His gaze burned with fury. “The angels wouldn’t tell me anything. No matter what I tried. No matter what I offered. I’ve had blind spots this entire time, to what was happening, there was so much I couldn’t see.”
“She escaped Heaven. She’s making another play for your throne. She’s the one who’s pulling Beelzebub’s strings. Right now, the knights and the hounds are fighting her to protect it, to protect you. You need to help them before she brings down the entire city.”
Lucifer’s eyes flashed. “I can’t believe those motherfucking angels are behind all of this. They set her free.”
Lucifer tried to touch me, and I jerked back before I realized I was going to do it.
His yellow eyes bored into me, probing inside my head, and when he flinched, I knew what he’d seen.
“Lothar knows what we did,” I choked out. “That we took his memories from him, that we hid who I am to him. You said you’ve had blind spots, was I one of them? While I was gone, did you know what was happening to me? To Lothar?”
“Yes,” Lucifer said. “You and Lothar are mated.”
“Do you know how it happened?”
“Yes.”
The betrayal almost fucking choked me. I hugged myself. “Even though it’s the last thing you wanted, you let it happen anyway? And worse, the choice was taken from Lothar again, because of what we did to him.”
His expression didn’t change. “What will this mean going forward?”
For him. What did it mean for him, he meant. I still loved him, but Lucifer was a selfish being. He always had been. “It means, I’m leaving. You, Hell, this city, to free Lothar from me.”
“The fuck you are. I won’t allow it,” Lucifer growled.
Again, all he cared about was himself. “You said you sent me to that room to catch Lothar and Seraphina so I’d know the truth,” I fired at him. “But you sent me there so you could keep me all to yourself.”
He said nothing.
Pain sliced through me, the rest of it unraveling. I’d never wanted to believe it, but I knew it was the truth. “But that’s not all, is it? You put Lothar up to sleeping with Seraphina, didn’t you?”
“Roxana—”
“Answer me.”
“I gave him a choice. I didn’t force him to do anything. You can blame me all you like, but Lothar could have refused me.”
“Really? And what were his options? Fuck Seraphina or what?”
His features were calm. “I needed information. Sera always had a soft spot for him, you know that. I gave him the choice to charm her, to get the information I wanted, and as payment, he would be free to mate with you.”
Rage rolled through me so strongly, I shook. “And if he didn’t?”
“He could never have you,” he said without a shred of emotion.
I grabbed for the wall, my heart breaking all over again. “That’s not a choice,” I cried. “Especially since you never planned to honor it. You made him think we’d finally be together, in truth, then you sent me to find them so you’d get what you wanted, anyway. So you’d keep me here, tied to your side.” Then the rest of it finally hit me. “Oh gods,” I choked out.
“Let me explain,” he said. “You’re misreading?—”
“I’m not fucking misreading anything! For the first time, I’m finally seeing the truth.” I held his stare. “The deal you made with Sera that day, the one where she gave you the gem that you’d convinced me could harm you, the deal where I agreed to give up Lothar to protect you…” I gripped my stomach, feeling fucking sick. “You didn’t need to make a deal, did you?”
“The gem can, and still could harm me.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about.”
“Roxana,” he said, shaking his head. “Stop this.”
“You didn’t need to make a deal, because the angels were already there, waiting to take her. You’d already made a deal with them. You took Lothar’s memories of me, his knowledge of our bond, because you could, because you didn’t want to share me, because I was too valuable an asset for you to lose. You used the situation with Sera to manipulate me.”
