Get it together.
This was my job, my purpose. I was created to protect my king. Lucifer was all that mattered. His throne was on the line, it didn’t matter that Lothar was here, or what he thought. The feelings trying to bloom brighter weren’t of consequence, not when Lucifer’s life could be at stake.
I smiled. “Of course, where else would I be tonight?”
Ursula strode over then and Asmodeus turned to her with a smile, pulling her in for a hug. Urs slipped something into my hand as she hugged him back, a small vial. The sleep tincture. Ursula knew me like no one else. She hadn’t missed my reluctance. It was risky, giving this to Az, especially in his own quadrant, but I didn’t think he’d suspect me of dosing him. I’d built trust with him over more years than I could remember.
“So why the hounds?” Asmodeus asked her. “Why are they with you?”
“Lucifer has us on a hunt,” Urs said and winked, then called out for more moonshine.
“What are you hunting?” he asked me, when Urs strode off into the crowd.
I sighed. “I don’t want to upset you, Az. Let’s not talk business.”
“You could never upset me, my sweetling.”
I subtly searched the room, but not so subtle that Asmodeus didn’t notice, then leaned in close. “Luci has us searching for Beelzebub. We’re on our way to Mammon’s stronghold, someone said they saw him there. Lucifer thinks Mammon could be hiding him.” That was a complete lie.
Asmodeus scoffed. “B would never go to Mammon for help. That’s the last place he’d go.” He shook his head. “Lucifer is so out of touch with his lords, no wonder one of us finally rebelled.”
I bit my lip and gave him a huge dose of wide-eyed innocence. “I don’t like to talk badly about Luci, Az, you know that…”
“I sense a but coming?” he said as he tucked my hair behind my ear.
“Okay, yeah, he is a little out of touch, I guess. He means well…but sometimes he gets it wrong. Beelzebub was obviously really hurt to do what he did,” I said, sighing. “I hate when everyone fights.” I inwardly shook my damn head. Fighting wasn’t what happened, Beelzebub committed treason, but there was no way I was using that word right now, not when I needed Az to spill what he knew.
“I know you do, sweetling, but Luci has taken us for granted too many times. B was just the first of us to be pushed past his limits.”
He’d just confirmed that he knew about Beelzebub’s plan without even realizing it. “Do you think he’ll come back, so we can talk about this? So he and Luci can clear the air and move forward?”
Az shook his head. “He’s not coming back, not yet anyway.”
In other words, not until he has the means to overthrow Lucifer. “That makes me sad, Az. Hell doesn’t feel the same with one of us gone.”
Asmodeus swirled the moonshine in his glass and nodded. “I agree. It definitely feels wrong with only six lords here. I feel his absence strongly, as do the others.”
And finally, he’d just confirmed that Beelzebub was no longer in Hell. As Lucifer suspected. I rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m sorry, my darling, that you’re in pain. You must miss your brother terribly. I hope he’s okay?”
Az lifted his red gaze to mine, and it gentled. “You have the softest heart of any being in Hell, Roxy, it astounds me that it hasn’t been blackened like the rest of us.”
“I love you all, Az, you know I do. I worry about my family.”
He gently took my jaw in his gray fingers. “He is well, sweetling. I promise, he’s thriving in fact.”
Az could never resist my little miss innocent act. He hated seeing me worried. He underestimated me like most, and thought me naive, that I was ruled by my soft heart.
I smiled wide, and pressed a kiss to his black lips. For Beelzebub to thrive, he’d need to be somewhere you could look the way he did, and not draw notice.
“I want you, Roxy,” he said roughly.
“Then take me to bed,” I said and wrapped my arms around his neck when he stood.
I looked over his shoulder before he carried me from the room. Lothar was standing, lips peeled back, fangs fully extended.
Then we rounded the corner, and I lost sight of him.
I rolled an unconscious Asmodeus off me, and checked he was still breathing. The tincture wouldn’t kill him, even if his heart did stall out, but if that happened, he’d know I’d drugged him when he woke and realized he had serious bodily damage. Hopefully, I’d gotten the dose right.
