7. Diana

Ifelt a warmth spread through me, from my head all the way to my fingers and toes. It seeped into all my soul's nooks and crannies, like glue keeping a million broken pieces together. And that's what I was, a bunch of busted pieces trying to stay together.

The strange feeling made me almost forget that I was home, in my own time, surrounded by men I wanted nothing to do with. Who hurt me so badly that I felt like escaping them was the only way I could cope. No matter what I did, escaping them was useless. They somehow traveled back in time to find me.

My eyes opened to a dark room, with some light streaming in from the hallway. A thin, pale man came into focus. A stranger. My magic acted before I could even form a coherent thought, erecting a shield that blasted the man from my bedside, into the wall. I shot up from my prone position and watched as he cowered into a plaster covered, shaking ball.

"Diana," Mal firmly got my attention, then held my hand. "This is Bennett, one of Judas' healers. He's doing a scan to make sure your body is stabilizing. We were having issues waking you up and wanted to make sure you were okay."

For fuck's sake, I just assaulted someone.

"I am so sorry, Bennett. It was a knee jerk reaction. I couldn't control my magic."

Mal helped him off the floor, then got to work fixing the giant hole I made in the wall. He magicked the plaster over it, trying his best to cover it up.

"Oh no worries," Bennett calmly said. "Your magic will level out with practice. You're very lucky there wasn't serious damage, especially with how long you were out of your time period."

He finished a few more scans, his hands hovering over me as a pen and notepad scribbled away next to him. I couldn't read everything, but I did notice "Magical practicum three times a week" and "Round the clock supervision for two weeks" because they were underlined.

"Welcome home, Diana, and have a wonderful day. If you need anything, you can call for me and I'll be right over." Bennett smiled, then promptly left.

Mal took me into his arms and wedged me between his legs. I sighed loudly and I let myself relax into his chest. He made me feel safe. I could let go of all my worries, anger and anxiety—drop the mask completely with him. I didn't need to be strong and untouchable because we've seen each other at our worst. It felt freeing to just be myself.

After several minutes of enjoying each other's silent company Mal said, "We need to have a hard conversation." He shifted in his seat, and something familiar shaped brushed my side.

Lifting my chin gave me a good view of his handsome face. Crystal clear blue eyes and light blond hair tied back into a low bun, showing off his insane bone structure. He could have been a male model in a mortal life.

"I would rather not blow you in a hospital room where people are coming and going all day. But we can fade somewhere more private…"

"I can't help getting hard when your ass is rubbing against me, you tease. Unfortunately, that's not the kind of conversation we need to have."

I shifted so I was sitting in his lap instead of between his legs. "What's up?" I had an idea of what he wanted to discuss. We couldn't put it off the four metaphorical elephants in the room, any longer. A deep breath would have to be enough to prepare me for the awkward talk ahead.

"Not pushing you one way or the other in how you want to move forward with anything, but we can't ignore Desmond, Ares, Bash, and Azazel. We have a war to fight and at the minimum we need to have a professional relationship with them."

"You're right. I'm not going to let the world suffer because they're assholes, but I don't know what I want. Sometimes I miss them. I'll be doing something mundane like reading or showering and randomly think of them. My heart breaks because I miss them so much. Other times I get so angry?—"

My magic flared at the reminder of their betrayal. I took a deep breath to calm myself before continuing. "I get so angry that I can't even stand to look at them."

"Understandable. Do you want me to ask them to give you space? You're going to be stuck in here for a few more days, and I wouldn't put it past one of them to show up unannounced."

As if Mal summoned him, Desmond's large frame blocked out the bright hallway light, casting most of the room in shadow. He invited himself in and sat on the edge of my bed. He had a white box in his hand, and I could smell the delicious sugar calling to me. A black wisp of shadow escaped his sleeve, and he quickly reined it in.

The shadows were a new part of him, inseparable was the way Lucifer described it to me. They reminded me of how emotionally distant he could be…how he felt no qualm keeping secrets from me. How this new version of him seemed so unfamiliar to me. He was still Desmond, same face and body, but with a new darkness inside of him that he never showed us.

"How are you both feeling?" Hearing his deep, raspy voice again made my heart clench. And not in the romantic way.

"Better…" I could barely form words. My throat felt thick and my eyes stung.

"I'm all patched up. My magic was easy to balance." Mal gave him a weak smile.

The silence stretched between us, until Desmond put the box on the bed. I recognized the sticker anywhere—it was from my favorite bakery. The fact that he went all the way back to Brooklyn to get it reminded me of how epically the guys fucked up. I felt even worse.

