The beauty of what we could have shared was long gone. It was a path not taken, a chance missed and lost forever. We’d both destroyed it, disrespected it, long ago.
Squeezing my eyes closed, I dropped my arms from around him and, breathing deep and slow, I started the slow, painful process of rebuilding the walls around my heart.
Lothar had been through enough, and I’d do whatever it took to save him from more pain.
To save him from me.
Chapter
Twenty-Five
Lothar
* * *
Dawn turned the black night of the Outer Realm into a deep gray. Roxy was pressed against me, she had been all night. I needed to let her go and move away, but she felt too good.
Thank fuck the beast had started to listen to me now, when it came to being gentler with her, but more importantly, when he wanted to mate with her last night. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to stop him, but somehow Roxy had gotten through, and he’d ignored his driving need to rut and held her instead.
This morning the beast seemed farther away and content to let me take the lead. He was still there, and pushed forward every now and then, but since yesterday I’d been able to take the lead more easily. I had to assume it was because Roxy was now my mate in truth. The beast had been calmer since, except of course, when he thought she was in danger and wanted to protect her. While I’d been in fucking turmoil, the beast had stepped up to do what I couldn’t.
It was slow progress, but I could feel him coming back to me, as if bit by bit, that part of me was latching back on, wanting to make us whole again, like I did.
I shuddered. I thought for a while there, that I’d lost myself forever.
My gaze dipped to Roxy’s hand, to where they’d taken two of her fucking fingers. She’d used a strip from the bottom of her shirt to wrap it. The rest of her fingers were missing nails, looking raw and bloody. My lips peeled back, my fangs sliding down. The pain she must have suffered, the fear—I looked at her shoulder and shuddered deeply. I could only see the edge of my mark, and the urge to slide her shirt to the side to get a better look at it, to check on it, had my fingers twitching.
I lifted my hand, unable to stop myself—Roxy groaned, her ass wriggling back and pressing firmly against my cock. I jerked my hips back, and Roxy jolted awake.
“What’s going on?” she asked groggily.
She’d been so cold last night, her hands had been like ice, and it’d taken an hour of me holding her before she stopped shivering. The blessed silver cage plus her injuries were steadily weakening her.
“I can hear Sera and Beelzebub stirring in the tent,” I said low.
She spun to face me. “Lothar?”
Having her this close was torture. I wanted to beg her for forgiveness. What I’d done in that cell was utterly unforgivable. I had also never wanted…or fucking despised someone more in my life. She and Lucifer had messed with my mind, lied to me, manipulated me, and what they’d turned me into as a result, would fucking haunt me for eternity.
I shuddered again, and my stomach rebelled at the thought of Roxy’s much smaller body pressed against that cell wall while the beast snarled in her face, while he spread her thighs and shoved them around his hips…
No. I couldn’t allow myself to think about that, not now. I shoved it down deep. We had to get through this first. We had to take down Sera and Beelzebub, then I could deal with the horror on repeat in my head. “I’m finding it easier to take control and hold it,” I said low, swallowing thickly. “You should be safe now. I won’t…”
“Lothar, what happened between us?—”
“Is your hand okay? Are you in pain?” I said quickly, cutting her off, sure as fuck not wanting to go there.
“Nothing I can’t handle.”
“Good.” I glanced back at the tent. “When they come out, don’t let on that I’m back in control, yeah?”
She bit her lip and nodded. “Understood.”
The fallen angel thought she could control me, but she was fucking wrong. “Before she put me in here, she called me her dog of war.” I touched the collar around my throat. “She means to control me. She knows the…the mated bond will drive me to protect you, and plans to use these to bend me to her will.”
Roxy’s throat worked. “I thought as much.”
Her hand pressed against my chest, and I sucked a rough breath in through my nose. “Don’t touch me,” I choked out. I was in control, but it was still tenuous.
