here. Though, of my ‘sins,’ that’s probably the one that would send me to Level Nine. Quit stalling. He missed you.”