Pregnant by the Prince of Lust(BL)

Luceriel

Blood dripped steadily down Luceriel’s palm where he held Tobias’s celestial blade pinned against the floor of his own pavilion. He should have already been healing. He always healed quickly, faster than most, a small mercy that came with being what he was.

But the wound refused to close, the skin around it raw and burning, because the blade carrying it was forged of pure divine light, and divine light did not answer to a sin’s power to mend.

"Tobias! That’s enough," Uriel called softly.

Tobias’s eyes lightened, and he lowered the blade at once. "You were not my target, Luceriel, and I—"

He never finished.

Pazuzu slammed him against the far wall before the sentence could leave his mouth, one hand wrapped tight around his throat, nails digging deep enough into his skin to draw blood.

"How dare you touch what is mine!"

The words echoed through the pavilion, low and resonant, and there was nothing playful left in his voice at all, nothing teasing.

It was the voice of something powerful and furious, dark enough that even the air in the room seemed to still around it.

Uriel moved to intervene, raising both hands, and thin golden symbols bloomed briefly in the air before unfurling into large, drifting rose petals, but Pazuzu threw him backward before he could finish the summoning.

He struck the floor hard, skidding to a stop right at Seraphel’s feet.

"Are you all right, Uriel?" Seraphel asked, crouching beside him.

Uriel nodded and forced himself upright, breathing hard. "He is killing him, Luceriel! And what in the abyss does he mean by mine? Are you truly going to stand there and watch him kill my mate?" His voice cracked on the last word, raw with a fear Luceriel had never once heard from him before, and gold symbols began gathering around his fingertips again, blooming rapidly into a wall of rose petals sharpened into blades, ready to strike.

Luceriel stood frozen, dumbfounded, the sheer weight of Pazuzu’s aura pressing down on him from across the room.

It was dark. Evil, in a way he had never once let himself acknowledge before, not truly, not until this exact moment. His head lowered under the force of it, and for the first time in centuries, Luceriel felt something close to real fear.

"It seems our brother has finally lost his mind," Azriel shouted, striding forward, thick red vines already coiling from his palm and lashing toward Pazuzu, "because why else would he stand there and turn a blind eye to this?"

Seraphel caught his arm before the vines could fully extend, pushing his hands down. "Now is not the time for this, Seraphel," Azriel said, glancing at him. "We can bring him down together. Uriel and I, we can take him."

Seraphel shook his head and stepped forward instead, raising his voice over the chaos. "Pazuzu is Luceriel’s fated mate."

Every eye in the pavilion turned toward him at once, Pazuzu’s included.

And finally, finally, Luceriel lifted his head.

He stretched a hand forward, and Pazuzu was wrenched backward as though pulled by an invisible tether, releasing Tobias’s throat and appearing at Luceriel’s side in the same breath. Tobias collapsed to the floor, coughing violently, and Uriel rushed to his side at once.

"That bastard is your fated mate?" Azriel demanded.

"Language, Cousin." Pazuzu’s violet eyes flashed as he turned toward him. "I am anything but a bastard. I am the Prince of the Demon Realm, and my parents were fated mates themselves, and I—" He groaned mid-sentence, swaying, and slumped heavily against Luceriel’s shoulder.

"You... you found my weakness," he muttered, before his eyes fell shut entirely, and Luceriel had no choice but to lower him gently to the ground under the sudden weight of him.

Luceriel had taken his time observing him over these past months, watching from a careful distance during Seraphel’s training.

He had known, the way he knew most things, that someone as powerful as Pazuzu would carry a weakness somewhere.

And during the brief scuffle with Tobias, when Pazuzu had turned his back for just an instant, Luceriel had caught it: a flash along the back of his neck, hidden beneath the collar of his robe.

Horns, faint and half-formed, barely more than shadow beneath the skin.

Every demon’s greatest weakness lay there, at the base of the horns, and Pazuzu had gone to great lengths to keep his hidden.

Luceriel had struck the spot without hesitation the moment the opportunity presented itself, rendering him unconscious in an instant.

It would not last long. He knew that much. But it would last long enough.

