Chapter 1 - Fallen's First

Part I — Hell

Lips on his eyelids—the first touch Saer ever experienced—a delicate and heartbreaking kiss.

Saer blinked open his new eyes and beheld his maker. Lucifer’s irises, so light a blue they were almost white, stilled his shuddering inhale. A gemstone came to his mind, something Saer had never seen but knew, like it had been etched into his bones.

Drained sapphires. That’s what Lucifer’s eyes resembled.

Maker. Creator.

Lucifer smiled, and the expression struck Saer between his…

Ribs. He had…ribs. And Lucifer somehow hurt the spaces between them with the curve of Its lips.

Bewitching and wicked, dazzling and tragic, too many emotions overwhelmed his freshly born body. Pearlescent, feathered wings framed his maker’s radiance, tucked into Lucifer’s back. Curls of gold brushed Its forehead, cascading upon pristine, bare shoulders.

Saer yearned to touch the silken tresses at the same time he wondered why.

Lucifer spoke in a voice as agonizing and lovely as Its face. “Saerkhanumsherrinikakore.” The jolt of Saer’s true name sang through him, compelling and powerful. His knees shook.

Lucifer’s voice dipped. “My Saerkhanum.” This version of his name resonated as well, spoken with something like familiarity and affection, though it didn’t carry the same weight as his true name.

“Welcome, my First Daemoenic.” With Its pale hand, the fallen angel made an elegant gesture to the surroundings.

Daemoenic. Angel. Fallen. These concepts filtered in. Saer didn’t question their accuracy. They simply were.

It took all of Saer’s willpower to tear his gaze from his maker.

A monstrous cavern surrounded the pair. Lines of molten red snaked through the stone, illuminating where blazes of Hellsfire couldn’t.

Magma. Another word he’d not been taught, yet it came to him.

Saer’s nostrils flared to the scent of smoke, fire, and a tinge of lava mixed with old blood, burnt feathers, and flesh. Patches of Hellsfire licked at the ground, and as Saer traced the flames’ path to his own body, they reflected off his silver feet.

No.

Not feet.

Hooves.

His maker had feet, but Saer had glinting, silver hooves. Brow knitting, Saer raised his hands into view.

His chiseled forearms were coated with leathery flesh, black as charcoal. Silver claws tipped his onyx fingers, vicious and threatening. Nothing like Lucifer’s hands.

Weapon.

The word leapt into his mind, and Saer knew he was powerful and important. He knew his purpose.

Lucifer’s elegant fingers traced along the side of Its creation’s jawline, drawing Saer’s attention back. “My First, my son, my servant. I’ve created you, and so you belong to me wholly and completely.” The fallen angel’s finger drifted outward, touching the tip of a curved, silver horn.

Saer’s horn. He had horns instead of lustrous curls.

“You are bound to protect me, obey me, and put no others before me. If you are honored to be mine and so understand and swear to follow these conditions, tell me as much.”

Protect. Obey. Honor.

Saer grasped the words with certainty, their weight settling on him with their undeniable importance and finality. The impulse to dedicate himself to someone or something had been forged deep in his sinew and bones, and now, he teetered on the precipice of a monumental choice. If he declined, he knew it would be the last thing he ever did. Yet, something in Saer’s core hesitated.

He was powerful. Important. And with that realization came the innate knowing of what Lucifer had commanded and utilized to craft him.

Pride.

He was Pride.

Why should he follow a fallen angel, even the one who’d made him? Why make an oath to his maker when that maker created him to be more than It? Better than It?

The pause stretched, and Saer stared long enough that a glint of furious trepidation slid into Lucifer’s eyes.

If he were unmade, Saer realized, he’d lose every opportunity to rise.

The fallen angel drew a breath to speak further, but Saer knelt on his thick, able-bodied shanks and bowed his head. Muscles in his back contracted, and he realized he’d drawn wings close to his body. They brushed his ribs. Not feathered as Lucifer’s, but membranous.

Serve.

He uttered his first words, and the depth of his voice rumbled deeper than Lucifer’s, echoing the roar of the fires of Hell. “Yes, Master.”

Somewhere at his center, deep in Saer’s consciousness, a brilliant flash of gold sparked, then faded—an acknowledgment of his oath, a finality granted.

“Good, my Saerkhanum.”

The approval wrapped around him, comforting and thick with affection, yet somehow lined with razor blades.

“While I finish my army, you’ll build a dais for a throne. There.” Lucifer pointed, and Saer followed Its gesture to a space across the cavern.

The rocky floor needed evening out and polishing. Loose stones lay scattered about, but they wouldn’t be enough to build a structure befitting the ruler of this realm. He’d have to carve more out of the walls—

Saer’s analysis halted mid-thought as the fallen angel moved away, revealing a part of the cavern Its frame had previously blocked.

Diagonal from them, the next of Lucifer’s creations came into view.

Six other Daemoenica in various stages of completion perched in suspended dormancy. All winged and horned of various shapes and sizes, but Saer’s gaze snagged on the one nearest them.