He opened it, showing an assortment of cannoli. The traditional kind, chocolate, and a Sicilian pistachio variety they always ran out of unless you went early in the morning to get them.

My mouth dried up and my stomach curled. I didn't realize how unprepared I was to be around them again.

Words escaped me, and the only thing I could think to say was, "Thanks."

I took a bite of a pistachio cannoli and it tasted like nothing and felt like ash in my mouth. Seeing him made me so upset that I couldn't enjoy it. My eyes were watery as I put the rest of it back in the box. Was my heart going to break all over again?

Can you please make him go away?I begged Mal. I can't right now.

Mal took my hand and gave it a quick squeeze. "Diana has some tests coming up, and she needs her rest."

Desmond didn't look convinced. His golden eyes lit up, and his shadows swirled around him again before disappearing into the room. He put the cannoli on the side table, and leaned in, looking me dead in the eye. "I will love you until the sun falls from the sky and we're plunged into the darkness. Until the seas dry up, and the mountains crumble. Because that's what we have together—eternity. Take all the time you need, dollface. I'll be waiting."

His large hands found both of ours and squeezed them before he promptly faded away. He took my breath with him, his declaration making me dizzy.

"If he loves me so much, why does he do the things he does?" I asked Mal.

"Princess, I wish I knew. Desmond has always been this way. I don't think he knows how to handle emotions sometimes. Are you okay? I want to go back to the barracks and talk with them about giving you some space, but I can stay here if you need me." He leaned in and gave me a hug, melting away all the tension and discomfort Desmond's visit brought.

"No, that's okay. You should go so we don't have any more unexpected visitors," I whispered in his ear. He kissed my forehead and faded away.

I waited a few seconds to make sure he was gone before I started to cry. Desmond's words slashed that broken part of me barely healed and reopened the wound. I hugged one of my pillows and curled into a ball, practicing the breathing techniques Mal taught me. My body and magic were still healing, and I couldn't afford to have another power surge that could mess up my progress. After several minutes, exhaustion washed over me, and I fell asleep.

A muffledvoice woke me up. I cracked my eyes and was assaulted by bright light from the overhead lighting in my room. My hand touched something large and furry next to me, and I froze. Mal had left earlier, and he wasn't this…hairy.

Please, don't be Ares.

If seeing Desmond wrecked me that badly, I wouldn't stand a chance with Ares. A panting sound from behind me made me roll over. Feta's warm, wet tongue licked my cheek as his ears perked up with excitement. Ares may have been persona non grata, but Feta was always a welcomed sight, even if the massive Cerberus barely fit in my bed despite his shrunken form. He rolled into me, demanding cuddles and pets and I was too happy to oblige. The texture of his glossy black fur was relaxing. Focusing on him was better than being alone with my racing mind. It was akin to being eaten by wolves, and I hated how the dark, intrusive thoughts always came when I least expected them to.

A throat clearing from the other side of my bed startled me. My magic must have undergone some extensive damage if I didn't feel someone else's presence. When I sat up, I immediately wished I hadn't. Lucifer sat next to my bedside with a hot coffee, an iced coffee and a hardback book, reading it as if he had nowhere else to be. His facial expression was calm, but the very sight of him had my stomach roiling with nerves.

Something I realized during my time away was that my father was a million different men. He was the Prince of Darkness. The Devil. The fallen angel. He was one of the most powerful and notorious supernatural beings of all time. His exploits were legendary, and I wasn't even sure which were true. He ruled Hell for thousands of years before he stepped down. That was his public persona.

But privately, he was an enigma. We shared countless meals together, spent countless hours in meetings, and I helped him build a resistance, yet I somehow barely knew him. I know he cared about me, but not if it outweighed my being the crown jewel to his dynasty. The same man who taught me how to level an entire battlefield was the same man who babied Ares' dog, Feta, and requested him special meals from the kitchen. The same man who had dozens of children with women across time was the same man who was supposedly in love with my other father and broke his heart every day.

There were so many contradictions wrapped in one that I wondered if he even knew himself.

I stared at him, unsure of what to say. Mal said that he, Ares, and Azazel came back through time to save me from what could have been a very dangerous fate. I should thank him, but he kept my mother from me. He let me think she was dead for years, and I'd still think she was gone if it were up to him still. Some irrational, rageful part of me blamed him for her death in some odd way. And even though Lucifer treated him like shit, Michael had made a good point in his favor while we were on our…vacation—the attack on her wasn't his fault. He did the best he could by keeping her in limbo while searching for a way to fix her.

Where he went wrong was keeping it from me.