"Is he dead?" Tobias asked through gritted teeth, then let out a groan of his own, pulling himself upright with Uriel’s help, leaning heavily against his shoulder. "No, apparently not." He shook his head slowly. "I do not know how you managed to end up with a demon for a fated mate, Luceriel, but I cannot say I am entirely surprised. The sins do tend to attract the wildest of mates." His eyes drifted, finding Seraphel across the room. "Hello again—"

His words cut off entirely as Azriel appeared behind him in a blur and snapped his neck in one swift, brutal motion.

Tobias’s body dropped, its full weight collapsing onto Uriel, who let out a scream and staggered under it. "What in the world do you think you are doing, Azriel?"

"That pathetic god of Elysium dared to attack my kingdom and tried to kill my mate."

"Tobias would never do that! He came there for me!"

"I do not care why he came," Azriel said coldly. "He is still of Elysium, and he and Zephyrus were both responsible for the deaths of my people, years ago. You would know that, if you had not vanished for months to whatever corner of the realms the goddess only knows." He softened his voice, though the venom in it remained. "Tobias should be grateful I did not tear his heart out for what he has done. He will wake soon enough. And if he continues to test my patience, I may simply try again."

"Azriel," Uriel said through gritted teeth, cradling Tobias against him. "You have no right to speak to me of disappearing, not after what nearly happened to your own mate tonight, and not while I have been missing for months.’’

"When did you find out about Paziel?" Luceriel’s voice cut through both of them before the argument could rise any further, his green eyes settling on Seraphel, who stared back at him steadily.

"When you shielded him from that light earlier," Seraphel said. "And besides, the two of you have zero chemistry to hide. It’s obvious."

"There is no chemistry to speak of," Luceriel said, his tone dropping into something dry and thoroughly condescending, as though the very idea embarrassed him on principle. "I would suggest you stop living inside whatever fairytale notions humans entertain themselves with. Such sentiments do not exist, not truly, not for beings such as us." He turned his gaze toward Uriel and Azriel next. "Since the two of you are here regardless, there is little use hiding it any further. Yes. Pazuzu is my fated mate."

Azriel let out a low groan and dragged a hand down his face. "I already know a fair amount of what happened to me two months ago. Pazuzu paid me a visit as well, and lifted Mirevale’s curse from me himself and yet you knew brother, you didn’t tell me!’’

"The curse was lifted?" Uriel cut in, brow furrowing, but no one answered him.

"He could have killed Seraphel that night," Azriel continued, undeterred.

"He would never have done that," Luceriel said flatly.

Azriel let out a humorless laugh. "Now you trust a demon capable of wiping us out entirely, should he choose to. I smelled something evil coming off him the moment I entered this room, Luceriel. If we are not careful, that evil will be the death of every one of us."

"No," Luceriel said, shaking his head. "Pazuzu has reason for being here beyond hunting Seraphel down. It concerns the Demon King."

"I came here because he had already been to Katula," Uriel added slowly, working it through as he spoke. "You were not there to meet him, Azriel, only to see this instead." His gaze shifted to Luceriel. "And would you truly accept him? As your mate?"

Luceriel let out a long, weary sigh. "Pazuzu has already come to terms with the fact that he intends to marry me."

"Marrying you?" Azriel and Uriel said it together, nearly in the same breath.

Luceriel lifted his chin, and though the circumstances were dire, he still maintained his stoic look. "Yes. Marrying me. I imagine the concept is somewhat difficult to grasp, given how thoroughly out of either of your leagues he happens to be."

Azriel let out a startled laugh despite himself. "I confess, I had genuinely begun to consider that possibility the moment I saw the two of you together."

"You have clearly lost what remains of your mind," Uriel muttered.

"Enough, both of you," Luceriel said sharply, cutting through them before the conversation could spiral further. "Pazuzu showed me a vision. Of what is to come, should this go unaddressed. I watched every one of you die in it. I watched the Demon King, Draca, rise and claim this world for himself, and there was nothing left standing by the end of it."

Uriel went very still. "I have seen that same vision," he said quietly. "In my dreams, for weeks now. That is precisely why I came, Luceriel. That is why Tobias and I sought you out at all."

A heavy silence settled over the pavilion, all four of them turning, almost in unison, toward Seraphel.

"He is coming for the human," Uriel and Luceriel said at the very same moment, their voices overlapping in the quiet. "The child of prophecy."