She—for the unmoving, voluptuous form could be nothing but a ‘she’—held her head bent, kneeling. The demoness’s substantial silver horns swept up and back from her forehead, curling sinuously and tapering to dangerous, delicious points at the end of their impressive length. Rather than claws, she possessed gleaming, silver nails upon each obsidian fingertip. Her eyes lay shut, still as a statue.

The moment he beheld her, Saer’s insides tugged in her direction, though no vitality breathed through the demoness. She called to a deep yearning inside him without uttering a word.

Lucifer intruded into Saer’s line of sight, Its lips pulled back and revealing rows of razor-sharp teeth. “I gave you an order, my Saerkhanum.”

Saer bit back the insane urge to argue. His maker’s unspoken threat shivered through him, icicles in his blood. “Yes, Master.”

He moved to the opposite end of the chamber to gather boulders—and glanced over mid-task.

Leaning over the still demoness, Lucifer brushed Its hands under her fine cheekbones. The fallen angel breathed over her eyelids before kissing them, one after the other. With those kisses, a brilliant, glowing energy passed from his maker’s lips, absorbing into the female figure.

She inhaled.

“Neyuukhanickhraul. My Neyuukhan. Welcome.”

Her name caressed Saer’s insides like silk.

Neyuukhanickhraul—Neyu—blinked and lifted her gaze. Not to the fallen angel, but to Saer.

His breath stilled.

Her irises bled deeper, richer than Lucifer’s. The blue of Neyu’s eyes called upon myriad things embedded in Saer’s mind but non-existent in Hell: the depths of the ocean, a sky at twilight, desert bluebells.

She’d been sculpted with Hellsfire and lust. Somehow, in the span of that gaze, it solidified the impulses he’d noted earlier. He knew who she was, what she was.

His perfect counterpart.

His match.

Mine.

Lucifer’s tone sharpened with displeasure. “Neyuukhan.” The word seared with warning, and she jerked her attention to the fallen angel.

When Lucifer’s hand gripped her chin, Its tendons and ligaments strained. Saer’s stomach guttered, his claws tensing.

“You belong to me, are bound to protect me, obey me, honor me, and put no others before me. Do you understand?” Lucifer asked, a dangerous hiss limning the question.

Neyu nodded, just as Saer had moments prior. “Yes, Master,” she whispered.

If Lucifer’s voice had wrapped around Saer, Neyu’s voice spilled over him like molten honey, warming him from the inside out, muscles tightening in his core at the same time they yearned to succumb to…her.

Neyu.

“I gave you an order, Saerkhanum,” Lucifer growled, shoulders still facing him.

Alarm surged, raising fine hairs on the back of Saer’s neck, and he averted his gaze to restart his task.

Not fast enough.

The fallen angel closed the distance between them. One alabaster hand gripped his horn and used the leverage to slam Saer onto his back, knocking the wind out of his lungs. Lucifer thrust Its face forward until Its nose grazed his. “I created you. You are mine.”

Saer coughed and sputtered. “Yes, Master!”

The fallen angel’s eyes blazed as red as blood, the crystalline blue gone. “I created her. She is not yours.”

How did his maker know what he’d thought? The way he’d looked at her? The gaze they’d exchanged?

Or more disturbing yet, did Lucifer create her to be his match, only to withhold them from one another?

He could only nod, fighting the sudden and foolish urge to shove Lucifer away. “Yes! Yes, Master.”

The tension in Lucifer’s arm loosened, and Its head bowed to touch forehead-to-forehead with Saer. The fury from before siphoned away in a fluid rush, leaving a heart-wrenching tenderness.

“Know that I love you,” whispered Lucifer. “Know that I always will.”

Love. The word felt wrong, but Saer had nothing to compare it to.

When Saer didn’t reply, the fallen angel’s forehead pushed harder against his, almost painfully. “Do you love me, my Saerkhanum?”

Saer’s throat tightened, but his words escaped in a rush, “Yes, Master.”

Lucifer sighed, exhausted and euphoric all at once, then turned Its head to their witness. “Neyuukhan, my beautiful Second, do you love me?”

Saer stole a glance from the corner of his eye.

Dread crept into Saer’s belly when Neyu’s deep azure eyes calculated. Something urgent and innate in Saer’s gut pushed a soft growl past his throat as he tried to convey, without words, the importance of her acquiescence.

She blinked, and Saer knew she’d heard, even if she didn’t meet his gaze.

Neyu bowed her head. “I do, Master.”

When Lucifer released him, Saer exhaled and fought to calm the pounding of his heart.

Don’t look at her.

He swallowed and shifted to a crouch as Lucifer walked away, attention fixed on Lucifer’s back.

Then they slid to Neyu. Neyu, who stared back, unabashed. Neyu, whose eyes threatened to drown him. She mouthed a single word without uttering a sound, “Yours.”

Fear and exhilaration warred inside him. She felt the same pull. She must.

