Chapter 12

Damien

The days blend one into the next, a filmstrip of memories and experiences flashing on a reel fast enough that I can no longer distinguish between them. Any denial that I’m neglecting my duties has long since gone out the window. Neglecting is an awfully loose term for the way I’m pretending to be nothing more than a bedwhore for Nik, but I suppose it works as good as any.

No, I’ve been having a grand old time, hiding from Xalreth so I don’t have to listen to his accusations. “You’ve forgotten your purpose in coming here, Lucifer,” and “We cannot continue to waste time here when the realm needs you, Lucifer.”

And the fact that those comments are true? Neither here nor there, I assure you.

Every night, my desire to return home shrinks, and my longing to stay intensifies. Niklaus’s stress grows more and more by the hour, and the guilt that swarms inside me might as well be the size of a mountain from how it weighs me down.

An unprecedented, unfamiliar sensation has crept over me until it is all-consuming. It’s sticky, and uncomfortable, and I don’t have the first clue what to do about it.

I want to… h… h…

Gods, I can’t even say it.

Help .

I cringe at the mere thought of it, but I’ve moved past the stage of denial and am settling—very hesitantly, might I add, with lots of appropriately panicked kicking and screaming—into acceptance. The initial glee that came from my rebellious group of Hellves and our sex toy workshop has darkened and twisted, turning into absolute shame for the grief I’m causing Niklaus.

We spend hours every night wrapped up in each other, both of us indulging in the rare moments where we get to pretend the rest of the world isn’t crashing down around us. Admissions pass from his lips to my ears, voicing that his biggest fear is missing his Christmas Eve deadline. A fear that is coming to life right before both our eyes.

Seven days .

A mere week exists to uncover a solution. Only I don’t have to search for the problem.

I am the problem.

He just doesn’t know it.

The nervous energy in my mind searches for an outlet, and I find myself wringing my hands as I step into the workshop. The Hellves are hard at work, the room almost overflowing in the products they’ve spent the past week creating. “There you are!” Jujube shouts, clearly blind to visual cues as he runs over to my side. “We need to discuss implementation.”

“Implementation?” I echo, glancing at him in question.

He nods enthusiastically, gesturing around the room like a tiny Vanna White… Vanna Slight, perhaps. “We will have to figure out the best way to load these into Santa’s sack…” I mentally give myself a pat on the back for not even considering letting that chortle leave my throat. “… before he leaves on Christmas Eve. Only a few elves are allowed in the loading area, much less to touch the sack…” Another subdued laugh gets squashed in my mouth.

I’m the Devil.

Sue me for finding balls funny.

“… and I’m not optimistic about convincing any of them to do our bidding.”

“Uh huh,” I murmur noncommittally, my brain spinning at a million miles an hour, a wave of panic replacing my dim amusement as the gravity of the situation sinks in .

When we first got here, I was so proud of this plan. I’ve done lots of things over my life that are questionable at best, but this? Loading the Santa up with a bag full of dildos and cock cages and sending him out into the world?

How fucking funny it was going to be, knowing I’d gotten a leg up on him. The crown jewel of my fucked-up arsenal, gleaming and obscene, standing defiant at the top of the trophy case.

Oh, how we planned on hearing the uproar from the masses, waiting as people opened gifts to find a silicone cock instead of a boring day-planner on Christmas morning.

How hilarious it would be to imagine Brenda’s face when she had neon purple anal beads—aptly named Grapes of Wrath—in front of her stuck-up husband and the fight that would follow.

How side-splittingly entertaining it would be when Maxwell blushed and tried to hide the nipple clamps behind his back. They aren’t mine! he’d argue, but everyone knows in the history of humankind, that argument has never worked. They’d yell and scream and not speak for hours, and it would ruin their holiday.

How absolutely delightful it would be to see them all curse Christmas…

Curse Santa.

And here I am, safe and cozy in his home, taking advantage of every kindness he’s offered me, ready to sit back and laugh as the chaos imploded. It was supposed to be a crowning victory in my time as Lucifer .

But now…

Now, it suddenly doesn’t feel very funny.

Now it feels wrong.

Because I don’t want to hurt Nik, not anymore. The image of his pain, the way the blow would shatter his impenetrable exterior… the thought alone makes my breath catch in my throat. Instead, I want to protect him, and help him, and maybe, just maybe, love him and see if he might find a way to love me back.

