Hog face grabbed my left hand and slid my pinky into his mouth and sucked, making an mmm sound.
“Do it,” Beelzebub said.
I braced, right as he bit down at the knuckle, his sharp teeth lacerating skin and flesh. I ground my teeth as sharp agony sliced across my palm and shot up my arm. The sound of bone crunching was nauseating as he bit through, then wrenched his head to the side, tearing it off. Blood poured from my hand all over the floor.
“Eat it,” Beelzebub said.
The demon chewed, loudly.
“Pigs will eat a-anything,” I choked out. “By all means, if you’re hungry, bon appetit.”
He offered me a bloody-toothed sneer.
I grinned, giving him the same in return. “Joke’s on you. I p-pick my nose with that one.”
Beelzebub grabbed my jaw again. “You think you’re funny? How many fingers are you willing to lose?”
All of them, motherfucker.
Lucifer was my creator, my friend, my family. He was everything. My love for him was indescribable, unbreakable. I would sooner die than betray my king, before I gave them the means to hurt him.
I kept my mouth clamped shut and the hatred burning bright inside me. I would never give them the ammunition they needed to take Luci’s throne. Never.
Beelzebub chuckled. “You’d die for Lucifer, wouldn’t you?” he said as if he’d read my mind. “Such loyalty to someone who would never give you the same. If only you knew the truth.” He dragged his claws lightly over my swollen face. “If only you knew what he did?—”
“Beelzebub,” a female voice snapped.
My entire body stiffened. Seraphina. Of course it was her. I’d known, hadn’t I? Even before the wraiths made an appearance in Oldwood Forest. There was the verahn attack in Hell, that should have been a warning. The way hog face had vanished after he and his friends had attacked me, only someone seriously powerful could have done that. But the biggest flashing red light should have been when Lothar started acting strangely. She’d been purposely trying to break us both down, by slowly exposing the emotions Lucifer had locked away in Lothar. Trying to make him remember. Yes. I’d suspected it was her, but I’d tried to convince myself it couldn’t be true, and when Lucifer hadn’t been able to get the information from the angels we needed, I told myself she still had to be locked away, that there was no way she’d be able to escape her prison in Heaven—yet here she was.
I’d never encountered a colder and more heartless being in my long life. I would die today, but not before she’d made me endure torture so horrific, I would almost definitely lose my mind first.
“The wraiths?” B asked her.
“They fulfilled their end of the bargain. I set them free,” she said.
Beelzebub looked relieved. Having been brought here by them, touched by them, I understood why. But if they were free and now available to the highest bidder, we were in serious trouble.
“It’s been a long time, Roxana.” Her frigid stare chilled me to the bone. “Too long, yes? I had hoped to do all of this without getting my hands dirty, but, sadly, Poe and Tarrant weren’t quite as clever as they thought they were, and with Beelzebub forced to flee Hell, it seems I have to do everything myself.”
I kept my chin up, refusing to be weak in front of her, despite the condition I was in after Beelzebub’s beatings.
She lifted a hand, palm up. “We have a fun day planned for you, Roxy. I’m excited to get started.” An orb appeared, hovering above her open hand. It grew in size steadily until it was at least a yard in diameter. Black smoke swirled behind some kind of invisible barrier. “Keep watching,” Sera said as the smoke began to thin, then dissipated completely.
My room at the tower came into view. I jerked against my restraints when I saw Lothar. His hands were a mess, cut and bloody, his hair wild, his chest heaving. He looked up then, blinking, eyes glowing red, aimed right at me.
“Oh look, he’s spotted you,” Seraphina said.
Lothar’s mouth opened on a soundless roar. He ran at the orb, slamming into it, then hammering his fists against it over and over again.
“Stop,” I cried when his knuckles split open. “Lothar, please. You need to stop.”
Sera chuckled. “You can see each other, but he can’t hear you.” Her head tipped to the side. “How far can we push him, do you think? How long before he fractures completely and the truth of what you and Lucifer did to him comes rushing back like a nightmare?”
“Don’t,” I choked out. “Please.”
“She speaks,” she said. “But not soon enough, sadly.” She shook her head. “Remember when you betrayed me? Remember when you had me imprisoned? Left to rot alone for centuries. That can’t go unpunished, Roxana, you have to know that.”
She’d lost her damned mind. I had nothing to do with her imprisonment, and neither had Lucifer. It was her own fault she was caught.
