Chapter 67: The Divine Consequences of Copulation

Morning light hasn’t quite broken fully through the canopy yet, the clearing still soft with a pre-dawn grey haze, dew collecting in silver beads along every blade of grass that managed to survive the clearing’s demolition.

Lucien stands in the middle of it, humming contentedly to himself, whistling some half-remembered merry tune from a life that no longer technically exists anywhere but his own head, one arm lifted overhead, offering up each new patch of skin like he’s a puppy getting a tongue bath.

Because that was exactly what was happening.

The Beast Mother, back now in her full wolf form, works her tongue slowly up one side of him and down the other, easily the size of a small house even at rest, tail lolling pleasantly from side to side with every sloppy pass.

"This," Lucien announces grandly to the treetops, "may honestly be the only acceptable way to do a post-coital shower from now on." He turns obligingly, presenting his other shoulder with theatrical, exaggerated patience. "I’m going to need to have a serious conversation with Vex and Vile once I’m back. This is objectively superior."

The Beast Mother stops mid-lick without warning, head snapping up sharply, ears swiveling hard toward something in the far distance.

Her gaze narrows to a sharp point.

"What’s wrong?" Lucien asks, straightening.

She answers him, and what comes out isn’t words at all so much as a full sonic boom, a wall of raw sound that flattens the grass flat around them both instantly and sends him staggering backward, both hands clamped hard over his ears, bracing himself against a nearby tree for balance.

"Keep forgetting you talk in explosions when you’re in wolf-mode." Lucien yells out, hands still over his head.

She blinks, magic swirling around her as she collapses back down smoothly into her humanoid form and bursting into laughter. "Sorry about that. Keep forgetting how fragile you mortals actually are."

He shakes his head hard to clear it, ears still ringing faintly from the blast, and steps up without hesitation to slap her firmly on the backside.

"You’ve got some squishy parts of your own too, for the record."

She growls low in her throat, something dangerous and genuinely pleased threaded through the sound, and leans in to lick a slow line straight up the side of his face.

He shudders visibly at the sensation.

She licks her own lips afterward, considering the taste. "Didn’t know mortals could taste quite this good either, honestly. Learned something new."

"I live to serve." he says, entirely too pleased with himself.

She chuckles, low and warm. "Hope you survive long enough to serve me again properly, then. Because there’s an angel currently trying to force her way into my domain as we speak." she looks at him, eyes narrowing with fresh suspicion. "I have a feeling it might have something to do with you."

He waves a hand at that, entirely unbothered by the implication. "Probably just Serenith. Tired of waiting on me, most likely."

Her brow arches sharply. "What exactly did you do, then, to earn an angel hunting you down in person like this?"

"Long story short... I’m originally from another world entirely. Got kicked out of it for breaking the celestial balance over there. Got resurrected here afterward as this world’s Demon Lord instead, tasked with fixing the balance on this side of things. Serenith’s my divine parole officer, more or less, supposed to keep me in line."

She stares at him for a long moment, thoroughly incredulous, and he just shrugs in response, entirely comfortable with exactly how insane that whole explanation sounds said out loud.

"That," she says slowly, "is genuinely the single most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard a mortal claim to my face." she studies the uncomplicated earnesty on his face. "But you’re you, though. So I actually believe every word of it." She rises smoothly to her feet, dusting bits of grass and dried blood off herself with a few efficient motions. "We should get moving, then. Not wise to keep the divine waiting around too long, in my experience."

"Two more minutes." Lucien says, holding up a single finger. "Need to finish my shower properly and make myself presentable first." He points to a spot low on his hip. "You missed a spot, actually."

She bellows a fresh laugh, magic erupting around her once more as she snaps back into full wolf form and delivers one long, thoroughly pleased lick straight up his entire body in a single pass.

He grins afterward, thoroughly, unreasonably, devilishly pleased with exactly how the whole night turned out for him.

"One more favor, while we’re at it," he says, once she’s settled back down and is watching him with her head tilted, curious about the request.

He chuckles to himself. "You know, for a ten-ton murder machine, you’re really quite adorable when you do that particular head-tilt thing."

Her mouth opens to laugh in response, and he yelps immediately, both hands flying up over his ears in hurried preparation. The resulting sonic boom hits him square in the chest anyway, rattling every single bone in his newly restored body from the impact.

"Flirting with you might just actually kill me." He mutters, shaking it off afterward.

