He shrugged, wiping the tears away from my face. “And now I have the books, but he has you, and my people continue to suffer.” He cleared his throat. “My spies have never told me about this mine. Lucifer must be using his power to cloak it.”
The look on his face tugged at my insides. This was the most disheartened I’d ever heard Samael sound. “When you take your throne back, you’ll set them free,” I murmured.
I rose up on tiptoes and buried my hand in his hair, encouraging him to lower his head so I could kiss him.
Heat curled in my stomach as his mouth caressed mine. Slowly. Gently. As if we had all the time in the world. I forced myself to pull away.
“We need to talk,” I said.
He nodded, and we were suddenly sitting across from each other on the armchairs, a low coffee table between us. I smiled. Samael was attempting to keep his hands off me, at least long enough for us to talk strategy.
“I know why Lucifer is keeping me alive. Turns out there’s more to the prophecy than I’d thought. I don’t know why there was only a small part of it in that fae library.”
I filled him in. Samael went incredibly still.
He hadn’t known about it either.
“How come Lucifer has more of the prophecy?”
Maybe there was more to come. Worse things.
“Lucifer has long had access to the best seers in all the realms. I’m not surprised by it, but it adds a new level of danger for you.”
He got to his feet and pulled me into his arms. Behind him, his armchair turned into a long couch, and I smiled. He was obviously done attempting to keep his hands to himself.
We lay down on the couch, and I shivered at the look on Samael’s face.
“Can he do that? Take my power?”
“Yes. Such things are difficult to do and can only happen during certain periods of time.”
“What is the night of a hundred thousand stars?”
“It’s a celestial event. A meteor shower. It will begin several days before it peaks, until the sky seems to burn with meteors that look like falling stars. A hundred thousand of them.”
I swallowed. “How do you know this?”
“When I was a small child, my grandfather told me stories about how he watched the stars when he was young. He said the sight stole the breath from his lungs.”
Samael’s voice turned cold. “I hadn’t thought to keep track, but if my calculations are correct, the peak of the shower is nine days from now, give or take a few hours. Your time.”
I was shaking, I realized, and Samael pulled me even closer, running his hand up and down my back. The thought of Lucifer sucking out my power, of making me his puppet… I’d prefer death.
“Danica?” Samael sat up, catching my chin in his hand. From the look on his face, he’d been attempting to get my attention for a while.
“We will be there before the meteor shower peaks. We will have the pocket realm, the dragons, and Finvarra’s forces in place. Lucifer won’t have a chance to take your power because he will be dead before that happens.”
I shivered. “If the worst happens…”
“Do not think like that. I swear to you, I will never allow him to make you his puppet. No matter what happens, I will never stop fighting for you. I will turn to dust before I leave you alone with him.”
I raised my hand to his cheek and smiled. “I know. I love you. Now why don’t you tell me whatever it is you’re holding back?”
Samael’s lips curved. “I can get nothing past you, can I?” he sounded pleased, and I winked at him.
“Nope. So spit it out.
He sighed. “The pocket realm we are bargaining for is unlike the seelie library where you first read the prophecy,” Samael said. “That realm had an exit portal built into it.”
