1 One

It had become increasingly hard to not stare at the shifting form before me. Mutated man-beast form this second, cuddly panda bear the next, mortal woman after -

"Good God, is that Raphael?" I stared at the celestial winged being before me, unable to help myself from approaching the familiar figure. Of course there was no flaw I could identify him by but I always swore I could recognize my best friend anywhere. "Raf?" I reached out my hand to him, prompting a very un-Raphael like chuckle from the being before it morphed into another earthly beast, a tiger. I sat back with a sigh.

He stopped, maintaining that form.

"Are you disinterested?"

"By you? Always," I replied sourly. Lucifer the tiger growled, lips pulling back to give me a peek of his teeth. Not that it scared me. Part of the deal was that he couldn't hurt me, stamped and sealed with his own blood and the essence of the heavens. Even the ruler of hell couldn't go against that agreement. Three days before the wedding, one month of living with him and I was hating him even more than before I met him.

"Does your god not say that you should submit to your husband?" he asked, tiger mouth unmoving, his voice seemingly to emanate from all around.

"My god is not here and you are not my husband," I retorted. I hated how everyone around me was already referring to him as 'your husband'. I hated being down here. I hated him.

"True." Tigers were unable to smile but it was unmistakable in his voice. "But I will be soon. You will not escape that."

There were a million insults I had locked and loaded, having learnt them from the mortal realm. Satan should know quite a few of them since he was an advocate. Yet, insulting him would not get me out of this. I'd only be giving him more ammunition to mock me with. There was nothing I could do except grit my teeth and bear with it for eternity.

"You were the one who asked to see me shift." Satan had shifted back to his human form, the one everyone was used to seeing. "Why would you ask me if you aren't interested?"

"In case you hadn't noticed, there's nothing to do here."

"So you are interested."

How very devil of him, assuming that everything was ambiguous. I rolled my eyes, huffing and looking away. At least his room was somewhat comfortable. Huge bed that I could melt into, divans dotting the edges, thick rugs on the hearth in front of the fireplace, windows that showed the eternal night sky and its stars. It took him much patience and much killing for me to finally agree to sleep in his room and not by the river. Had I not been a being of the Celestial Realm, I would've let him go on his killing rampage, slaughtering hundreds of humans to feed his anger. The rules stated that he couldn't hurt me. Anyone other than me was an exception. Thus, the humans.

Even then I was reluctant to go with him. My father had to intervene.

"Would you like to see how I was before I fell?"

My back straightened, ears pricking with interest. There were only ever stories of him in the Realm. Of his beauty and the loss of heaven's brightest star. I used to beg Raphael to tell me more about him since Michael, my father, would not. And I was in awe of him, until I was old enough to understand that the reason for his fall was incredibly stupid. Also, none of the earth paintings of him didn't do any justice and there was no photographic evidence in heaven either. I may be against this wedding but a small part of me got excited at getting to see Satan in all his former glory.

The shift of my eyes from the window to him was all the encouragement he needed. I watched silently as thin bones pushed out from his back, growing and spreading until there was a skeleton of what resembled wings behind him. His facial structure remained the same but his visage took on a different form: the eyes bigger, brighter, lips fuller, softer. A tail whipped back from behind him. Quickly as it began, it was over. Satan - Lucifer - had six fully feathered wings that gleamed even in the warm lighting of his room. His face had a shimmering quality that robbed me of my breath. Tilt my head a little, he had four eyes and marks on his face, topaz, rubies, jade and onyx decorating him, infused into his skin. Tilt it in the opposite direction, he had a lion's face, an ox's, a tiger's. I blinked and his body took the form of a dragon before reverting back after another blink. The air around him rippled, moving with him, clinging to him. He was like a capricious reflection, taking on different forms as he moved.

My heart lurched at the sight of him, mind finding it hard to believe that such beauty existed outside of heaven. Yet even the Celestial Realm's most breathtaking couldn't hold a candle up to this magnificent being before me. I couldn't bring myself to look away for a second, unable to fully comprehend his beauty. Tears sprung to my eyes. An underlying current of something artificial and manipulative kept pricking at me, telling my conscious that this was an illusion. I refused to believe it.

He's yours, a voice whispered.

"My love?" Lucifer's voice sounded new to my ears; undeniable. I stood up, limbs controlled by a puppeteer, moving towards him. Where he repulsed me before, now he drew me in with his magnetic presence.

"You are stunning," I said. He was everything I'd ever pictured when I was young, and so much more. I was well-aware of the temptation he was, aware that I was praising Sin himself but I didn't want to stop just yet.

Was this what humans faced on a daily basis? The attractive, sensual tug of temptation. The thought that, I'll just have a taste, just this once and it'll be over after this.

"You are not bored then?" he asked, smiling dazzlingly.

I shook my head, feet still moving towards him.

Lucifer opened his arms to welcome me into his embrace.