A/N: By the way, there are a few fairy tale references sprinkled throughout the chapters. Chapter one only has one, I believe. There aren't any this chapter, but there are two lines from two other books. At the end of the story, I'll list all the Easter eggs, for those who are curious. ;P

Again, I don't own, well, anything but my plot, (and that's probably a barely) and my OCs. Alas and alack... :)


Quiet Beauty, Roaring Beast

Chapter 2

In the morning, he had his second incident, this time the unfortunate victim being one of her Devil May Cry posters. The ripping sounds woke her up.

"What the...? No! NO! Not Dante!"

She jumped up, trying to push him away, but it was far too late.

"Judas Priest! Okay, mirrors I can tolerate, but Dante?! Ohhh, what'd he ever do to you, Diavolo?"

She despondently picked up the pieces, before giving it up as a lost cause.

"Tell you what, Diavolo, if you want to rip up one of my posters, how about the Twilight one my sister sent as a gag gift, huh? Into little itty-bitty bits, if you like."

He was watching her, not having moved since she'd swatted him away. He looked at the other pictures of the red-clad devil hunter and hissed menacingly before grabbing her, almost possessively, all the while glaring frozen daggers at the handsome devil in the picture.

"Huh? Are you jealous? That's ridiculous. He's not even real, much to my personal disappointment."

He snapped his attention back to her, growling before kissing her mouth roughly. She frowned at him, puzzled and slightly suspicious.

"Look, if it bothers you, I'll take him down, okay? Put him somewhere safe and dark, where you don't have to see, yeah?"

She reached for the nearest poster to demonstrate, but he just growled, swatting her hand away.

"So, I can't touch, or I don't have to?"

He growled again, stepping over the pieces in the floor as he headed towards the bathroom. She ran her hand through her hair, sighing as she retrieved poor Dante from the carpet.

Maybe I can tape the back or something.

Lady wandered in from the living room and imperiously sat down on the largest piece still in the floor. She meowed rather loudly, and batted at Lily's hand as she reached for another piece. "What, now you're picking on the poor guy too? I guess I shouldn't be surprised, huh, Lady?"

After scooping up her cat (and retrieving the last poster piece from under her), she went to the kitchen to get some food for the three of them.

When he wandered into the kitchen, she set a plate of eggs and bacon in front of him. "Here, breakfast. I'm going to shower, then I need to go shopping. You need to stay here, and I want you and Lady to behave yourselves, yeah? No more destruction, please?"

She looked at him, really seeing him for the first time in proper lighting.

He was a deep, dark color, not black, like she'd first thought, but a purple maybe? Blue? Maybe an indigo? She'd vaguely noticed something a little odd about his skin last night, and the morning light revealed that he was actually covered in smallish scales. They were pebbly, kind of like a snake or lizard, although they had felt soft and smooth. The way that they caught the light made it even harder to tell his color. Sometimes they looked black, purple, turquoise, red, even green.

He was essentially humanoid, with clawed hands and feet, although he only had three toes on each foot. He had wings, rich and deep in color, great leathery things, not like any animal design that she could recall. He was well-muscled, but lithe, and though she knew that he was well-endowed, his crotch was now smooth, although not flat. She frowned, promising to puzzle over that later.

His face was human enough, except for the color and the fine scales, but his eyes...Did he not have irises and pupils, or were they just glowing too much to be seen clearly? His eyes definitely had a light blue glow that was tinged red on the edges, but there were no purple transitions.

He had horns, wide at the bases just above his temples twisting to points. He even had hair, sort of; it was like very soft spikes or quills and bone white.

He felt her looking at him, looking up from eating to study her face. What he thought or saw, she couldn't discern, and shaking her head, she smiled.

"Shower," she said, pointing to herself.

He grinned, then resumed eating.

She spent her time in the shower reflecting on everything that had happened last night.

I must be crazy. Rescuing a monster?

She frowned.

Now that I've seen him in daylight, he actually looks like a demon.

She snorted laughter.

