Lucifer Reborn by Dante King (the reader ebook .TXT) 📗

“No one’s going to give Christina any shit,” I growled, angrier than I’d intended. “If they do, they can deal with me.”

Lilith sat back in her chair, her brows shooting to her hairline. Belatedly, I realized I’d just indirectly threatened the Headmistress of my new school. Great.

“It’s good, though,” I said, holding up my cup like an olive branch. “Try it, Christina. I bet you won’t even need to add anything to it.”

She took a dainty little sip. “Oh geez! Wow, I think I just singed my lip!”

“You’ll get used to it,” Lilith said wryly. “Give it a thousand years or so, you’ll be drinking it by the bucketload.”

A simple enough phrase, but the implications left me reeling. “What do you mean, a thousand years?” I asked, glancing at Christina for confirmation. As a transformed demon, I supposed I should have expected Christina to have an extended lifespan, but me as well? “I’m not really going to live that long, am I?”

“If no one kills you first,” Lilith said mildly, sipping at her coffee. “I’m surprised this hasn’t occurred to you already, Luke. Why would Lucifer go through all this trouble to install a potential successor, only to have them keel over and die a few decades later?”

My mind swam with the possibilities. “So if I make it to the top and become Archlord,” I said, trying to come to grips with it, “then I’ll live for thousands of years?”

Lilith set her mug to the side. “Young man, you’ll live for thousands of years now,” she said, giving Christina a surprised look. She clearly expected someone to have broken this down for me before this meeting. “You’ll also remain a young man for quite a few centuries, with all the...ahem, stamina that implies. The next few decades should be very exciting for you, surely. As I said, if no one kills you first, that is.”

Thousands of years. I’d never really thought about the end—I was way too young to be worried about things that probably wouldn’t happen until I was old and gray. Yet hearing it straight from Lilith’s mouth: that the power Lucifer had given me would keep me young and handsome for centuries, alive for an entire millenia or more...wow.

My jokes are going to get out of style quick, I thought, focusing on the wrong thing entirely. I’ll have to keep up on my pop culture. Shit, if I end up Archlord, maybe I’ll end up MAKING pop culture...

The retainers withdrew as quickly as they’d come, leaving the pot of coffee sitting on Lilith’s desk. I took it and refilled the top half of my mug, using the movement to check Lilith out a little bit more.

“You’ve been Headmistress for a thousand years?” I asked, taking another sip of coffee. Topping it off made it even hotter, and I had to suppress a wince. “That’s some tenure.”

Christina kicked me beneath the table. Lilith saw it and laughed.

“No, it’s alright,” she said, chuckling. “Normally it’s considered extremely impolite to ask a demoness about her age, but you were an ordinary human until very recently. Besides, we’re alone now—we can let our hair down somewhat.” She tucked her fingers together, running her nails between each digit in a sensual motion. “I’ve been Headmistress of the Infernal Academy for just over a thousand years, actually. I hope you don’t mind being in the presence of an older woman, young man…”

 Is she flirting with me? I wondered. Fooling around with one of Lucifer’s girls was playing with fire—literally—but as she said, we were alone. Besides, I could trust Christina to keep her lips zipped.

“Actually, I prefer that,” I said, leaning back in my chair and taking another swallow of coffee. “Enthusiasm is great, of course, but experience beats it nine times out of ten.”

Lilith’s face lit up like a Christmas tree. “Really? My badness, what a forward young man you are!”

I couldn’t keep the smirk off my face. “Honestly, I’m surprised a gorgeous demon like yourself condescends to show the ropes to new students. You’d think you’d be better served out on the field, making angels kneel to you or something like that.”

A high, keening whine left Christina’s throat. I realized what I’d stepped in when Lilith’s good humor evaporated, an angry expression hardening her coldly beautiful face.

“I should be,” the Headmistress muttered, speaking as if to herself. “If only things were different, I’d be where I belong and not sitting here listening to half-formed demonic brats disrespect me…”

Shit. Christina’s leg kept right on kicking me, though this time Lilith failed to remark on it. Even more so than bringing up Mareth’s mom, I could tell I’d just reached out and pissed all over Lilith’s third rail. I probably couldn’t have made her angrier if I’d tried to.

Yet at the same time, I was learning something interesting. Lilith felt trapped here, surely, and that undoubtedly had something to do with the fact that she hadn’t spoken to Lucifer in years. Decades, if Mareth was truly to be believed—I’d have to ask her later. Assuming I left the tent alive, that is.

Lilith mastered herself with a great effort, putting both elbows on the desk. “Perhaps,” the demoness said with a snarl, “once there’s a new Archlord on the throne of Hell, my true talents will be recognized.”

“Absolutely,” Christina said, holding up her hands. The blonde looked desperate to smooth this over with Lilith sooner, rather than later. I could understand that—I’d just insulted someone she considered a celebrity. “Luke has one hell of an eye for talent, in fact. He’s building a team, and we’re going to knock those other candidates for Archlord out of contention.”

“I didn’t even realize there were other candidates,” I said, flashing Lilith