But it was too late.
He turned, and I caught the sick pleasure in his gaze as he took in the wolf.
As he smiled at my friend.
The hair on my arms and neck stood at attention. Time slowed to a crawl, and I lunged, as if I could break through the bars holding me back.
Lucifer clicked his fingers and Kyla’s neck broke with a loudcrack.
“No,” I choked out. “No, no, no.”
“Everyone,” Lucifer hissed. “I will kill everyone you love until you’re broken. You brought war to my door, granddaughter. You undermined me every second you were in my home. And now you’ll pay.”
I tuned him out. Kyla was a werewolf. She could heal a broken neck. She could. I knew she could.
But could she?
She was so broken, so thin and weak. She had nothing left.
I shrieked, and this time I was the one to throw myself at the cage, swiping out with my nails in a useless attempt to do anything I could to hurt him.
Lucifer merely tutted, lifting his hand. I knew what that meant.
He was going to set Kyla on fire.
I threw my head back and screamed. My cuff burned as I felt my power once more, buried deep and useless. But there was something else there, too.
I sobbed through my teeth as it seemed to notice me. Ancient. Cruel. Sentient.
“Help me,”I begged, reaching out to whatever it was. I could feel it watching, silent but interested. It reached a tendril toward me, and I almost passed out at the vastness of it.
It was… amused by me. I wasn’t sure how I knew that, but I could feel that it found me… interesting.
And it found so little interesting.
The palace shook beneath us. I held onto the bars as Daimonion stumbled back, narrowing his own eyes.
Lucifer’s head snapped up. One of his demons appeared at the end of the corridor.
“We have a problem,” he said, and Lucifer bared his teeth at the interruption.
The palace shook once more, and a flash of… fear crossed Lucifer’s face.
Whatever had caused that fear, I needed more of it.
Lucifer stalked away without another word, his mind clearly on whatever had made the palace tremble like an earthquake.
I panted, my gaze glued to Kyla, but she didn’t move. Might never move again. A sob clawed up my throat as I fell back, landing heavily on the stone floor. My heart beat so hard it seemed to rattle my ribs as the world spun around me.
No. I didn’t accept this. Wouldn’t accept that I’d be stuck in this cage while Lucifer killed my friends one by one.
I closed my eyes, battling fury this time instead of terror. And I reached out for one of the tendrils of that sentience, yanking it toward me.
It fought, something like alarm rolling through it, but I pulled harder.
“What are you?”
It didn’t speak, but a picture formed in my mind. The palace, the grounds.