“We… we shouldn’t do this,” I whisper, but Jujube keeps talking as though he doesn’t hear me… and maybe he doesn’t.

“What I was thinking may work best is if we swap out our gifts with the others after they’ve been sorted and before they are loaded onto the sleigh. It’ll be a bit of a time crunch, and we’ll have to be silent while we do it, but I think we can pull it off if…”

“I don’t want to do this,” I say louder, but he still just keeps fucking talking.

“… and once they’re on the sleigh inside the sack, no one checks anything again and there’s no way anyone would catch us at that point.”

My mind swims and I push my palms against my temples, shaking my head as it all just gets to be too much. The guilt, his grating, know-it-all voice, the images of a broken Nik.

“Just… just stop!” I bellow, power making my voice flood every corner of the room, and his eyes widen as each head in the workshop whips to me. “What the F UGIO are you all even doing?! Why are you even here?! Why did you agree to sabotage a man that’s so good to you?!”

Their mouths all hang open now, too, and complete, uncomfortable silence fills the shop as my temper flares out of control. My magic blasts out of me in waves, turning the air oppressive as it sparks across their skin.

In my rage, I pick up a giant green Grinch dildo and a small riding crop, holding them up with a shake. “No, I need someone to explain this to me! I’m The Devil—making mischief is what I do. It is expected of me. But why—”

“Damien!” Xalreth snaps from the back of the room, but I ignore him, my anger too powerful to put aside.

“People have been judging me as trouble for as long as I can recall, like there’s nothing more to consider. Even before I became the Lucifer, everyone knew not to cross evil little Damien. Hellish, and terrible, and godda—” I catch myself before the censoring does, and I use the interruption to take a deep, shuttering breath. “If I want to cause chaos in the North Pole, if I want to make The Santa’s life a living Hell, it makes sense. It’s what everyone already expects of me. But why— ”

“Why indeed, Damien,” a quiet voice behind me interrupts, and I freeze, shock-still, as I twist to meet the fury of Niklaus’s green eyes. The world plummets, the ground underneath my feet slipping away as I fall. Down, down, down I go, wind rushing my ears as I realize with absolute, devastating certainty that any chance I had of fixing this is gone .

I am now truly, utterly, deservedly alone.

“Everyone out.” His voice is dangerously low, his impenetrable eyes not veering from mine. And I’ve seen these emerald eyes in various forms of anger and frustration…. of sadness and hopelessness, but not hard and empty.

Never like there’s no emotion left in them.

“S-S-Santa—” One of the elves stutters, but Niklaus’s temper explodes.

“ OUT! ” Rage burns across his face as he roars, so stark I can almost see the flames. “Out! Every single one of you, get out !” I swallow roughly as he crowds me, stepping backward until my legs hit the table, but he doesn’t stop. He keeps moving forward until he’s flush against me and the edge of the tabletop bites into my thighs.

“Nik—” I start, cursing under my breath when I lift my hands and realize that the toys are still in them. I fling them to the ground and grab onto his shirt. “Nik, listen. You have to listen to me. Give me a chance to explain.”

He has to… right?

Because that’s how the story goes.

The evil prince meets the good, kind man who shows him how to love. Teaches him he’s been worthy of love this whole time. It’s sappy and romantic, and bloody uncomfortable with all those words and feelings , but it’s what happens.

They always get their happily ever after.

Always.

Only this doesn’t feel very much like happily ever after. It only feels like too late .

His eyes are hard as granite, as though I could chisel a piece right from their surface, and the hurt on his face is enough to break me in half. We’re alone in this room now, the door bolted shut and the stifling tension pressing on us.

When he finally speaks, his voice is flat, devoid of any emotion. It’s like speaking to an artificial version of himself, his words as cold and lifeless as the wood he’s carved from. “This was your plan, then? To sabotage me?”

“At first,” I admit, and I hate myself for the way his eyes close for a few seconds, like the pain is too much, and he’s trying to separate himself from it. “But then—”

“You were… what? Stealing my work force and causing me to get further behind, distracting me at night so I wouldn’t see past your lies?”

“Nik, I’m sorry—”

“One thing, Damien,” he growls, low and controlled and goddamned devastating , as he fists my shirt to pull me closer. “One fucking thing was all I ever asked of you—give me time to prepare if you’re going to break my heart… and you didn’t have the decency to grant me that single kindness.”

