“You know you did,” Sin said, temper giving his voice an edge.
Lucifer shrugged. “Yes, well, you’re going to want to hear what I have to say. And from what I overheard, it’s obvious you weren’t coming up with any winning strategies on your own, so allow me to swoop in and save the day.”
“Don’t you think you’ve done enough already?” Malice asked.
“Whatever do you mean?”
“We wouldn’t be in this mess if you hadn’t set your sights on Merri in the first place,” I snarled.
“That was destiny, my dear Chaos. I had no hand in that. Merri and I were fated to be together.”
“Just as the four of you are meant to be mine,” she added, easing some of my jealousy.
Lucifer waved a hand as if that was entirely irrelevant. “Regardless of who has the most legitimate and true claim,” Lucifer fake coughed and added under his breath, “It’s me,”before coughing again and returning to his normal volume, “I know how we can stop this.”
“Stop what? The pregnancy?” Merri protectively cupped her belly. “I already told you that’s not an option.”
She hadn’t actually said those words, only that it was her decision, but something about hearing them now filled me with fierce pride.
Lucifer leveled his gaze on her and offered a placating smile. “No, crabapple, the apocalypse.”
“Why do you suddenly care about stopping it?” I asked, suspicion heavy in my tone as I crossed my arms over my chest.
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“No.”
Lucifer rolled his eyes. “I have a mate and a little one on the way.”
“That never seemed to matter to you before,” Malice pointed out.
“I know, color me surprised, but here we all are. Who knew I could be such a bleeding heart?”
“Stop grandstanding. How do we end it, Morningstar?” Grim bit out.
“We have to unmake the one who started it.”
“What?” Merri asked, removing herself from Sin’s grasp and joining me as I faced off with Lucifer. “You know how to do that?”
Lucifer sat in the armchair near the fireplace and leaned forward, elbows on his knees, fingers steepled. “There’s always a failsafe, even during an apocalypse.”
“And you’re just conveniently mentioning this now?” I accused, not trusting a word coming out of him.
“It didn’t exactly behoove me to mention it before.”
“But when your brothers asked, you said we couldn’t put the toothpaste back in the tube,” Merri said, her brows furrowed over stormy eyes.
“So maybe I fibbed a little. Sue me.”
“What happened to not being a liar?” she snapped.
His eyes were unreadable when they lifted to hers. Realizing we were about to get off track, I dove in. “What’s the failsafe, Lucifer?”
“Well, that’s the thing. It’s like that stuffy vampire Gavin said. You have to unmake the one who started it. And to be fair, I didn’t know how to unmake someone, so it wasn’t a viable solution anyway, but now that I have access to the book, that’s no longer an issue.” He cracked his knuckles and sighed. “You’re welcome.”
A heartbeat passed before the meaning behind his words became clear. Then I lunged forward, lifting him out of his seat with a single hand. “Allow me,” I growled, the room quaking as power snaked out of me.
“Oh no,” Grim crooned, his shadow form looming large. “This sounds like Death’s domain.”
