“Thank you for that brilliant insight. Did you think I had not noticed?” I try to extend my wings to their fullest, but the pain is too much.
“I think,” he says and plucks a single mangled feather from the stone, “you are trapped in a Hell of your own making. One I would gladly free you from if I knew how.”
His concern brings a lump to my throat. We were close once. Long before he was banished to the Underworld. He has not cared for anyone since. Or so I’d thought. Perhaps I was wrong.
With a snap of his fingers, he summons a gleaming black axe. The weapon is only as long as his forearm, but the power contained within could level cities.
“Hell’s weapons do not belong in the earthen realm. If it falls into the wrong hands, you will be the one to blame.”
I feel the weight of the burden as soon as I wrap my fingers around the handle. “I will guard it with my very existence, brother. Thank you.”
“Gabriel?” His call stops me before I can picture the Bureau’s conference room in my mind. “My Hellions are investigating the breach that freed Thorn and his concubine. I will find those responsible and consign them to an eternity of torment so vile, no one has ever experienced its equal.”
Lucifer is many things. An ass, a prankster, and a terrible poker player, among others. But he does not lie. It goes against his very nature.
“Being banished to the depths of Hell was the Almighty’s punishment for a crime the likes of which you cannot fathom,” he says. “If she finds out I failed, my existence is over. Evenyoucannot hate me that much.”
“I do not hate you at all. I never have.” With the axe tucked under my arm, I hold his gaze. “The Almighty does not hold grudges, Lucifer.”
He shakes his head. “No, she doesn’t. But Seraphiel does.”
Willow
No matter how many times Sinclair and Zoe assure me the Bureau is warded, I can’t shake the feeling someone’s watching me. It crawls up and down my spine, simmering in my blood like something frigid and evil is about to escape.
My whisper comes and goes. I wish we could talk. She hasn’t pulled me into her consciousness since we absorbed the power of the Blade, and I’m starting to wonder if she ever will again.
“I should not have let him go,” Sinclair mutters. “Lucifer cannot be trusted.”
Zoe looks up from her notebook and narrows her eyes at her partner. “You’re not helping. Why don’t you go grab us some tacos? Willow is probably starving. I know I am.”
I don’t think I could eat if my life depended on it. But Zoe’s stomach growls loudly.
“You swear you will not leave the building?” Sin asks. The tremor of fear in his voice is jarring. I know I only met him last night, but this doesn’t seem like him at all.
Zoe frames his face with her hands. “Dion is home. Behind wards so strong, even Gabriel would have a hard time bypassing them. I won’t go anywhere. I promise.”
“I will be back in twenty minutes. Call me if you hear from Mad and Killian.”
A private moment passes between them, and I look away. This isn’t just love. It’s something more. Something so beautiful and perfect, it makes me ache.
The door shuts with a quiet click. “Sorry about that,” Zoe says. “He still thinks what happened to me—to us—was his fault.”
I must look as confused as I feel, because the color drains from Zoe’s cheeks.
“You don’t know. Shit. I didn’t even think… Of course you don’t know.” She goes to the little coffee station and brews two fresh cups, then sinks down into the chair next to me. “Several weeks ago, I was kidnapped by a full-blood incubus and his fae lover. They used my friend, Dion, as bait to get to me. I’d promised Sin I wouldn’t leave BOO without him, but when Dion called…I didn’t have a choice.”
The exhaustion in her eyes mirrors my own. But behind it, there’s something more. Sorrow so deep, it goes on forever. “They went after her to get to me. Fae…” She cups her mug in both hands, and even then it wobbles a little. “A fae’s command is impossible to resist. Thorn would torture his victims until their minds were nearly gone, then Regina would bring them—us—back so he could break us completely.”
Turning, she gathers her red curls into one hand and sweeps them off her neck. A tattoo of a fairy bound in chains glows on her skin. “That mark gave him complete control of us. Body and mind. It’s spelled, and there’s nothing I can do to remove it.”
“Oh, God. I’m sorry...” If I knew Zoe better, I’d hug her. The regret and pain in her voice breaks my heart.
“Sin is so overprotective because he wasn’t here to protect me that night. I don’t think he’lleverforgive himself, even though it wasn’t his fault. If he had been here, Thorn could have taken us both, and we might not have survived at all.” She shakes off the haunted look in her eyes and forces a smile. “I’m sorry for dumping all that on you at once. But you need to know how serious BOO is about security. And why.”
“Dion is the one Gabriel called to bring me these clothes.” I run my hands up and down my thighs, wishing I had a friend who cared for me as much as Zoe obviously cares for Dion.
“She’s a panther shifter. When this is all over, I’ll introduce you. You’ll love her.”
