Rathiel stood next to one of the nearby geysers, talking strategy and who knew what else with a handful of brimlords who seemed to be hanging on his every word.
A little ways off, Calyx had claimed a broken boulder as his throne. He was meticulously cleaning his new blade, his face a mask of calm focus while a few hellspawn hovered nearby, likely trying to decide whether he was trustworthy. Last they’d seen of him, he’d stood at Lucifer’s side, one of his loyal soldiers. It’d taken some convincing to assure them he was, theoretically, on our side.
Levi had withdrawn to the camp’s outer ring. He sat cross-legged on a slab of basalt, elbows braced on his knees, the flicker of flame catching on his pale hair. He didn’t seem interested in joining the merriment, and instead kept his eyes fixed on the distant dark.
Finally, I reached my target. With her shining midnight-green hair andlackof horns, Eliza stood out like a sore thumb in this crowd. She sat perched on a rock at the farthest edge of camp, eyes wide and mouth parted in awe.
I dropped down beside her and handed over my half-eaten meat skewer. She accepted it with the enthusiasm of someone being handed a dead mouse.
“Not quite what you imagined?” I asked.
She blew out a long breath, then turned to look at me. “This is…incredible.”
It was. I’d built my own army out of nothing but Hell’s raw materials and my own magic, but I had a feeling that wasn’t the incredible part Eliza was referring to. She’d seen me pull off some fun tricks since coming to Hell, but she’d never been a part of a massive army like this.
“Watching them is wild,” she said, gesturing to the fires. “Mercs don’t celebrate like this. We do the job, take our cut, and move on. That’s it in a nutshell.”
I was aware. I’d served drinks to enough of them over the years to know their post-job celebrations rarely lasted beyond the first strong drink. By the time they drank their second, they’d usually taken on a new job.
A slow yawn threatened to crack my jaw wide, but I stifled it behind my hand before Eliza noticed.
“Is it always like this?” she asked.
“Nah,” I said, biting back a second yawn. Why did the damn things always come in pairs? “Usually it’s worse. Especially when they get their hands on some booze.”
“What doesboozeeven look like in Hell?”
“You don’t want to know,” I said, chuckling.
She nodded slowly, still taking it all in.
Boisterous laughter erupted behind us, and we both turned to see Korrak literally leap onto a fellow hellspawn and flatten him just for fun.
Eliza barked a laugh, then shook her head. “And you trust them? All of them? Your father created these creatures. At the end of the day, they’re condemned souls—born from the worst of humanity. There’s a reason they found themselves down here in the first place. So, how do you know they won’t betray you?”
The smile slipped from my face, her questions killing what little energy I had left. I sighed, the sound thin and frayed. “Look, I trust them all with my life. They’re my unit?—”
“That’s Rathiel speaking.”
“Rathiel trained me,” I reminded her. “The Lily you knew topside is different than the Lily who survived for decades down here. If it helps, think of it like the human military. I fought with these hellspawn. Trained with them. Bled with them. I nearly died with them. They’ve earned my trust.”
“Okay,” she whispered. “I guess I’m just not used to this sort of thing.”
“Understandable. But you’ll get there.”
Eliza blew out a breath, her gaze still tracking the chaotic messiness that was my army.
“You know,” I said, “if you want, you could join them. I don’t think they’d mind.”
She laughed, and the sound turned more than a few heads. Even through the brain fog, I noticed the shift—the way nearby hellspawn leaned toward her, as though aching to catch what she had to say. Others stared, their gazes tracking her like moths to flame.
I’d seen this sort of reaction before, back on Earth. Every time Eliza had walked into the bar where I’d worked, heads had turned. Paranormals had tripped over their own feet to buy her drinks and ask her out. If she laughed, they sighed. If she asked them to do something, they damn near broke their backs doing it. Her siren powers hadn’t known any boundaries on Earth.
Rathiel, Calyx, Levi, and I might have been immune to her charms, but we hadn’t had the chance to test her abilities on hellspawn yet. I had my answer now, though, based on how Sareth was staring at her like she was the last drop of water in a scorching desert.
Oh boy.
I fought back a third yawn and playfully glared at the venerath, who jokingly flipped me off, then returned to her conversation.