A while later, a wide portal tears open at the exact center of the clearing, right where the bonfire had originally stood, edges crackling faintly with the scent of old blood and far older, half-forgotten magic.

Lucien steps out through it in full, glowing dramatic fashion, seated regally atop the Beast Mother’s back like some conquering hero finally returning home from a legendary hunt. His new muscles catching the early morning light beautifully, practically radiating pride from every visible pore.

He’s rehearsed this exact moment in his head twice already on the ride over, carefully adjusting the angle of his chin, the precise degree of casual disinterest he plans to show right up until the crowd inevitably loses their collective minds at the sight of him.

He shields his eyes against the rising sun, bracing himself properly for gasps, for cries of genuine amazement, for an appropriately reverent audience worthy of what he’s fairly certain is the single most cinematic entrance of either of his lives.

The clearing is completely, utterly, stark empty.

Not a single soul in sight anywhere, in any direction.

He deflates on the spot entirely, pouting hard, shoulders slumping. "That is so unfair. Best entrance I’ve ever managed in my life, and nobody around whatsoever to properly appreciate it."

The Beast Mother snickers beneath him and goes quiet almost instantly as a blinding streak of light comes tearing across the morning sky straight toward them both at an eye-watering speed.

They squint hard against it in unison.

"Is that your angel?" she asks.

"Yep."

"She looks... upset."

He laughs, a touch too nervously. "Yeah. Probably in for another scolding."

"She looks..." the Beast Mother says, studying the incoming light with growing concern now, "more like an approaching apocalypse."

Lucien gulps hard.

He raises both hands in the air, calling out toward the approaching light, "I’m sorry for keeping you waiting, Serenith, but this feels a little extreme—"

The sentence dies mid-word as a headbutt catches him square in the sternum, launching him clean off the Beast Mother’s back entirely and driving him hard into a fresh trench in the clearing floor at a speed that leaves an actual sonic crack trailing behind him through the air, ribs crushing on impact as blood bursts from his mouth.

Dirt and torn roots rain down around the fresh crater a full second after he’s already stopped moving inside it, settling slowly over the wreckage.

Serenith hovers above them, chest heaving hard, wings a blur of raw, restless energy, faint lightning crackling visibly off the edges of her halo with every breath.

The Beast Mother gulps at the sight, ears flattening back hard against her skull on instinct.

"Good morning. It’s... uh, always a genuine pleasure meeting one of the divine." she mutters, as unthreatening as she can, though her voice still booms across the clearing, flattening small trees and bushes.

Serenith turns on her, teeth grinding audibly, eyes bloodshot, cheeks and clothes streaked through with dried tears that have clearly been falling for a while, judging by the state of them.

"I’ll deal with you later!" she snarls, and the words don’t come out as a single voice at all but several, layered directly on top of each other like things far larger than her are speaking straight through her throat.

Reality itself seems to ripple visibly outward from her with every single syllable, the air warping around the edges of her fury, grass flattening in a widening ring beneath her hovering form as she speaks.

The Beast Mother, still fully wolf, still several tons of apex predator that spent the entire night hunting a demon lord purely for sport, yelps like something considerably smaller and more helpless than she actually is, ears pinned flat, tail tucking hard between her legs.

"I-I should go." the Beast Mother whimpers.

A portal snaps open behind her instantly, and she backs into it fast, whimpering out a small, hurried apology before it seals shut behind her entirely, leaving nothing behind but a faint shimmer where it used to be a moment ago.

Serenith vanishes in a flash of light and reappears directly above the trench a heartbeat later, hovering low over Lucien’s caved-in chest, his breathing reduced to wet, ragged gasps, blood splattered thick across his face.

She sneers down at him, floats lower still, and lifts him clean off the ground by the head with one hand.

He groans, agony flashing openly across every feature of his face as she snarls at him, fury radiating off her in visible, shimmering waves of heat, scorching the air close enough to his skin that it actually stings against him.

And then, all at once, her composure shatters completely.

She bursts into tears, sobbing openly.

"I was so worried!" she cries, the words coming out of her cracking and broken.

Holy magic floods through him in the very same breath, mending shattered ribs and torn muscle back together in an instant.

His eyes snap open at the sudden relief, fixing immediately on her face.

Streaked through with his own blood, streaked through with her own tears, both of them tangled together in the exact same ruined expression, holy light and raw grief burning behind her eyes in equal, terrifying measure all at once.

Somewhere behind that fury, buried deep under all of it, he can just barely make out something that looks, unmistakably, a great deal, like relief.