Valerie stood still, her mind spinning, but it was the sharpness of Lucifer’s presence that truly overwhelmed her. The air had grown thick, stifling, like the silence before a storm. It wasn’t just that he was a demon, or that he held a power far beyond her own—no, it was the realization that she had willingly walked into this hell. She had made this choice. The coldest of truths cut through her thoughts, and her body stiffened.
Lucifer had been with her every step of the way. His whispers, his promises of power, of revenge—it all had felt like a game. But the cost... The cost had always been just below the surface, lurking, waiting. The realization of it now hit her like an iron fist, shattering every sense of certainty she had.
“Thirteen years,” she repeated in a dazed whisper, still h