“It’s not like that, Nik, please allow me a chance to—”

“I want you gone.” His voice is impersonal as a stranger, as frigid as the snow outside, and his eyes are steely and determined. “It was foolish of me to believe that I was anything to you, and I want you to leave.”

“No, no, no… let me fix this, let me— ”

“There is nothing to be fixed!” He snarls as he gets too close and brushes his lips against mine, releasing a helpless, defeated sound as his arms bind around me and he kisses me with bruising pressure.

All at once, he releases me to slump against the table. “You will be gone by morning.” He turns his back to me, storming towards the door.

“Nik, don’t walk away from me… I know you don’t believe me, but I want you… I want this …”

He whirls to face me, a dangerous gleam in his eyes. “Oh, poor little prince is going to miss being fucked by his big Daddy, is that it? Let me give you one for the road then,” he sneers as he rips the button clear off my pants and shoves them down my legs. He grabs a cage off the table and clicks it in place around my cock as I can’t do anything but stare, speechless. He whips me around towards the table, shoving my face down onto its surface so my ass is exposed to him.

“This is what you wanted, right? Reap the harvest of your schemes and tell me how much you enjoy it.” He grabs a dildo and shoves it into my mouth, and I gag at the taste of the silicone in my mouth. “Get it nice and slick, Lucifer , or else you’re going to feel it.”

The use of my formal title is like a blade to my gut, and I try to twist to look at him, but he pins me in place. I could use my power to free myself, but I don’t know if I can handle the brokenness on his face again.

He rips the toy from my mouth, and I sputter as he moves it behind me. “Nik, I didn’t mean to,” I whimper as he circles my hole. He pauses, a bitter laugh tearing from his lips.

“You didn’t mean to? Which part happened by accident, Lucifer? Was it the recruitment of my elves to help in your plot? The stealing of my materials and commandeering of this room? Getting me further and further behind schedule?” The tip of the toy breaches my rim, and I gasp as my back arches. “Or was it playing my emotions like they were nothing more than some shiny new toy for you to get excited over, Damien? Tell me, how long did it take for the novelty to wear off? For you to get bored and move on without a care in the world to how I might feel?”

“Nik,” I whine as he inches the dildo deeper. Even in his anger, he’s careful not to hurt me, and the tattered shreds that remain of my heart shatter at the realization. “It was a mistake.”

“All of this was a mistake,” he snarls, and I call out as he works it the rest of the way inside me. We’ve fucked so much over the past few days that I’ve needed little prep, and he knows that. Knows he isn’t hurting me, but I don’t want him in anger.

Don’t want his last memory of me to be one of such spite when it could’ve been such beauty.

My cock throbs, trying to thicken but being stopped by the cage, as the metal bites into my flesh. “Everything we’ve done has been a mistake . You are nothing more than a mistake and I regret every second of it.”

And there it is.

The heart that even I didn’t know existed cracks, straight down the middle. Pain like I’ve never experienced bleeds into my body, and I just want to disappear.

I don’t want to be me , not anymore.

“Pitchfork,” I whisper, and Nik becomes perfectly still behind me. He could be a marble statue, not even a twitch of his fingers for a few long breaths.

He eases the toy from me and slams it onto the table beside my face with such force the metal surface dents under his fist. The suction cup grabs and I stare at the dildo swinging like a metronome before me.

“But do you know what my biggest mistake was, Damien?”

“Nik—” I plead, eyes stinging as his mitt of a hand keeps me in place, my cheek grinding into the cold metal.

“My biggest mistake was not slamming the door in your face the minute I saw who darkened my doorstep. I should’ve run, should’ve told you to go back to the pits of Hell where you belong, but instead, I welcomed you into my home. Let myself believe you could care. ”

“Nik,” I beg, “Please, Nik, I care, I do.” I care so fucking much. His imposing presence backs away from my body, and I’m left a whimpering mess, pants around my ankles, dildo waving in the wind beside me.

“Don’t leave me,” I whisper, hot tears blurring my vision, but even I know it’s too late for that. It's a silly request from a silly man, and he pays it no mind. Without a word, Niklaus turns and flings the door open, storming out into the workshop and leaving me here. Alone.

Always alone.

My legs fail and I crumble to the ground, curling into a ball and hugging my knees to my chest. Exposed to the world in more ways than one, I don’t have the energy to care anymore. I sense Xalreth’s presence as he runs into the room, but all I can manage is to hug tighter and do something I haven’t done in my many long years in this life.

I cry.