Maybe that's why he hates Dante, 'cause Dante's

real, and kills guys like Diavolo. Still, rescuing a demon? Taking him home? Sleeping with him? Good gods, they used to burn people at the stake for that sort of thing. But, but he was so sweet, in a way. Gentle, almost. Felt more at ease letting him touch me than that useless boyfriend I had.

She grimaced, remembering the tactless, insensitive argument Evan had given her when she still didn't feel right about sleeping with him after her rape in the alley.

'Come on, baby, you can't tell me you're waiting for the right moment now, not when your precious cherry's been popped.'

That wasn't the only thing popped. He'd even brought up charges against her for blackening his eye and dislocating his jaw. A friend of his talked him into dropping them, she'd later heard.

Maybe he shouldn't have lipped off while a had my good frying pan in my hand. Damn jerk ruined my best pan, too.

She sighed, turning off the water and stepping out to dry off.

Oh well, "there'll be water if God wills it", right?

She got dressed, grabbed her list from the kitchen and paused. She grabbed the remote, turned on her TV, and handed the remote to her new demon friend, showing him how to work it. He snorted, scowling at her.

What's he thinking now?

She shook her head again and left for the store.

On a whim as she was returning from the store, she went through the alley where she'd found him. There was blood on the ground, (His?) and a few odd looking...bits of...things, but not much else. No real sign of where he'd come from, how he'd ended up in the shape she'd found him, nothing.

If this were a movie, I'd be complaining that he'd fallen through a plot-hole into the alley.

She grinned at herself, taking one more cursory look before leaving.

When she reached her apartment, she was half afraid to find it half destroyed, or possibly Lady and/or Diavolo dead, eaten, or gone, or some combination of the three. Bracing herself mentally, she unlocked the door.

He was still sitting on the couch, but the TV was off again, and he had Lady by the nape of the neck - not the place where kittens are carried, she noticed, though; Lady, far from being curled up and still, was swiping and batting playfully at his reaching fingers. He looked up complacently, gently cupping the kitten's rear and releasing her neck. Lady, for her part, sat up in his hand, furiously bathing where he'd mussed her fur.

"No unpleasantness, I trust?" she whispered.

He dropped the kitten onto the coffee table and came to her, his gait somewhere between stalking and sauntering. He caught her in his arms and nuzzled her neck. She pulled away after a moment and dumped a bag of groceries into his arms instead. He frowned, growling at her in that irritated fashion, but followed her to the kitchen.

She put everything away, fixed a lunch they ate mostly in silence, and washed up afterwards. The day passed uneventfully into evening, and another meal, and then relaxed into night. When she stood and yawned, turning to tell him she was headed for bed, she found him walking into her room instead. She followed and found him on his knees on the bed.

He was pushing at his crotch, but before she could even begin to wonder why, she saw his masculinity emerge.

Maybe he's like birds are, where their bird parts are internalized for streamlined flight, only maybe he's like that, for protection?

She snorted to herself.

Protection, ha-ha, punny much?

He slid across the bed, after extracting himself fully, watching her. She shrugged, undressed and joined him. He rested his body on hers, kissing and petting her. She briefly marveled over how comfortable she was with him, and how gentle and tender he was with her, before her thoughts became lost in their mutual pleasure.

They settled into a comfortable routine, varying only when she worked, or went shopping, until the evening she became violently ill a few months later.

She hadn't been feeling very well the night before, at work but chalked it up to Tony's atrocious "Mexican Casserole Supreme", a noxious dish if ever she'd smelled one, and seemingly worse that night. The few plates she'd delivered almost tossed her cookies for her, but she made her grimaces into reasonable facsimiles of smiles for the customers.

When her shift ended, she was thankful for the walk home, hoping the fresh, well, fresher air would settle her poor stomach. It had helped, but she had still felt badly enough that both Diavolo and Lady had noticed, despite her false assurances to them both. He did not even press the issue of lovemaking, though it had long been their wont to couple every night. More unusually, she slept in that morning, though she had had intentions on shopping that day. He had obviously gotten up and had left her to sleep, she noted later.

