“Then we were looking for a rift to the human world Belial created and blamed on you,” Sariel adds with a grin. “Ended up in the Malebolge where I made a Heavenly angel fall with my dick.”
“Sariel!” the angel next to him hisses, his pale face now red with embarrassment.
“I contributed,” the reddish-blonde girl between them says, waving at me with her fingers.
“Yeah,” my nephew drawls. “With your pu?—”
“Silence,” Ashtaroth says, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I do not care if you have consorts now. You can still spend the night in the dungeon without the ether.”
I laugh at Sariel mimicking locking his mouth and throwing away the key.
“Where is Simone?” Ashtaroth’s redhead asks, speaking for the first time. Her body is so tense, she’s nearly vibrating. “Lucifer showed us a vision of the two of you in cages.”
An iron fist squeezes my chest at the sound of her name, but I try to keep my tone neutral. “She is at our home by the Lethe. She’s well.”
I’m not sure if I fully managed to keep the bitterness out of my voice.
“Can I see her?” the Nephalem—I believe my consort called her Lana—asks.
“Yeah,” Naamah’s consort adds.
“Me too,” Sariel’s says.
I swallow hard, trying to smile at them. “As long as she welcomes your presence, you may visit us.”
“Is she still pregnant?” my daughter asks curiously. My smile becomes more genuine as I nod at her. “Wonderful,” she continues. “Our demonlings can grow up together.”
Her consort visibly pales at the worddemonlings, his eyes lost and unfocused. I’m not sure he knows what he’s getting himself into with my daughter.
“Should we move to a sitting room?” Lana suggests, obviously already comfortable in her role in his court. “We have a lot to talk about.”
I acquiesce with a tilt of my head, letting her and my brother lead the way. I may be an archdemon with my own vast territory, but this isn’t my court.
“Where is Armaros?” I ask my nephew when he files in beside me.
Sariel’s face drops, and I even see my brother’s back straighten in front of us. Something is very wrong.
“Has Andras checked in?” my nephew asks instead of answering me.
I blink at him. Most of my lieutenants were confined to my ziggurat by Sataniel, starving and pissed off, but I haven’t seen Andras among them. Honestly, I haven’t given him much thought.
“No,” I say carefully. “Why? Where is he?”
“Somewhere in the human world,” Sariel says. “Aim is looking for him.”
“But why?”
We’re interrupted by a loud clang ahead, followed by Ashtaroth’s consort hissing, “Puck! Drop that!”
“Why do you need Andras?” I add impatiently, not letting the little hurricane imp derail the conversation.
Ashtaroth sighs. He takes the head of the table, gesturing to his left for me. Once I sit down, he finallyfills me in.
“Andras defected, Asmodai. He joined Belial in his quest for supremacy. Killed Armaros. Nearly killed my son’s consort.”
I need a few seconds to process the information. “What?” I manage in the end. “Andras? Was I gone for a century?”
“I’m sure they’ve been plotting longer than that,” Sariel says through clenched teeth. “The Elioud in Purgatory? All their doing. Whispering to the Council, putting events into motion, setting the scene.”
