The pet nodded absentmindedly, as if he didn’t actually care, then stepped back into his room. Before he could close the door and do hell only knew what, Lucille snatched his hand, forcing him back.
“Aspen’s coming with.”
Alexei frowned. “He wasn’t invited.”
“Lucille, I’ll be?—”
“He is now,” she said with steel in her voice, cutting off the pet.
I moved toward my room, quite done with this conversation. Before I made it two steps, Alexei grabbed my arm.
“Well then Ronen’s coming too.”
“I can’t. I have things to do.” Many, in fact.
He stepped in front of me, putting his back to Lucille. “You’re going to let her leave the castle without you with the new infection out there?” he murmured under his breath.
Fuck him. And me too, for allowing thoughts of them together to overshadow her safety.
“A quick session,” I warned. Lucille would benefit from training her powers, but I still had a military to run and infected to find.
“Agreed.” Alexei grinned.
“I’ll meet you at the barn. Bring MJ,” I ordered as I left to change. I’d need the buffer, seeing as Alexei was determined to push me over the edge.
Chapter
Sixteen
Ronen
Normally, ice didn’t bother me. At least not anymore. When I first sought sanctuary here, I’d detested every second of it, having no shelter and no Hellmarks to pay for a room. I became quite acquainted with suffering. In fact, at the time I’d desired it, feeling as if it was well deserved. Eventually, my body couldn’t take the frigid temperatures, and I was forced to find other sleeping arrangements. So the cliff next to the Eternal Forest became my home. To this day, I still preferred the ground beside the starry lake over the luxurious bed in the castle. My back didn’t always think so, but I found peace there.
In the last couple days, I’d started to despise ice again. First, Lucille threw it in my face to keep me out, not once, but twice. Second, it had ripped through the circle, making it difficult to search for the infected and Cecilee. Third, it now entirely encased Lucifer’s chambers, along with the doors to the Hall of Judgment.
This was not the sound reasoning I’d expected from him. I thought the end of the blizzard and the warm shower I had just taken meant progress.
For fuck’s sake. What was this?
At least a foot of ice barricaded the doors. It’d be no simple feat to break them down. Could I do it? Yes. Did I have the time? No.
I thought it a courtesy to tell Lucifer I was going to send the missives he should’ve already sent to our citizens. I thought he’d at least care enough to do that, seeing as he wasn’t helping with any of our other problems. I understood it had only been five days since Saraqael’s death, but he didn’t just stop being the King of Hell. We needed him. If he continued to ignore me and everyone else, I’d break down his barriers, if only to make sure he was still fucking breathing.
I shouldn’t have to be his damned babysitter nor be burdened by the weight of his kingdom. But who else was going to care as much? This dimension was my future. Even if I wanted to go to Heaven when I died, I never would. That was the cost of the Obscurus Rune hidden in my tattoos. That was the cost of Etan never finding me.
Stepping out of the castle with Rune, warmth hit my face and sent my uniform into a cooling mode. I stilled.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
The snow covering the sparse evergreens bordering this side of the castle slowlymelted. Last night it snowed. I remembered Lucifer’s blizzard dying down. But to transition to this? It had to be at least forty-five degrees out. Hell never approached a temperature higher than freezing. This was unnatural. Wrong.
I cringed as snow squelched beneath my boots on my way to the barn, spraying Rune’s legs. She tried to nip at me in retaliation, and I moved to the side.
“You could walk ahead of me if you’re so concerned about dirtying your peach fuzz.”
She snapped her large canines together and growled, refusing to move as I suggested. Ever since the hellion entered our lives, Rune had tried to be the perfect Soulhound—around her. She groomed what little fur she had daily, like a Hellcat before she saw her. She curled into a sweet little ball as she slept next to her, unlike the sprawled monster she was in my bed. Oh, and she never ate in front of the hellion—unless it was the cured meat thrown at her. Meat, I might add, that made Rune’s stomach ache and gave her no sustenance.
“She’s going to find out soon that you’re not just a sweet,cleanly groomed princess like you’re trying to portray. You’ve already misstepped once,” I chided, remembering the hellion mentioning the way Rune ate the infected Damned.
