After Celine blew the retreat after the story she had to tell about Alex, Ella and Lucifer had to take a moment to recover. The story had come in like a hammer blow to both of them. Ella lay pleasantly in Lucifer's arms, enjoying each other and the silence. Slowly she sat up straight from those protective arms. She looked straight into his eyes and said:
"We need to talk, Lu."
He sighed deeply and replied:
"I know, Ella dear. Everything has been moving at such a fast pace, and the extreme emotions since we blasted out Godfrey, that we didn't have time to do it. You are right, we need to talk."
Hesitantly she began:
"I know what is happening between us, but I don't quite get it."
He said:
"I think I have a good idea, and I don't like it at all, Decker!"
"What do you mean, Lu?"
"Remember that first time we met? At a crime scene where you said the Devil had a bad rap?"
She merely nodded.
"I felt something special between us, as if I was inexplicably drawn to you, until Decker literally came between us. Later you proved in Las Vegas equally immune to my mojo and simply turned down a night in my bed. Because of Decker and her influence, I never connected the dots. I think some of the power Decker had over me will have had an influence on you as well. That a kind of barrier was erected between us. The night of our so-called family therapy, Alex completely demolished that power of Decker. That's why he ordered me to stay away from Decker and emphatically ordered Azi and Crowley to keep you away from her."
Ella pondered and asked:
"Is it possible that breaking that power had a very strong side effect? That what we might have had in those four lost years is now being caught up in high speed?"
"I believe so, but I suspect Alex enlisted a little help to help us."
She already wanted to get up and get angry for fear of being played. He pulled her back onto the couch with a warm smile and said:
"No, not like that, sweet. No manipulating our free will; Alex would never do that. For him, true free will is the highest good; he would never manipulate that. I think Cam has something to do with it, and his only influence is to give true love a push. That's all—no manipulation, no coercion, no false feelings. Just giving true feelings that are already there a nudge in the right direction."
"You mean that what we feel for each other now is real and that Cam only helped a little to shed Decker's influence faster on top of breaking her power over us?"
He took a sip from his glass and merely nodded. Ella asked:
"And how should we proceed, Lu?"
"I don't know, dear. Wasn't it you who said my only concept of a normal human relationship is sex? Whatever this is, Ella, you are the expert, and you will have to teach me. That is, if you want me, of course."
"Even if I want a monogamous relationship? Just you and me?"
"For you, Ella, love absolutely everything without a second thought or regret!"
That answer from Lucifer was rewarded with a first passionate kiss from Ella. Something exploded in his brain, and suddenly Ella and her kisses were all that mattered to him. Everything and everyone else could be stolen from him. He would gladly burn down Lux if she asked.
She nestled back into his arms and allowed herself a few minutes before her next question:
"Who is Alexander? I know he is your son, a Nephilim, and now the new God. But who is he at his core?"
"You have already seen that in part, dear. His heart for his friends, innocents, and children is endless. His thirst for justice is immeasurable. His mercy is infinite. He could have stayed in Samantha's universe, sat there on the throne with her, and not given a damn about us and what awaited us. Instead, he left everything behind, the love of his life, to come to our aid and save us all and sacrificed six thousand years of his life for that, not counting all those miserable years in Hell. He carried all that loneliness and pain because his end goal was simple: to save us all from a tyrant who would have destroyed everything simply because he hates me. He did it without a second thought, according to Celine. But for heaven's sake, please do not make the mistake of getting on the wrong side of his ledger because he has absolutely no problem going Old Testament. Something the Demons in our Hell but also in the Hell of Samantha's universe learned very quickly. He seems to have been thirteen when he first publicly humiliated and wiped a Demon out of existence, and that without having been taught a single lesson. And as you just heard, he was also only thirteen when he sent those monsters who should have been his parents to Hell. Knowing him, that would not have been a pretty sight."
Lucifer refilled their glasses and continued speaking:
"In the beginning, when I had proclaimed that he was my Crown Prince and he wanted to begin his renovation of Hell we had problems with the Demons. Especially those from the lower circles. There was tremendous opposition. He was challenged left and right by the higher Demons to a duel. He enjoyed the first two or three, and then it began to irritate and bore him immensely. He announced that the twelve most powerful warriors in Hell could challenge him in a simultaneous fight, twelve against one in a crowded arena. The one who succeeded in killing him was allowed to keep his sword as a trophy. He stood in the center of the area and drew a circle in the sand with his sword. None of the twelve entered that circle while they had their heads on their shoulders. As an ultimate display of power, he manifested Heaven-fire and burned the corpses until nothing remained but ash. I was too dumbfounded to pay attention to the time, but in retrospect, at most two, maybe three, minutes may have passed. Celine had stayed behind in the palace, and when I asked her, rather pissed, why she had not gone with her Prince, her answer was frightening, even to me. She said that the fight in the arena was already over before anyone had even appeared in the arena. That she had seen him doing other things that made the spectacle in the arena look like child's play."
He took a big gulp and said:
"Yes, our new God is one who values love, peace, friendship, and mercy above all else. But make him angry and he becomes the ten Biblical plagues in one person."
"So was or is Hell so bad, so violent?"
"Yes, and that is my fault. I was so filled with hatred for everything about Heaven that I did nothing to make changes or improvements. I didn't give a damn whether the Demons got improvements or not. That idiotic behavior cost Alex much more trouble, much more time, and much more headache than was strictly necessary. Believe me, I have been the subject of his short fuse several times, and it was far from pleasant. Did his short fuse detonate? Then Hell literally shook to its foundations to the deepest level. With every Demon running as if their life depended on it!"
Ella looked him in the eye and asked:
"And you, have you never had to pay that price?"
His eyes lit up completely, and he got a very wide smile:
"In a way I did, one could say, a mandatory vacation of a few weeks on Earth so that, according to the timetable in Hell, he didn't have to see my face in Hell for a few years."
Lucifer laughed out loud and said:
"Every time Mazikeen wanted to play her role as my right-hand during one of our father-son quarrels, a bored-looking Celine would cough with a look as if Maze was an annoying fly she could swat at any moment, after which Maze would cringe and go sit back in her corner. During that time, Maze was scared of three people, and in the correct order, they were Celine, myself, and Alexander. And that tells all about Alex and his power!"
Ella pondered all this for a while; finally, she said:
"Lu, Take me to bed, not the guest room, but from now on our master bedroom, please..."
He looked at her softly:
"Gladly, my love."