Chapter 46
Forty-Six
“Luci,” Raphaela said, brushing her fingers against my back to try to calm me.
But I was anything but calm. Having her here was making me even crazier and more stressed out than I had ever been in my entire life.
Someone ripped Raphaela away from me. Dani slid her hand around Raphaela’s throat and pinned her to the wall. “What do you not understand about personal space, Raphaela?” she asked, drawing a finger down the column of her throat. “Lucifer asked you to stay away from him.”
Raphaela grasped Dani’s wrist, tugging harshly on it. “I—”
“I don’t care.” Dani squeezed her throat harder until Raphaela’s pale, milky skin turned purple. “You angels may think that Lucifer is the most horrid fallen angel to ever live, but Luci lets me deal with the things he doesn’t want to deal with. I get to clean up his mess in any way I want to.”
Dani placed a kiss below Raphaela’s ear, and Raphaela visibly shook.
“Dani,” I said, voice tight. “There’s no time for this. We have bigger problems than Raphaela.”
“She’s my only problem,” Dani said. “All these problems arose when she fell from Heaven … don’t you think that’s more than just a coincidence?”
“The Crucifix is gone,” I said through gritted teeth, trying to control my unusual anger.
Dani paused and looked at me with wide eyes. She dropped her hand from Raphaela’s throat, making Raphaela double over to catch her breath.
“What?” Dani whispered. She hurried past me and into the Chapel Room, circling the room in shock.
“How is it gone? Nobody can touch it, unless …” She turned on her heel toward Raphaela, nails lengthening into talons, eyes filling completely with darkness.
Within a moment, she had Raphaela pressed against the wall with her claws puncturing her skin and her tongue gliding against her teeth. “What did you do with it?”
“I didn’t …” Raphaela started, choking on her breath. “I didn’t d-do …”
I grasped Dani’s wrist in my hand and pulled her away. “She didn’t do it.”
“She had to have,” Dani growled at her, letting her demon take more and more control of her.
I pulled her away until her back was plastered against my chest.
But even the Devil couldn’t hold Dani back.
She was strong. Stronger than Biast. Stronger than all the Envies put together. Stronger than me.
She ripped herself out of my grip and stormed back toward Raphaela again. Eros appeared at the front of the hall, saw Dani’s aggression, and stepped in front of her before she could kill Raphaela this time.
Arms wrapping around her torso, he held her tightly to him, and with her brown hair a disheveled mess, she calmed down only slightly. He wrapped a hand around the front of her throat gently and whispered something into her ear.
Dani’s expression faded, though her eyes were still an intense black. She looked at me. “Don’t believe her lies, Lucifer. I know you’re smarter than that. If she didn’t take it, she knows who did.”
I pressed my lips together. “The Prophet,” I said. “From the Kingdom of Envy.”
Dani stared at me with a clenched jaw. “I don’t believe it for a second. It was Raphaela. It had to be Raphaela.”
“Come with me to Envy,” I said to her and Eros. “Get dressed. We’re going now.”
Eros guided a reluctant Dani back to the bedroom to dress for Envy. I followed after them when Raphaela grabbed my hand.
“What about me?”
I yanked my hand away from her. “You need to choose the kingdom you’ll join because you can’t stay here any longer.”
“I choose Pride.”
“Well, Pride doesn’t choose you. I never have, and I never will. Tonight is your last night ever in my kingdom.”