The game was over. We’d lost. So why was he letting us escape?
18
The Legion was waiting for us when we returned to Valac’s apartment. They all sat around the broken whiteboard, surly and annoyed. So much for their fallen angel hunt. If their scheme had succeeded, they’d be blasting music and clinking beers.
“What’s going on?” I glanced around the silent room.
“Ask him.” Phenex nodded toward Az, sighing. “He called the whole thing off before we even had a chance to threaten a single asshole into giving us information.”
“I can’t believe we wasted Mia’s date,” Bael muttered. “We could have gotten these arseholes while Lucifer was preoccupied.”
“How was the date, anyway?” Caim asked, lifting his brows. “You’re back earlier than I thought you’d be.”
My lips flattened. “It wasn’t exactly a successful date.”
“Uh oh.” Phenex folded his arms and leaned back in his chair. “What’d he do? Force you to drink some blood or something?”
Az and I exchanged a heavy glance. I didn’t know how to tell them how badly we’d failed. Their futures had depended on my ability to play the game, and I’d fucked it up by chasing after Az. Hell, I’d fucked it by going on the date in the first place.
The King knew that Az’s Legion had turned against him. He would not let this betrayal go unpunished.
“Did anyone happen to notice it’s a full moon?” I asked in a small voice.
Stolas furrowed his brows and glanced out the window. His lips parted. “Oh, fuck.”
“Oh fuck is right,” I said. “We all thought he would try to trip me up on the date—and he did—but the real test was whether I’d even go. Since I’m not a werewolf, I didn’t even think about the damn moon. It never even occurred to me. And Serena has been so busy with work lately that I haven’t spoken to her all day.”
“Dammit.” Phenex jumped to his feet and stormed over to the nearest wall. He hauled back his fist and slammed it clean through the paint.
Valac loosed a very long and very weary sigh from his ever-present spot in the corner. “You will be paying for that.”
Phenex whirled toward him, vicious anger in his eyes. “I won’t be paying for a damn thing, Valac. Don’t you get it? This won’t be our home for much longer. Lucifer is going to force us back to Hell and sentence us to decades of torture. Your pretty little walls don’t matter anymore.”
My heart skipped a beat. “Torture?”
“Oh, yeah.” Phenex huffed. “You think he’d just let this go? He will remind of us who we are and what our purpose is. And he will do whatever it takes to strip our fondness for humanity away from us. He’ll make us return to our base forms, and I don’t know about the rest of you, but the demon I was once was horrifies me.”
Tears bubbled up in my eyes. Phenex’s words rocked me. Their fate had been in my hands, and what had I done? Knees buckling, I slid to the ground. My words came out a whisper. “I am so sorry.”
“Mia.” Caim was by my side in an instant. He wrapped his powerful arms around me and pulled me against his chest. “This is not your fault. You can’t blame yourself.”
“Isn’t it?” I peered up at him through blurry eyes. “I had one job. Keep Lucifer occupied. Play my role as Sansa, the wolf.”
“We all missed the full moon, Mia. Priyanka and Ramona did, too,” he said gently. “We’ve been a part of the supernatural world a lot longer than you have, and if anyone should have spotted it, it should have been us. Not you.”
I shook my head and pulled back. “I still would have messed it up. Something else happened...”
I couldn’t bear to say the rest, so Az told the story. When he got to the part about flying away, everyone groaned. Even Valac.
“So, we’re fucked,” Phenex said. “Well and truly fucked.”
“Not quite,” Az said with a calmness that defied logic. “Isn’t anyone curious where I’ve been all day?”
I perked up a little at that. His absence had been strongly felt at the meeting, despite how easily the others had tried to shrug it off. I might be the newest member of the crew, but I knew it wasn’t normal for Az to miss something as important as a serial killer hunting session. He’d been determined to take down the culprit for well over a year.
And after that coin they’d left behind...it was personal.
“Mia here was convinced you were with Eisheth,” Caim said with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. He was still rocked by the news we’d failed. I didn’t blame him.
