"You had the audacity to come here?" she spat, slapping him across the face. "You loathsome thing!"
"Loathsome?" Lucifer tasted the word as if savoring it. "You call me that now, yet but last night you would not cease telling me how much you loved me. What hath changed?"
She struck him once more, her face a mask of disgust. "Those words were not mine, and never would you hear them from me." Her voice was iron.
"Not yours?" Lucifer drew back a little, studying her keenly.
"What are you looking at?" she asked, ill at ease beneath his fixed gaze. He did not answered, and she reached for his thoughts as he kept silent—and heard them as plain as a bell.
'How can she deny it? Do I have the wrong woman? No. Perhaps… I shall need to see her naked first to be sure', the thought purred across his mind. A sultry smile flashed upon his lips.
"You brute!" Sheba made to cast a witchlamp against his face, wanting it burn with anger that erupted within her as the slaps did no good job in keeping him quiet. But swift as shadow, he caught her hand mid‑spell, appearing behind her and pinning both her wrists beneath his iron clasp. Her sorcery melted away beneath the hold; without her hands she was crippled. He stood close, his warm breath ghosting her neck. Heat flooded her veins; her knees betrayed her.
"Let me go at once, Lucifer!" she struggled, striving to wrench free. The charm she had conjured flickered and died the moment he seized her. She racked her mind for an escape, but his nearness dulled thought; a bewildering yearning crept upon her.
"Do not fight it, Sheba. Your body knows where your heart truly lies." He brushed his tongue across the hollow of her throat.
For a breath she was emptied of thought, yet words spilled from her lips, "Do not speak my name again, I will not answer to you, never!"
There hung something in the way he said it that ensnared her; the sound of it made her shudder with a disgust she could not bear.
"Why?" He closed one hand about her jaw. "Would you rather I call you Khalan?"
"I am not Khalan! I do not love you and I never shall!" she declared, though a rushing, traitorous part of her longed for the very kiss she forbade. She hoped he would not taste that wish.
"Tsk, tsk." Lucifer licked her chin before he spoke. "it is a pity. The Enchantress Supreme excels in many arts; lying is not among them."
Sheba's breath stuttered.
"The longer you persist in this lie, the harder it will be to accept the truth," he murmured, returning to the mark he had left upon her neck the night before. "No haste," his voice soothed, and the flame within her flared hotter. "We have a lifetime before us. I will wait until you learn to live with this. You are my mate, Sheba, and there is nothing you can do to alter that." He kissed her neck once more and at last unclasped his hands.
She faced him and crowned him with a glare sharpened by hatred. "I shall never learn to live in thrall to you. Never."
"Never?" He cocked his head. "And what will you do about it?"
"I will kill you." The words were spat, all venom and scorn. "The demon‑mark and claim fades only with the demon's death. I will end your life, free myself, and seize your realm. I shall cast my hex over thy lands; the demons shall bend beneath my will. Your soul will rot in an endless abyss by my sorcery." Her green eyes blazed with rancor and resolve.
"Do you think that will suffice?" he asked, unnervingly calm.
She listened for his thoughts and heard—nothing. Either his mind was blank or he had sealed it from her; either way she would not be cowed. She would not be made afraid. She smiled, a thing of scorn.
"Oh, I do not think. I know." She laughed. "I know Lucifer, and I know you. Did you truly deem I could not find a way? I am the Enchantress Supreme, the most powerful sorcerer of all time—you want to bind and subdue me with a mating mark? Pathetic. Do better."
"So you believe I only seek to subdue you? Is it so hard to credit that I might love you?" His voice held a small, painful edge, but she was deaf to it through her own clouded certainty.
"Love me? The thought is laughable." She fixed him with those translucent eyes of hers. "You are a fine dissembler. By your tender acts made even the most wary witch think you sincere. Hear me: you fool no one but yourself. I see you, your heart delights in my torment. You love to watch me suffer; you do not love me, Lucifer. The feeling is returned." She leaned in, voice low and deadly. "Do us both a kindness and end this charade. Do not force me to kill you to be free. If you persist, I vow I shall give you the most gruesome, remorseless death imaginable."
His heart sank. He would have her hear his thoughts—hear how her words cleft him, how his spirit bled—yet he kept them sealed. Tears threatened his eyes. He had braced for difficulty in winning her; he had not thought this depth of agony a price he must pay. Still, patience was his to spare. He would bear what came, waiting for love to grow true in her.
"You were about to rest before I came," he said at last, speaking with a calm that strove to steady him. "I have disturbed you. I am sorry. I will take my leave." He moved as if to depart, then stopped, remembering something.
"Oh—do not punish them. I had them under my manipulation the moment I entered."
"Who?" Sheba asked, puzzled. He only smiled and vanished.
]
Alone, she stood, still bewildered by his last words. A gentle knock came upon the door.
"Enter," she breathed, striving for composure.
Three maids came in, heads bowed.
"Your Supremacy," they intoned.
"State your business."
"We bring gifts for your birthday." Their hands joined and they chanted a soft spell. Items multiplied in the chamber as if by magic: a caged monkey child chittering within its bars, a great chest brimming with spices, gold brooches sown with gemstones, exquisite jewelry inlaid with gems, a casket of fine scent‑oils, and another heavy with the finest dresses. Sheba stood wordless.
"In addition," one maid said, "thy carriage and chaperone wait without."
Tears slid down her face, though she could not explain why she wept. He remembered. Why had he affected her so? They were enemies; they hated each other, and yet something of his presence had made truth press against her chest. Perhaps, she thought, this was another of his schemes to sway her. Yet it felt maddeningly real—and that, more than any trick, terrified her.