“Yeah. He’s my boyfriend,” Drew said.
“Do you meanZachariel?”
“He said he’d never met you. How do you know about him?”
“I am the Prince of Hell, Drew Phillips. Do you honestly believe an angel could fall here with his wings intact without me knowing about it? I kept a close eye on Zachariel during his time here.”
“You knew? So you knew he’d been sent here by accident and you did nothing about it?” Drew was aghast.
Lucifer’s presence suddenly got a lot more overpowering, and Drew felt like it was wrapping around him, slowly crushing him. An image of a boa constrictor flashed through his mind, and he gasped for breath, suddenly terrified. It was getting harder to breathe; the weight of the surrounding air was so very heavy. It was all he could concentrate on, so it took Drew a long moment to realize his mistake.
He’d made Lucifer angry.
“Are you implying you know how to run my realm better than I?” Lucifer asked in a deadly voice.
Drew shook his head, and it felt sluggish and slow. He fought to drag in enough air so he could speak, and it came out in a hoarse whisper. “No! No, of course I wouldn’t do that.” The pressure on his lungs eased a little, and he gave a nervous laugh. “I’m sure that would be an instant trip to see your torture chamber.”
“Do not test me, Drew Phillips,” Lucifer warned. “I do not forgive easily.”
He nodded, eyes earnest. “Message received. Sorry.” He ducked his head in submission, waiting to see what would happen next.
Finally, the tension in the room eased the rest of the way. Lucifer’s presence was still noticeable, but not as dangerous now. “You were telling me about how you met Zachariel,” he prompted amiably.
Drew took a deep breath before expelling it, mentally chastising himself for dropping his guard. Lucifer had been so polite and courteous up until now that Drew had gotten way too comfortable with the conversation. Heneeded to watch his step. “So, yeah. I was making dinner one night and instead of soup, I ended up with Zach in my kitchen instead. Turns out, my Grammy’s cookbook was actually a spellbook in disguise, and I had no idea.”
“Interesting,” Lucifer said, but didn’t elaborate.
“Uh, anyway, Zach was the one who told me I could do magic. We found a local wizard who said he could help me find the spell to send Zach back. By the time Oberon turned up—” He paused, and Lucifer nodded to show he was well aware of who Oberon was. “By then we’d developed feelings for one another, and I’d told Zach I’d do what I could to help break his bonds to Oberon. There was a big fight, but I managed to free Zach, and then some angels turned up and took Oberon away.”
Lucifer narrowed his eyes. “Youbroke the bond Oberon held over Zachariel?”
“Yes?” Drew said, wondering if he was close to being thrown into the viper pit again.
“With hardly any magical experience? You broke such a powerful spell by a higher angel?”
“Well, it’s not like I knew what I was doing,” Drew admitted. “He’d used a gem of some sort, and I kind of . . . overloaded it with magic?” To this day, Drew still wasn’t entirely sure how he’d managed it without killing Zach in the process.
Lucifer shook his head in amazement. “Absolutelyfascinating.”
Chapter 25
Halt! Who goes there?
Kensington had teleported them to just outside the palace grounds, behind a small red hill. They’d crawled to the top and were lying on their stomachs, watching and trying to come up with a plan of attack. The urco was lying half on top of Zach, and it had taken a long moment to convince him this wasn’t playtime but serious time.
“I’m guessing there’re wards preventing you from teleporting us directly inside?” Zach said, as he watched a demon walk along the top of the cream stone wall encircling the grounds. He could sense some of the warding, which seemed to be comprised mostly of alarms for unauthorized access, but as he wasn’t able to teleport himself, he couldn’t sense anything that would prevent that.
Kensington nodded. “Of course.”
“So we’ll have to rely on stealth?” Cavendish said, and he sounded doubtful. Zach couldn’t help but agree with the sentiment. They weren’t espionage or extraction experts. When they’d come to Hell, they’d not been expecting this.
“What else would you propose?” Tremblay asked with a hint of a sneer. “That we simply walk up and ask for the prisoners to be released?”
Hurt flashed across Cavendish’s features, and he seemed to shrink in on himself. Zach could only imagine how horrible it must be to discover your mentor was an absolute asshole and not as supportive as they’d made themselves out to be.
Kensington hummed. “Actually . . .”
Zach turned to see him looking thoughtful. “What are you thinking?”
