Not what I was expecting.
“Were you hoping for a rotting corpse?” he asked, clearly listening in to my thoughts. “Sorry to disappoint. I only eat corpses on Wednesdays.”
“Ha-ha.”
“Oh, she laughs!” he said. “You’d almost had me convinced you were incapable of it.”
“Me incapable … ?” I asked incredulously. “You’re the one who doesn’t feel the full spectrum of emotions.”
“Careful,” he warned me, all playfulness gone from his voice.
The devil picked up a gold chalice, twirling it while he watched me. “Eat,” he commanded.
I lifted the fork and knife and stared at the French toast. Did I dare?
“Eat.”
Again, I found myself out of options. I cut into the toast, dipped it into the cup of syrup left next to it, and brought it to my mouth.
This better not screw me over.
I ate it, surprised to find it tasted just as good as the French toast I’d had on earth.
“Well?” he said, lifting an eyebrow.
“Well what?” I asked, my voice snarkier than it should be when talking to the king of the damned.
“You can be so tedious,” he muttered. “How is it?”
I took another bite by way of answer. After I swallowed, I added, “It’s good.”
The devil leaned back in his seat and sipped his drink, smiling over the rim of it. “This pleases me.”
I’ll bet it did.
Thinking about my own damnation made me think about my father’s agony. Poking at my food, I couldn’t dispel a thought that’d taken hold ever since I’d seen him.
“What is it?”
I glanced up at him sharply.
He studied me. “Go ahead, get whatever it is off your chest.”
I took a deep breath. He was just going to lie to me.
He covered the hand that held my fork. Let us set aside deception for the moment, wife.
My throat worked. I set down my utensils. “Is my biological mother—Celeste—down here?”
The devil held my gaze. His hand tightened over mine. “No, she isn’t.”
“You swear?” I whispered, blinking back moisture from my eyes.
“I swear on my immortal life, she is not.”
My breath left me in a shudder. I gave him a tight smile and nodded. It was as good an answer as I was going to get from him, and oddly, I believed him. Something in me loosened at the realization that Celeste’s soul was free of hell’s torment.
We ate in silence. Every so often Pluto’s leg would brush against mine, and I’d tense as our bond flared up. Pretty soon those touches and the tug of our bond were all I could concentrate on, and they were driving me insane.
I needed to distract myself.
I forked another bite of French toast, studying it as I spoke. “When were you first aware of my existence?” I asked.
He put down his knife and fork. “You wish to know more about me? About us?”
I nodded. The truth was, at the moment, I could hardly think of anything outside the two of us.
He leaned back in his chair, scrutinizing me. “I first learned of your existence thousands upon thousands of years ago.”
When he saw my shocked expression, his lips turned up.
“You thought that because you weren’t born, you hadn’t existed?” He touched my nose endearingly. “You still have a thing or two to learn about gods.”
“And the first time you saw me?”
“Before or after you were born?”
“‘Before’?” I asked. “Before what?”
He opened his mouth to reply, some strange mixture of emotions dancing in his eyes.
I shook my head. “After. Tell me about after.”
He kicked his heels up on the table, crossing them at the ankle. “I was there the moment you were born.”
“You were?” What was that odd emotion I felt? Unease? Disbelief? Something far kinder?
“I have never left your side. Not really.”
There was something oddly touching and vastly disturbing about that.
“Out of all the things I have done, that disturbs you?” he said. He swung his legs off the table and leaned forward. “You were my fated mate; do you really think I wouldn’t keep an eye on you? I am not where I am today by luck alone. There’s a reason only one fallen angel rules hell when many reside here.”
I discreetly swallowed. “Are you an angel?”
“You’ve seen my scars. What do you think?”
“The fates refer to you as Pluto.”
“They do,” he agreed.
“So, which is it?”
His pinched his lower lip, scrutinizing me. “Are you familiar with ancient Egyptian mythology?”
“Not really,” I said. And by not really, I meant not at all.
“The ancient Egyptians knew something that your modern culture doesn’t.”
“And what’s that?” I hated to admit that I was actually intrigued.
“Contradictory myths can coexist. The Egyptians had multiple beings and multiple myths for the same deity, and they had many neighbors who believed in still more deities with more myths to accompany them. They believed these were all aspects of the same gods. I am Pluto, and Hades, and the devil, and Osiris, and many, many other gods.