His storm gray gaze flashed, and after an intense staring contest that lasted all of three seconds, he tore his gaze away from mine and put it back on the road. “If you think I give a shit about you fucking her, I don’t. And after all this time, I’m pretty damn tired of having this conversation with you. She’s not my mate. She was never really mine.”
It was times like these that I would pay any price for the ability to read Abaddon’s mind. Ours was a complicated relationship with a long and jagged history. When I fell from Paradise and landed in the Ninth Circle, I met Lilith first, his queen. The archdemon was an asshole now, but back when he’d been the King of Hell. He was an evil, fucked-up bastard who got off on other people’s suffering. Especially Lilith’s.
It took a long time for me to trust the bastard. But after so many centuries of him reassuring me he was over the demoness, I finally believed him. He wouldn’t be helping me find her if he wasn’t.
His fealty hadn’t been earned so much, but more like I had to stomp it out of him. And with his loyalty, I earned the respect of all the natives of the Underworld. Somewhere along the way, the demented bastard had almost grown a heart.Almost.
I would never forget my father’s last word’s when He literally shoved me out of The Silver City.
“Find your fated mate. If you can get her to love a monster like you, I’ll give you back your wings.”
He’d made that deal for one reason alone. He didn’t think any human could love a “monster” like me.
Turns out, He was right.
Where He was wrong was my true mate had turned out to be a demon shifter by the name of Lilith. Eve had been nothing more than an infatuation. A temptation. One that I would forever be grateful for because if it hadn’t been for her, I would have never mether.
I looked back down at Jessica, who’d snuggled closer to me in her sleep. The heart that I was so sure I no longer had was practically bursting from my chest.
It was her.
I’d finally found my queen.
And this time, I would never let her go.
Chapter Fifteen
Jess
Limbo – Present
When I woke up, the first thing I noticed was the chill. I shivered in the blanket I was wrapped in, my eyes flicking open. I expected to find the view of my white popcorn ceiling. It was what I always woke to in the morning. So foggy confusion slipped into icy realization as my vision instead focused on old cobblestone covered in algae and dripping with stagnant water.
I wasn’t home.
Then it all came slamming back to me.
Siren’s, Lucifer, the contract, the kiss, the impromptu fingerfuck. My core clenched where the phantom sensation of the devil’s infernal touch between my thighs still lingered. My face burned hot as I remembered what I had let him do.
I had let the devil himself into my panties.
Then the bastard had knocked me out and kidnapped me.
Oh God, ohGod.
Melanie had warned me about this. She’d said that one day, if I wasn’t careful, Reckless Jess was going to take a sip of the wrong drink from the wrong guy and end up locked in some creep’s basement.
Only instead of some random serial killer’s basement, I had found myself in the devil’s… Well, wherever this was.
“You’re in Siren’s cellar, Kitten,” a voice called from nearby.
I twisted around on the old couch I’d been laid out on, screwing my eyes up to see through the dark. Sitting on a barrel with a glass of wine in hand was Lucifer. He had shed his suit jacket and unbuttoned the top two buttons of his collared shirt, leaving a window of his muscled chest exposed. He lounged there with one leg propped up on the barrel, his back leaning against the stone wall with his expression screwed up in a way that suggested he was actually worried about me.
Jerk.
“What the fuck, Lucifer?” I bolted upright on the couch, scanning Siren’s cellar for any other sign of life, maybe someone who could help me escape. But we were completely alone.
Siren’s cellar looked to be absolutely ancient, packed with barrels upon barrels of wine and by the age of the wood and the rust on the metal rings holding them together, they had to be older than this country. It looked less like an old church basement and more like an ancient crypt. It smelled old, like centuries-old mold and beneath that, the more pleasant fragrance of aged cedar and spiced wine.
