Lucifer stood in the hallway outside of Adela’s door for a half hour after she closed it.
Seeing that she never came back out, he hoped it was because she was adjusting well to the circumstances.
When he was able to escape, however, he didn’t go to sleep.
First, he took a much-needed shower in his quarters on the thirteenth floor.
It felt good to get out of clothing he could still smell thick, angry alpha pheromones on.
Once he was refreshed, the Devil retraced his steps, going back down to the Devil’s Dungeon and accessing the portal that would take him to his worldly lands.
By that point, it was early dawn.
There were deer in his forest that scattered as soon as he stepped out of the darkness.
His footprints made marks in the dewy grass as he walked forward.
It didn’t take him long to succeed in what he had come there for.
It was fairly obvious where Adela’s knife was.
Sure enough, he could see where her fingers had clutched the blade tightly and cut herself just off the handle.
He spared the border between his lands and the werewolves one last glance.
Nothing was out of place, and he had plenty of animals and dark figures in this area to alert him if they were ever infiltrated.
There were plenty of other ways to get into Hell.
Someone accessing this entrance never usually had good intentions, which was why it went directly to his dungeon.
Lucifer decided he would give the knife back to Adela when she woke up.
However, before he could return to his own quarters, Shade seeped in from the black stone floor and bowed before him.
“Your Majesty,” the dark figure greeted.
“The woman is unsettled here.” Lucifer tensed up at that.
“How do you know that?” he asked.
“I can hear her heart racing,” Shade admitted.
“I can tell when she gets up from the bed and the noise of the lock clicking into place each time she checks it.” “Thank you, Shade,” Lucifer responded.
“I will take care of it.” His version of taking care of it was going to her guest room, but he didn’t knock.
Instead, Lucifer sat down on one of the benches lining the hallway.
He hoped his presence at least helped.
He would be able to get to her quickly if she ever called to him.
After an hour or so, Lucifer lay down on his back.
The bench wasn’t long enough for his entire body to be on top of so one of his feet rested on the floor.
In his hand at his side, he clutched the silver blade.
That was how Adela found him when she woke up a few hours later.
*** Eventually, the exhaustion did win over the worries that ate Adela alive.
She fell into such a deep sleep that there were no nightmares, not even dreams.
When she had finally come to, the blood moon had already risen and was high in the dark sky.
It cast a reddish glow into her room and over her bed.
At first, Adela had to remind herself of where she currently was.
The deep, dreamless sleep that her body had been craving for ages made her a bit disoriented.
Her blue eyes scanned the large room from the door to her bed and all the furniture inside.
She hadn’t taken much notice of it before, but it truly was a beautiful room.
Finely carved black furniture decorated the space.
Beyond that, all the soft decor caught her attention.
There were Persian rugs on the ground in a deep red wine color.
The layers of blankets were in the same wine color, dark purple, and sheets of charcoal.
Her eyes went to the fireplace made of black and grey stones, some with a reddish vein running through them.
There were a couple of couches facing the fireplace.
Adela’s eyes also went to the door that led to a bathroom.
It was one she didn’t have to share.
Entirely hers.
There were also sconces on the wall that held red candles that were eternally lit with tiny, golden flames.
A few random framed artworks were tastefully put on her walls so that they wouldn’t be bare.
Each one seemed to interpret some sort of rose field.
They kept to the general theme of blacks, reds, and purples.
Adela stood up and peered out one of the three windows on her wall.
The sight before her was even more beautiful than she remembered, but that was perhaps because she had been exhausted then and it was darker than it is now.
There were gardens far off that she wished she could see in better detail, but it was too far away considering they were eleven stories above ground.
Not far from her thoughts was Lucifer himself.
He was the entire reason she was here in the first place.
His generosity… Adela lifted a hand to her forehead as the prior night’s events sank in.
She had known this man for hours before agreeing to stay in his home.
Being so mistrustful, it was surprising she would throw caution to the wind and do such a thing, but there hadn’t been any red flags so far—just the fact that he was the Devil.
It wasn’t fair for her to stereotype.
Werewolf stereotypes were even worse and often true for a decent amount of the population, but she still shouldn’t judge.
Adela decided that, since she hadn’t been summoned or bothered, she should shower quickly and find what other clothing they had waiting for her.
She had only browsed the pajamas, she recalled as she looked down at the thigh-length grey nightgown she currently wore.
Since she wasn’t fussy, it didn’t take her long to get through a shower and find something to wear.
She opted for loose trousers and a cropped, baggy button-up.
Both were black.
“Hell isn’t as hot as you’d expect,” she muttered as she looked over herself in the full-length mirror set in the corner of the guest room.
Surprisingly, long sleeves were comfortable.
She did put on sandals that were easy to slide in and out of.
She wasn’t entirely sure what she would do that day, but kind of hoped it wouldn’t be much of anything.
There was no makeup, which she didn’t normally wear anyway, and her hair air-dried in loose waves.
It was her same, unfussy look as usual.
The alphas told her she had given up on her appearance by looking this way, but it didn’t stop her.
Once, she had been interested in makeup and fashion, but the thought of the alphas thinking she did it for them always bothered her.
As Adela stepped out of her room, deciding she should call to Lucifer to see if he was awake, she quickly found that he wasn’t.
Her eyes fell to the King of Hell sleeping on a bench in the hallway just beyond her door, and she was taken aback.
The red from the blood moon outside filtered in through some of the windows on the wall across from her door.
Beams shone over Lucifer, casting shadows on his face, and she couldn’t help staring for a few moments.
She would believe the term “handsome devil” had come straight from him.
With his expression softened compared to when he was awake and his hair falling away from his forehead, she thought he looked younger.
Something was angelic about him despite his black hair.
Adela couldn’t keep from stepping forth when something silver caught her attention as it glistened under red moonlight.
My knife, she realized.
She felt guilty for admiring him.
He was her savior and a King; she should stop thinking about how he looked.
“Lucifer,” she gently called.