Chapter 8
Eight
There were far less demons here compared to earlier, but the party was still thriving. Tonia was standing on a table, dancing with Dani. Eros sat at the bar, shirtless, staring at her. When I walked out of the Lust Room, he gazed at me.
Dani noticed me walk by and grabbed my arm, begging me to come up and dance with her. Instead, I promised her that I would be seeing her and Eros very soon and excused myself.
Everi might be good at getting information, but I didn’t know how long it would take, and I didn’t really have the time.
The Crucifix still hung in the Chapel Room when I checked. My two guards stood before the room, flirting with a few of the Lust girls. But the Envies weren’t there. If they were, they’d be the stupidest people in all of Hell.
I approached a few Envies, lingering in a group outside of the palace. Their eyes, sour green.
I placed my hand on one of their shoulders, made her look me in the eye, and said, “I will give you a joss coin if you find me the Envies who left earlier and what they stole.”
Her eyes lit up at the word joss. She nodded her head and walked away from the group. Everyone else began talking about her. Then, in a moment, every one of them was off in different directions.
I sat on the edge of one of the stairs, grabbed the bottle of Vemon that I had brought down with me, and waited. A low wind howled through the night. They would be back in no time.
The doors behind me opened.
“Lucifer,” Dani said.
I gazed back at her, watching those legs walk down the stairs ever so slowly. She held Eros’s hand and dragged him along with her. I shuffled over, and she sat next to me. The scent of Passion Delight rolled off of both of them in waves.
“How have you enjoyed the party?”
She placed a hand just above my knee. “The party”—her voice was soft—“was amazing.”
“No poisoned drinks?”
She raised a brow, then slapped Eros on the chest. “Did you tell him about that Halloween party?”
Eros looked at me, then back at her.
I smirked at him. “You know Eros likes to tell me everything.”
Dani squeezed my leg. Like black canvases splattered with white specks, her eyes under this moonlight were nothing like I’d ever seen before. Her gaze shifted between us, but eventually landed on me.
Half angel, half demon sure did look good on her.
She brushed a stray piece of hair out of my face. “What’re you thinking about, Lucifer?”
“How good you would look on my throne.”
Her lips curled into a smirk. “I would, wouldn’t I?” She shoved my shoulder gently and sank into Eros. He wrapped an arm around her, his gaze fixed on me. “Too bad, Emeral—”
“Everi,” Eros corrected.
“Everi already owns your throne,” she joked.
Even Eros cracked a smirk. “How’d she get that out of you?”
I sipped my Vemon. “Eh, let her think what she wants. It keeps her out of my hair and, hopefully, out of my kingdom for a while.”
Dani wrapped her arms around herself, pushing her breasts together. “It’s so cold. I would never survive here.”
I chuckled. “Oh, you would get used to it.”
An Envy who had gone on the search came back with a smirk on his face.
I raised my brows. “Did you find anything at all for me?”
He nodded. “The three who left earlier are in Envy.”
“And what did they steal?”
He shook his head.
Another woman walked up, rubbing her hands together. “They ordered one of our own to steal a statue from the Garden.”
I cocked a smirk at her and tossed two joss coins in her direction.
The man stood there, eyes glowing green. The two began to bicker back and forth. I stood and looked down at Dani and Eros—the happy couple.
“Well, I shall get going.” My gaze traveled to Eros. “You have to come back more often.”
And with that, I took a short stroll to the Garden.
The Garden, made almost entirely out of ice, was my greatest accomplishment. It was where I had corrupted the first sinner—Eve—under that big block of ice shaped like a tree. Eve was immortalized in ice with an innocent expression on her face.
She was something to be immortalized. I had never met someone so set on being His perfect child, not even Adam. I had gone after Eve first because I always loved corrupting the most innocent ones.
An Envy was chipping away at one of the angels I had immortalized with Eve. I grabbed him by the neck, shook my head, and dragged him out of the Garden.
To the Chains we go.