The ice had since melted from the tall stone walls and fixtures. Not even a drop of water soaked the plush carpets, as if he’d had a Power or Archangel dry them. Interesting.
I knocked on his new door, my shadows skimming just below the surface as I remembered how our last conversation ended and thought about Lucille and the gates.
“Enter, General.” His order carried teeth. Strength. A tone reminiscent of a time before Saraqael’s death.
Frost melted from the handle, and I strode in expecting… a fight? A drunk? A disheveled king rotting in his own stench? His sitting area covered in ice?
Instead, it was nothing I expected.
Lucifer sat behind his opulent desk like a king who had reclaimed his throne. His deep burgundy suit wrapped around his toned form, perfectly pressed, every button gleaming. His white hair lay styled, each strand willed into place. He ran a finger along his chin as he analyzed the books and scrolls covering his desk.
Istilled, and my shadows stirred. How could a sight both relieve me and churn my gut?
“I suppose the kitchen girl found you, then.” Lucifer slowly looked up and eviscerated me with disapproval. “Were you planning to report the blood-witch’s escape this afternoon? Tonight? Next week?”
“You knew?” I approached. Tsal-mawet rested on his desk beside books on the gates, Hell, and demons.
“I was starting to suspect. Her escape confirmed it.”
Since when?I wanted to snap.
But this wasn’t the drunk from before. His gaze was sharp, clear, like the moment he threw me from his rooms. Dominance and an unspoken challenge shuddered through the room, my breath clouding in front of me. His icy stare dared me to question him.
The last time I’d seen him, he’d been slurring his words. Now he appeared like nothing had happened in the last two weeks, and that same clarity sang within his ringed eyes.
“What tipped you off?” I asked.
And why didn’t he inform me?
Lucifer settled back in his plush leather chair, confidence slashing through his forced smile. “Did you know I gave Sam the key to the dungeons when you placed the infected down there? I wanted him to study them.”
“No, but I remember you ordered us to find a cure, then changed your mind.”
“Sam never gave me my key back. Said he accidentally spilled some blood-banded’s infected blood on it and it melted.”
“You didn’t believe him.” It wasn’t a question.
“No. So I tested him. I wanted to see how far he’d go. How deep his poison had spread. Seems our elite healer didn’t just steal my key and disobey my orders, but also took your blood and distributed it to the blood-witch in our dungeons.”
And how did he know all this? Did he watch it happen? Vanessa said Lucifer had used the servant passages, so it was plausible he had been spying.
But what motive could Sam have to betray us?
“I thought he was finding a damnedcure.” I clenched my jaw.
“He fooled you. I fooled you. Seems to be a running pattern, General.”
Fooled me?
Lucifer grinned. “Strike a nerve, General? Weren’t you ever suspicious as to why I’d stop a study that would help my kingdom?”
I lifted a brow as if to sayis that even a question?
Approval softened his cold expression.
He stood and prowled toward his bar, power and intention in each step. The crystal decanters that had been empty were now full and untouched. I pressed my tongue into my cheek when he picked up a glass.
“You found it suspicious and yet still believed I’d drink my duties away while my kingdom slowly perished and my cordistella lingered in my domain as a disembodied soul?” Smugness and disappointment battled within his tone. But no pain. His expression never changed when he mentioned Saraqael’s soul.
