“And what areyoudoing to find and kill Michael?” I fired back, rising. “Sitting on your royal ass while my mother suffers?”
White light flashed in his gaze. He walked right into my space, leaning down until his face hovered inches from mine.
“Don’t for a second think I haven’t been to Portal Lake and our gates every morning and night, carving open my flesh so I can send the general out to bring that repugnant angel back here to pay for his sins.”
Pressure built behind my eyes, and my Infernus sang in my ears, my anger rising with his.
Straightening, he continued. “I’m the only one with the blood to access Portal Lake, and even then, it has not answered me. So you’d do well to rid yourself of your fantastical imaginings and focus on something more practical. Like controlling your powers.”
His eyes settled back to their normal state, and he gazed down at me with a superior air.
It frustrated me to no end, but at least I received an answer. Now I knew his blood was the key to opening the lake—and, it sounded like, the gates too. Although he had a point. What made me thinkwecould escape when Lucifer couldn’t?
My shoulders slumped. Lucifer frowned, looking almost regretful.
“Your mother will be okay for the year. Cato and I have a temporary solution,” he said, like he was trying to be reassuring.
“Are you sure it’ll just be a year?”
The general had said he was locked in Hell for the last ten.
“The gates used to open annually on the same day for a short time. Then it stopped—and started again when we rescued you. I’m sure the pattern will repeat itself.”
If he knew the pattern repeated, wouldn’t hestatethat? Why sayI’m sure, like he was making an assumption?
“Did you know they’d open when the general rescued me?”
Lucifer’s expression said it all.
“You didn’t.” I sat back down, feeling like a fist had slammed into my gut.
I’d hoped that if Oliver and I didn’t find a way to escape sooner, we’d at least have that year. It would be torturous and horrible to wait that long, but it was a backup plan. But now? We might be stuck hereindefinitely. My mom couldn’t stay in a coma. And Aspen… I wouldn’t allow him to remain with Lilith. I needed him out of there.
“Are you sure you’ve tried everything to open the gates?”
He considered me, the minutes awkwardly ticking by as my father pierced me with his lofty gaze.
“We have tried to understand why the gates closed. We scoured the library for information, used dangerous runes, ripped apart the ground, bashed in the iron rods, and used every means we had to try and pry open Hell’s gates or use Portal Lake. I even blamed it on your mother at one point after she left me, but she doesn’t have the power capable of closing Hell,” he spat, icicles growing from the glass ceiling. “We have triedeverything.Now, we can only pray to the Weaver that the gates will open once more next year.”
I straightened. “Isthatwhat you did for me as Michael carved me open?” I raised my voice. “Youprayedto your Weaver they’d open and gambled on our lives?”
He narrowed his eyes at my tone. “You were supposed to go north, where I had connections who could help you until we could retrieve you. You disobeyed me.”
“I was trying to rescue my mother! Like I am now!”
“AndIwas trying to rescueyouwith the only means and information I had at the time.”
Me?He was trying to rescueme?
I stared at him, hearing the remnants of the undeniable sincerity in his voice and seeing it in his softened expression. It was strange. Lucifer wasn’t cuddly or warm. He wasn’t the fatherly type—and I wasn’t exactly sure what it even meant tohaveone. But hearing thathe was trying to protect me, and seeing the truth in his face, shifted the bitterness I held onto.
Cato was right. Lucifer wasn’t like Michael. And my mother, despite her beliefs, was wrong. Lucifer—my father—wanted me to survive. He cared about me, not just her.
“Why did she leave you for him?” I whispered, needing to understand why she’d traded someone who would bleed for her for someone who made her bleed.
Hurt tightened his eyes before he could mask it. “She told me she wanted him. I think… she thought it was the only way to protect you.”
“WithMichael?”
