I didn't know it was possible to feel like this. I kiss her and feel my new flesh-and-blood heart expanding right out of my chest, filling me with indescribable bliss.
We can be together-really together.
Her hands start on the button of my jeans, and I wish for the ability to just magic our clothes away.
But that was my old life. No… not a life at all. Just an existence. I wrap my arms around Frannie and pull her closer. This is living.
I pull back and look at her, sure I've never seen anything so beautiful. She closes her eyes as I trace a finger along her eyebrow and down her nose, but just as my finger reaches her lips, her eyes snap open and her features twist in pain. "NO!" she gasps, bolting upright. I feel her terror just as if it was my own.
Her face is ashen as she rolls and vomits into the trash can next to the bed. She sits and hugs her knees to her chest. "Me…" Her whisper is barely audible.
I pull myself up and sit next to her. "What is it? What did you see?"
"He's coming," she says, her voice strangled. Then she's off the bed like a shot, pulling on her shirt.
"Who?" I say, struggling to keep up. I slide my feet onto the floor and button my jeans. "Who's coming, Frannie?"
The room starts swirling, and then Gabriel is there, all human pretense gone. He hovers just off the floor in his flowing white robes, and I see Frannie's terror mirrored in his eyes.
Matt appears next to him. "He's coming."
And then, like a wrecking ball, some unseen force hits Frannie, lifting her off the ground and throwing her hard into the wall. Matt dives for her, but he's too late. She slides into a heap on the floor.
"Frannie!" My legs have me across the room and over her crumpled form in a flash, and when I pull her into my arms, I see the steam start to rise off her skin. She's a thousand degrees. "Frannie!" I say again, shaking her. Then she opens her eyes and I understand.
They're glowing red.
"Lucifer," she says in a voice that's hers but not, "who's got the prize now?"
"No!" I hear my voice as if from a great distance as rage nearly rips me in half.
"Beherit!" Gabriel's voice vibrates through me. "You can't do this. You have no claim."
"Oh, but I can… am, actually." Frannie's lips pull into a sinister grin. "I've got special orders from the king Himself. Anything goes."
I hold Frannie and, as I look into those glowing eyes, I know the game is over. If King Lucifer wants her so much he's willing to throw all the rules to the wind, I'm not sure even the Almighty could save her.
I can't give up.
I look at the crucifix dangling from the chain around her neck. Gold. I yank it from her neck and raise it above her.
But Matt grabs my wrist. He glares at me and rips the crucifix out of my grasp. And he's right. I can use it to drive Beherit out, but at what cost?
She starts to pull free of me, and I let her. But then, by instinct, I reach for her hand, holding it in a death grip. Frannie is still in there, and a desperate piece of me needs to stay connected. She pulls herself to her feet, seeming taller, and turns to look me in the eye.
"How quaint, Lucifer. But you two are well past the hand-holding stage, don't you think?" She grabs my face and pulls me into a hard kiss. But it's not Frannie, it's Beherit, and I feel tendrils of his essence start to work their way through my lips.
As I pull back, she gasps loudly and her face screws tight as a strangled "no" works its way up from her depths. Gabriel sweeps her out of my arms and into his. He cradles her in one arm and draws a circle on her forehead with the index finger of the other as he whispers something I can't make out.
Her eyes snap open, still glowing red, and her face pulls into a grimace. "Good luck with that, Gabriel."
As asinine as it is, I find myself jealous that Gabriel can actually do something other than just stand here staring, and I have to fight the urge to rip her out of his arms.
"A fighter, this one," she says in a strained voice distinctly not hers.
"Fight him, Frannie," I say, reaching for her hand.
Her face twists with effort. "I want you out." Her voice is little more than a whisper, but it's hers. Her body writhes in Gabriel's arms. He lowers her to the bed, and I pull her into my arms, sending her all my strength.
"That's it, Frannie," Gabriel says. "You have the power. Use it."
The flood of hope overwhelms me. Sway. Frannie has Sway. If she fights-if she wants it enough…
"You don't want to be in here." Her voice is stronger, and when her eyes open, there's only a glowing ring around the irises. "You don't… want me," she growls.
She continues to writhe with the internal struggle for control then suddenly goes still, as if one of them has given up the fight. I gaze into her eyes, panicked nearly to the point of insanity. "Frannie?"
Her eyes roll back for a moment, and a moan starts from deep inside her, growing in intensity. Her face becomes red and her eyes bulge. There's a flash of red energy, and she jerks then goes limp.
Breathing back the panic, I cradle her to my chest. "Frannie? Can you hear me?" She finally looks up at me with clear blue eyes-still scared, but lucid.
"He's gone," she says with a weary smile. I take a few deep breaths to slow my hammering heart then lean down and kiss her.