“I’ve been alive thousands of years, Lothar. You thought me and Lucifer had never had sex?”
A rumbling sound vibrated from his chest and there was more of that disgust on his face. “I thought he was like a father to you.”
“Lucifer is many things to me.” My anger rose at his judgement, and it was hard to control, but I wrestled it back down. “Sex is just two bodies giving and receiving pleasure, Lothar. I’m sure you’ve had plenty of experience with that.”
His gaze was dark as it sliced from me. He stared ahead. “Right.”
“Anyway, he wanted the handmaids to have children, to increase our numbers, and I volunteered. I wanted a baby, but he wasn’t able to impregnate any of us, so we used demons.”
More lip curling. “What happened to your daughter?”
A familiar bittersweet feeling filled me. “It turns out, only handmaids directly created by Lucifer are immortal. Our children were long-lived, but they didn’t survive. Cassandra, my baby girl, was…she was so beautiful, Loth. She eventually mated, had children of her own, then eventually grew old. I held her in my arms when she passed away. I’ve followed her line through the centuries, and I felt when the twins, her descendants, Kyler and Eve, were born. They’re demi-demon and were too vulnerable, too powerful together. The demons living aboveground would have sensed them if I hadn’t separated them. Now they’re both mated to knights, and immortal because of it. I never have to lose them. I love them, Lothar, so much it takes my breath away.”
“I never knew,” he said, but he still wasn’t looking at me. “I’m happy for you.”
“I’m happy for me too,” I said, stepping over a fallen branch.
We carried on walking, this time in silence. In fact, it was deafening.
The tension rolling off Lothar was thick, but I said nothing. Whatever was going on in his head had nothing to do with me.
“You and Lucifer, do you still fuck?”
Or maybe it did. “What?”
“Does he fuck all of you?” Lothar asked, and there was accusation, along with more of that disgust on his face.
My anger shot to new heights, but again I refused to let it show. “You’re judging me.”
There was a flash of his white fangs in the shadows. “No, I just?—”
“I’ve heard of hounds sharing females, of hounds occasionally enjoying each other while the sharing is going on. I don’t judge you or your brothers. Why would I?”
“That’s different.”
“How?”
“Lucifer created you, so there’s a power imbalance. He’s taking advantage of?—”
“Stop, right there.” This time the anger was clear in my voice. “He has never taken advantage of any of us. We are free to do whatever we want. Yes, we have been many things to each other over the centuries, but what you have to understand is the relationship between us, between Luci and all of his handmaids, is…” I struggled for words. “Unlike any other. Jealousy, greed, resentment, none of those things exist.” Well, that last one had recently made an appearance, but I had a good reason for feeling that way, and he was currently staring at me like I’d grown a second head. “Lucifer is everything to us. So sure, in the early days, I occasionally shared his bed, but only because the love I felt for him was…was so all-encompassing, so vast, that sex was just another way of showing him. Over time, things have changed, grown, reshaped. What we have now, it’s deeper than what we ever had. It’s pure.”
He scoffed.
“You’re starting to piss me off, Lothar, and I promised I wouldn’t take my bad mood out on you, but you’re not making that very easy.”
“You said, in the early days? So you don’t sleep with him anymore?” Of course he’d ignore everything else I’d said. And there was still a growl in his voice.
I took a fortifying breath. “Not that it’s any of your business, but no. Our connection is so much more, it’s moved beyond the flesh. It wouldn’t feel right to do that now.”
He grunted.
I wasn’t sure how we ended up talking about this, but I didn’t want to anymore.
“Love of any kind is dangerous,” he muttered. “Especially the way you describe your feelings for Lucifer.”
I bit my lips together. Don’t say anything. “You may not understand love, or even recognize it, but your loyalty to your pack, your devotion to Warrick, is love, you just don’t know it.” Okay, apparently, I couldn’t stop myself.
Another grunt. “Loyalty is loyalty.”