"A good way to start this conversation may be ‘Hello Dad, thank you for coming to save your favorite child from my own magic eating me alive. I missed you so much, because you're the coolest Dad ever'." He said in a half-way decent impression of me.

I laughed for the first time since I came back, I full-on cackled. His arrogance was unrivaled. How did he manage to fit through the door to my hospital suite with a head so big?

"Michael is a cool as fuck father. I'm also not sure I want to thank you…"

He sighed as he put his book on the table and handed me the iced coffee. The sweet taste of cream and caramel was welcomed, as I felt exhausted. "Ungrateful brats, the pair of you. Oisín has barely even side eyed me since he got back." His flippant, joking tone had an undercurrent of hurt.

"I don't even know where to start with you. I've been gone so long, dreading seeing the guys, that I barely even thought about you…"

He put his hand over his heart and leaned back. His face twisted in mock pain. "Oof, keep the shots coming, Diana. Good thing you can't kill your old man."

"Yeah, but you killed any trust we had between us." Somehow, I gathered the energy that had escaped me previously. My tone was calm, because crying and yelling at him wasn't worth it. I had no more tears left.

"I had my reasons for doing what I did." His answer wasn't enough for me.

"I can't work with you and move past this unless you tell me everything. Why did you keep something so devastating from me? Why didn't you tell me so we could fix it together?"

"I think I need to start from the beginning for it to make sense," he took a deep breath then leaned forward in his chair. "I loved your mother and missed you both, but the original plan was to stay away for your safety. I couldn't do it though. I'd watch you both from afar and when I couldn't stand staying away too long, I'd change my appearance and see her again."

His reminiscent smile turned into a grim frown. "We started dating again, and went to this Italian hole-in-the-wall she loved, Caramino's. She was joking about how I'd have to roll her out of there because she ate so much pasta…" He cleared his throat, shifting in his chair.

"Go on." I needed to know the whole story.

"She wanted to enjoy the fall weather on our trip back to her house. Marilyn was an all-consuming presence—you could get absorbed in her, and I was completely and utterly besotted—so I didn't see the men walking toward us until it was too late. They weren't hired, low level thugs. Whoever tried to kill her had a deep, ancient magic that worked quickly. She was dying, and I put her in equilibrium to keep her alive. I spelled your family to believe that she was cremated and hid her in a safe location.

"For decades I tried to find a way to cure her without risking her death by reanimating her. Then I got trapped in the stone. When you freed me, you became my first priority. I wanted to ensure your safety. Then I thought about it…you didn't have a father growing up. You lost your mother, too. Telling you about this would mean losing her twice, because I can't find a way to bring her back."

I let his words sink in. He seemed genuine, but he left out a key piece of the puzzle. "And telling me would take my focus away from the war."

"Yes, it would have. It did. I told you, your safety is my first priority. You can't train if you're grieving. I'm not going to send you into battle distracted, because that's as good as a defeat. Do you understand how dangerous this is, Diana? There's a fate worse than death if you fail."

I had never thought of it that way. Mulling over every word he said, I realized that although his actions hurt, his motives were from good intentions.

"I'm sorry. Please know that I did this to protect you. I convinced Azazel to lie to you because he wanted to protect you, too. You take all the time you need to forgive me." He rose to stand.

"Wait…" He stopped in the doorway, then came to sit at the edge of my bed. "I want to see her. And even though we'll be training, we need to continue to search for ways to bring her back," I demanded.

"Done. Azazel spent the past three months searching for a way to fix it. He's obsessed with finding a way to bring her back for you."

I turned away from him so he didn't see me cry, but it was no use. Lucifer, unfortunately, wasn't a moron. He gathered me in a hug and patted me on the back.

"If we didn't need them, I'd put them in their own specially made circle of Hell for you," he growled. "I did make them suffer, though. Don't hold it against me if you get back together."

The thought of getting back together with them was just as daunting as being apart. I couldn't live with either decision. "I don't know what I want. Can I move into my own barrack? I need some space."

"I'm sure Judas and I can work something out. You don't even have to pack your things if you don't want to." His smirk was downright evil. "Oisín can always do it…"

"Yeah, I bet that will go over well…" He beat the shit out of them the last time they crossed paths.

Feta put his head in my lap, and I scratched behind his ear. "You're always welcome to visit, big boy."

"Diana, let me give you some unsolicited advice before I go… You're a Morningstar, and we don't have broken hearts. Your star may seem dull right now, but know that in a sky full of them, it's the brightest."

He faded out, and I let his words sink in. Feta licked my hand, and for the first time since I left, I felt some hope. Maybe I could get through this to the other side.