Lucifer pivoted, and the First and Second averted their gazes immediately from one another. “You’ll construct me a throne, Neyuukhan,” Lucifer said. “It will rest upon the dais Saerkhanum builds.”

If they could work together, perhaps...

The fallen angel looked from one to the other of Its creations. “You’ll work apart.”

Saer’s hope wavered. Lucifer wouldn’t settle for anything less than perfect obedience to It and only It. Proving dominance by denying them what they wanted.

But Saer shoved the renegade notion aside and nodded instead. From the periphery of his vision, Neyu did the same, and together they whispered, “Yes, Master.”

* * *

Saer gathered materials for their collective duties, using the strength of his silver claws to dig tunnels from the central chamber. The molten rock he placed in a pile for Neyu to shape their maker’s royal seat. Neyu took Saer’s offerings, then channeled her Hellsfire energy into the stone, melting and molding, constantly replenished by the fiery surroundings of Hell.

If he focused on gathering the stones with haste, he was rewarded with more opportunities to see her, to share a glance as she carried out her orders. An undeniable line of electricity ran down his spine each time their eyes locked—one he could do nothing about, nor would he know where to begin. Frustration and longing brewed.

Lucifer’s quiet mutterings, the scrape and scratch of claws into stone, the steady cracking of fire, and the occasional growl of exertion were the only sounds echoing through the caverns of Hell. The fallen angel’s movements dragged as It poured over the next half-formed figures in line, losing Itself in the crafting of an army befitting Its station. The endeavor siphoned Lucifer’s luster over time. Their construction—his and Neyu’s—must have weakened his maker as well.

What must Lucifer have been before Saer had awakened?

How would Lucifer create more soldiers if It couldn’t draw strength from the heat of Hell as he and Neyu did?

But Saer had agreed to obey, to serve, and not to ask questions, even if they plagued him.

He didn’t chance speaking a word Neyu’s way, fearing for her safety.

Minutes, hours, or days passed as they all tended to their duties. Time in Hell had no meaning, but Neyu’s pointed glances grew, a question on her face each time Saer drew near.

At last, she parted her lips when Saer approached, and he gave a harsh shake of his head.

Whether she read his non-verbal message or not, she closed her mouth and frowned. Neyu glanced past Saer, then snapped an ebony hand forward and curled her fingers around Saer’s wrist. Gentle, but urgent, all at once. Time stopped, save for the pounding of Saer’s heart in his chest. The first touch of her flesh against his surged along his nerve endings, and he immediately craved more.

She stood half a head shorter than him, but dominated him in that instant.

He dared not move as Neyu drew closer, her hooves scraping over the steady crackling of their Hellsfire surroundings. Saer flinched and looked over his shoulder.

Lucifer’s tense spine bent over two further Daemoenica.

Neyu slid her hand along Saer’s arm, curling behind his elbow. The simple touch pulsed through him, and he shuddered as he returned his attention to her.

Her head angled up as she touched her nose to his muzzle, brushing his skin with a dulcet whisper, “You feel it, too.”

Whatever the it was, he couldn’t deny the pull to touch her, know her, hear her. What would it do to him if she spoke his name?

Saer drew breath to respond.

An enraged shriek cut between them a heartbeat before Pride and Lust were thrust apart with a violent wrench. Saer’s neck whipped to the side, vision whirling as he tumbled end over end, slamming into the cavern wall in a bruised heap. He scrambled to get his claws and hooves under his body as dread and rage spiked in his chest.

Neyu’s pained cry pierced through him.

Lucifer’s trembling arm pinned Neyu against a stone pile, Its hand squeezing her throat. The fallen angel’s alabaster wings flickered pitch black. Blazing, scarlet light flashed in Its eyes. “How dare you, after the centuries I spent? The vitality I gave to grant you life!”

Saer lurched towards them. “Master—!”

Hissing, Lucifer craned around to fix that crimson gaze on Its First. “You cannot be trusted.”

A strangled scream left Neyu, and steam rose from her pores.

No, no, no! She’d be unmade before he could pull his maker away. Panic yanked Saer to his knees, words fleeing his mouth before he could think through them. “Master, send me away, give me another task, let me help how I can, anything, but don’t take her away, please!”

Lucifer’s lips pulled back, sharp canines glinting, and Its eyes dipped from red to onyx.

Neyu’s form slumped, still caught in Lucifer’s grip. She struggled for air, but the steaming ceased. Saer’s claws curled in on themselves, biting into his palms.

“Say ‘please’ again, Saerkhanum.” The fallen angel’s voice seared with warning.

“Please.” Pride didn’t hesitate, even as the unfamiliar word grated in his throat.

Lucifer released Neyu, Its arm falling. Neyu crumpled, gasping, and some of Saer’s tension loosened at the same time he fought the impulse to rush to her.

Closing Its eyes, Lucifer took a slow, shaking breath, in, then out. Neither Daemoenic moved.

Lucifer swayed where It stood.

Then collapsed to the ground.