“You can let me go. I’m fine.” Ash’s voice drifted in from the back of the building.
“You’re fine because I’m holding you,” Chaos replied as they came into view.
Ash’s gaze locked with mine, and her expression turned feral, her brow slamming down over her eyes, her lip pulling into a sneer. “What are you doing in my office?”
“Helping you.” I stepped aside and gestured to the closet.
Ash flailed, kicking her legs and attempting to twist in Chaos’s embrace. He kept her arms pinned to her sides, but it didn’t stop the fire from erupting on her skin. “I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you all,” she screeched.
Thankfully, demons were fireproof.
“This is for your own good, little witch.” Chaos shoved my sister into the closet and slammed the door before pinning me with a hard stare. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”
I slipped my hand into Mayhem’s, drawing on his energy one more time. “So do I.”
1
CINDER
I couldn’t tell you what I expected Hecate to be like, but ungrateful and wrathful weren’t even on the list of adjectives I’d have considered.
Full of disdain and royally pissed off at Discord, sure. That much I understood. But if she really wanted to mend the veil and get her amulet back, why in Hell’s name did she allow Seraphine…Isabel’s daughter…to get her windy little hands on me?
To say I was disappointed in the goddess would be an understatement. Disappointed in myself, even more so because I had actually considered following Seraphine willingly. What the eff had I been thinking? I’d been laser-focused on finding my parents and completely forgotten to use the big ball of noodles inside my skull.
I needed to get my head on straight, and as soon as I got out of this cyclone of doom, I’d do just that.
Seraphine’s tornado had picked up a ton of dirt and debris, swirling it around me and giving me the most intense exfoliating treatment I’d ever experienced. My arms and face felt like I’d tumbled down a waterslide made of sandpaper and landed in a pool of pine needles. I wasn’t spinning in circles like the wind, thankfully, but if my feet didn’t hit the ground soon, we could add whatever I’d last eaten to the debris field whirling around me.
My stomach lurched, and I burped. It tasted like sulfur, sharp and pungent.
Finally, after being jerked out of Discord’s grasp, dragged out of the underground chamber, and whirled to Hecate knew where, Seraphine released her hold and dropped me to the ground.
My knees buckled, and I stumbled, catching myself on my hands before I could face-plant onto a rock. My palms scraped across the basalt, my skin tearing, reminding me about the lovely pain amplification feature of this goddess-forsaken realm. Ouch.
I scrambled to my feet and spun in a circle, igniting flames in my bloodied hands, but Seraphine was gone. She’d dropped me into a massive, circular pit with fifty-foot walls soaring all around me. Red sigils and purple stones glowed and glittered in the moonlight, and a tar pit bubbled and blooped, releasing puffs of steam that smelled worse than microwaved broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and dog farts combined.
An arched opening, blocked by a tungsten gate with a ginormous padlock, stood to my right, and a smaller arched passage, about four feet high, had been carved into the rock to my left. I paced toward the larger one, and my head spun. The entire pit gave off a funhouse effect, the stone floor sloping downward toward the center, where a grate covered what I could only assume was a drain.
Why in Hecate’s name would they need a drain in the middle of a… Oh no.
The smaller gate thunked and opened, screeching on its hinges as if it hadn’t moved in centuries. My heart pounded, my stomach twisted, and I tightened every muscle in my pelvic floor to keep from peeing my pants.
Something inside the tunnel squawked and thrashed. Chains rattled and locks groaned, but the view of the platform above was what chilled me to the core. Seraphine stood next to an ornate throne of bone, her hair rustling in an imaginary wind, a smug grin on her face, and malice in her eyes. Sitting on the throne…?
Yep. It was Lucifer himself.
“Eff me,” I muttered under my breath. “I swear I can’t catch a break.”
“Behold, my king.” Seraphine gestured grandly, and…did she really just say behold? “I present to you the gift of not only the pathetic witch’s skull, but the joy of watching her die.”
Sheesh. Dramatic much?
Black waves rippled through Lucifer’s hair, and he rubbed his thumb and forefinger against his chin. His nostrils flared as he eyed me, so I straightened my spine, lifting my chin in defiance. The corner of his mouth twitched, the ghost of a smile briefly crossing his lips before he turned toward Seraphine. “I assume Discord is waiting in the wings?”
She opened her mouth but missed a beat before she replied. “He’ll come for her.”
“And how, pray tell, will he find her? I haven’t used this stadium in centuries.” He steepled his fingers and returned his gaze to me.
