“Of course I am.”
“Well, maybe you should have thought about that before you four chuckleheads pushed me away.”
Guilt hit me in the gut, but I persisted. “Don’t be a stubborn little brat about this. It’s stupid.”
She scoffed, shoving at my chest again. “Stupid? You think I’m stupid because I’m setting boundaries? You think I’m stupid because you broke my fucking heart and I won’t let you do it again?”
“I think you’re stupid if you think Lucifer won’t try anything. He has one goal, Merri. One. He will do anything to achieve it.”
“Yeah, well, I think you’re a real asshole.”
“I don’t care if it means that you’re safe.”
“Safe? You think getting me pregnant keeps me safe? Newsflash, Lucifer already has me. If I’m pregnant, he has no reason to keep me around. The best way to keep me safe right now is to keep that option open.”
“So he can take what you won’t give him by force?”
I couldn’t say it more plainly. Well, I could, but the thought of what he might do to her if she didn’t give in made me see red, and that wasn’t good for any of us.
“He won’t.”
I let out a derisive snort. “You’re naive if you believe that.”
Her eyes narrowed as my words hung between us. “Thanks for the meal, but you can fuck all the way off, Chaos.”
And just like that, Merri was gone, and I was awake in a puddle of mud and decomposing leaves in the middle of the woods.
I slammed my fist into the ground, the trees around me quaking in protest.
None of that had gone according to plan. Worse, she was fucking right. Not about Lucifer, but about me. And I didn’t even get a chance to tell her I was sorry. I’d gotten so worked up about the danger she was putting herself in that everything else flew out of my head. I was the asshole in this situation. In every sense of the word.
“Motherfucker.”
Chapter
Seventeen
FAMINE
How was it that a glorious being like myself always seemed to be reduced to waiting around for a man? Blech. I didn’t waste my time on them if I could avoid it. And for good reason. They always let me down.
Case in point.
Lucifer simply abandoned his throne, leaving us to keep things running smoothly with nothing more than a “See you later” and a wave. After all the torture he’d put me through, you’d think I’d at least rate a heads-up or check-in.
Now here I stood, waiting on another male who was likely just as cocksure. And just as disappointing.
I picked at my teeth, my chrome red nails gleaming in the fluorescent light. I was leaning against a boring cinderblock wall, one stiletto-clad foot propped up against it. I might be stuck waiting, but I looked fucking hot. I’d opted for my demonic form; she was my favorite visage. My long red tresses flowed down my back, nearly to my waist. It was stunning in contrast to my choice of clothing, a skintight black leather bodysuit that matched my delectable little black horns. How could anyone resist me? One glance my way and they’d be sucked into mygaze, lost to the milky white of my eyes and unable to escape my kiss.
Releasing a heavy sigh, I glanced down the long hallway for the eight-hundred-and-twenty-seventh time. You’d think for a guy on a very set schedule, this asshole would at least be punctual.
“No wonder it’s taken this long for the apocalypse to unfold. Men will be the downfall of everything. Rome. Democracy. Marriages. The economy. Their egos ruin every?—”
The soft scuff of a shoe over concrete was my only warning he’d arrived.
Sloth. The final Prince.
He was disgustingly beautiful, his inky black hair in a perfectly coiffed pompadour. He was lean with chiseled muscles, his face all perfect angles and full pouty lips. Give him a guitar and he could have been Elvis. With a leather jacket, he could have been James Dean.