When she did wake, around lunchtime, she was hungry. She heard a frustrated roar, grabbed a stray flannel shirt, and rushed to the kitchen, panicking. She certainly wasn't prepared for what she found in there.

He was growling at her electric can opener, as though it were obstinately and purposefully denying him what he wanted. Lady was sitting on a nearby can of tomato soup, alternating between yowling at him and taking swipes at his hand. He would turn to hiss menacingly at her, then start fiddling with the can opener again.

Lily admired his restraint - she would have expected him to have destroyed it in anger and irritation long before this. She giggled silently.

"Diavolo, what are you doing?" she whispered to him.

Both of them looked up. Lady hopped onto the kitchen table, meowing plaintively at her, like a kid tattling on a sibling. He growled, grabbed the unfortunate appliance off the counter and dropped it into her hands. She almost giggled again, but swallowed it hastily at the dangerous look on his face. He plopped angrily into his usual seat, stewing. She put the can opener back onto the counter, plugged it back in, and opened the can of soup that Lady had been sitting on. She turned back to him with a smile, but far from being placated, he frustratedly started clawing at his collar ring.

"Hey, Diavolo! Don't, you'll hurt yourself! Let me help you get it off, if that's what you want."

She came over to him and examined the ring. She frowned, seeing no clasp on it.

"How does this thing come off?"

He made that soft keening noise, so sad and plaintive this time that she started.

"What's wrong? Why do you have this, anyway?"

He was unusually silent, just clasping her hands in his and bowing his head.

"Hey, it's okay, it's no biggie, yeah? We'll..."

She frowned again. "Weren't more of those lit before?"

His whole body seemed to slump at that, and she knelt in front of him.

"Diavolo, we'll figure something out, okay? We've done so well so far, yeah?"

He lifted his head and looked down at her. She smiled at him just before he moved, rushing forward to catch her in a passionate, lusty kiss.

He must be making up for last night.

A little while later, he rather reluctantly moved from her body, letting her up off the floor. She rose, and then her stomach did the loop-the-loop. Clapping her hand over her mouth, she rushed to the bathroom, barely making it before her stomach's rather sparse contents spewed out.

He'd followed her into the bathroom, which she would have protested, but as weak as she felt after vomiting, she was grateful for the assistance instead. She smiled faintly.

"I am so sorry. It's probably just from not eating, I guess."

He growled impatiently at her, and started scenting the air. She sighed, grabbing her toothbrush and reaching for the flush handle on the toilet. He caught her hand, growling again. She was perplexed.

"Don't tell me you like that stench."

He growled again, following it with a snort. He sniffed delicately towards the mess before flushing it himself. She shrugged.

He is a demon after all. Or something.

He leaned down towards her, sniffing her gently. She frowned again.

"I'll take a shower, okay?"

She finished brushing the taste out of her mouth and moved towards the door. He caught her instead, a very odd look in his face and eyes. Her own eyes widened as he picked up her hand and cut the palm with a claw. She made a small noise in pain, trying to pull her hand away, but he held it fast and brought it to his mouth. He licked the blood delicately and jerked, looking at her face again. He caught her in his arms, kissing and petting her almost ravenously. He scooped her up much as he had their first night together and lay her gently on their bed.

"What... Did I miss something?" she asked him, bewildered.

He kissed her repeatedly working his way down to her belly, which he seemed mildly obsessed with.

"Diavolo," she tried again, sitting up as much as possible. "I know a complete explanation is out of your reach, but try, yeah?"

He looked up, growling and giving his collar an irritated tug. He looked at her, staring in her eyes, then started caressing her belly again. She pondered.

"Okay, I get the impression that you don't like that collar, that maybe it keeps you from talking, even, yeah? But the sudden obsession with my stomach? Following a violent round of vomiting? I just don't..."

She trailed off, recalling everything he'd done. She looked him straight in the face.

"Diavolo. Am I pregnant?"

He all but pounced at her, crushing and devouring her mouth with his.

Later, she thought that that had been their sweetest lovemaking yet.