I loaded up my plate. “So where are we going tomorrow?”
“I was thinking Ferine,” she said.
I froze. “The Savage Realm?”
“It’s dangerous, I know. But Beelzebub has friends there. He can also blend in easily.”
“Dangerous? They fucking eat their own.” If you broke their laws, you were sentenced to the pot.
“I know, and it’s fucked up, but remember, Az said, wherever he was, he was thriving. And Beelzebub would fit in there like a house on fire.”
At the mention of Asmodeus, the beast snarled. I ignored it and tried to focus on what she was saying.
“He’d definitely thrive there.” She gave a nod of certainty, then popped a little pastry of some kind in her mouth. “You game?”
What choice did I have? “Lucifer wants us to bring the traitor back. If that’s where you think he is, then that’s where we’ll go, but we’ll need to be prepared and better armed. I’ll try to track him tonight, and if that doesn’t work, I’ll go for a run in the morning and see what I can pick up.”
She nodded as she sucked on a piece of melon, sliding it between her lips, then licked the juice from her fingers. “Sounds good. Hopefully, Death can help us with that, well, if he’s feeling generous. He and Luci aren’t the best of friends.”
I shifted in my seat as she did it again, licking melon juice from her fingers after slipping another piece past her full lips. I cleared my throat. “We better hope Zinnia can convince him to help us or we’re fucked. Going to Ferine unprepared would be suicide.”
“The place is definitely wild, but I’ve given Luci an update, and he’s on board.”
A snarl tried to crawl up my throat. “He’s not worried about you?”
Her smile dropped and she simultaneously shook her head and rolled her eyes. “Why would he be? He knows what I can do and trusts my abilities.”
I bit my tongue, because she was right, and the shit swirling in my head, what I wanted to say, like, I’ll protect you, and I’ll kill anyone who tries to hurt you, made no fucking sense and would only piss her off.
* * *
I got into bed, but my mind wouldn’t quiet. I needed to talk to War, or maybe Lucifer, about what was going on with me, because something was really wrong. Even now, the beast snarled and writhed beneath my skin, trying to force me to go to the wall between my room and Roxy’s and press my fucking ear to it—but better yet, to go to her door and let myself into her room, her bed.
I shoved that out of my head.
Then an image of her with Relic when he was tiny, the way she’d loved and cared for my pup, filled my mind. She’d had her own child once, a daughter she’d been forced to watch age and die. Now I understood why she was so loving, so fiercely protective of any pups, even the older ones like Gus and Brick. She missed Cassandra, she understood what it was to be a parent and lose your child.
There was so much more to Roxy than she let people see.
The female had hidden depths, and every layer that she revealed only made me more curious.
I dragged my hands over my face.
Get your head back in the game. You’re here to do a job, not obsess over Roxy.
If only it were that easy.
Chapter
Ten
Roxy
* * *
Lothar stood by a tree, one hand gripped Beelzebub’s shirt while he ran the other over the rough bark, his eyes closed, reaching inward, searching. A shiver shimmied up my spine as I watched him from a distance.
I’d woken when his bedroom door had opened and closed early this morning, and I’d quickly dressed and followed. If Loth picked up Beelzebub’s trail, I didn’t want to miss any details. And if he sensed he was being watched, or followed, he hadn’t let on. But then, I’d purposely stayed back so as not to get in his way while he worked.
