Chapter 30
CHAPTER THIRTY
SAMARA
Raphael waited until after breakfast to tell me he’d gotten a message from his contact. My stomach twisted at the thought of Nico locked up somewhere and Amari hurt. And Val... what was his role in all of this?
The food I’d eaten churned in my stomach as I followed Raphael into his backyard. He said we’d need to fly somewhere safer to enter Hell.
I wasn’t sure how I felt about that, but I didn’t have many options if I wanted to go home.
“You’re quiet. Too quiet.” Raphael’s wings snapped out, and my attention was on something other than worry.
“Sweet baby hell serpents.” I reached out to touch his feathers.
He jerked backward, his wings snapping tighter against his back as he practically launched himself skyward. For a split second, he was suspended above the ground before his feet touched down again several yards away.
“Don’t touch them.” He sounded almost panicked.
“Well, then.” I kicked at the ground and adjusted the straps on my backpack, which was rather heavy with my contraband. “Let’s get this over with so I can get to my men.”
“Your men… there are four.” It wasn’t a question but a statement of fact.
Heat crept up my neck. How did I explain that tangled mess of desire and feelings? That my heart belonged to Nico, but I felt an undeniable pull toward Val and Amari? That I barely knew Kage, but knowing he was there gave me comfort?
Raphael’s voice cut through my spiraling thoughts. “You don’t need to explain your love life to me. You got off on my leg moaning their names. Pretty clear to me.”
I wanted the ground to swallow me whole. “I didn’t get off.”
Why had I said that? What was wrong with me?
“Shall we?” His wings unfurled again, and he watched me closely for any wayward hand tempted to stroke them. “I’ll need to hold you while we fly.”
I nodded, and his arm wrapped around my waist, pulling me against his chest. I tried not to think about how solid he felt.
Suddenly, he let go of me and spun me around so fast I got dizzy. “What do you have in here?”
Before I could answer, he unzipped my backpack. Laughter burst from him, and I spun back around, pulling the bag to my front to close it.
“You’re stealing my soap?” He was laughing so hard that he wiped his eyes. “What do you need twenty bars of soap for? Don’t they have soap in Inferna?”
I put the backpack on, not bothering to return his soap. “They do, but I like the smell, and I carve soap.” The words came out defensive, which only annoyed me more. Why did I care what he thought?
“You carve soap?” His eyebrows shot up. “Do you underwater basket weave too?”
The mockery in his tone made my jaw clench. Of course he’d make fun of it. Everyone did at first. It was easier to dismiss something than to understand why someone might need it.
My fingers curled into fists at my sides. “Just for that, I’m not going to carve you one.”
“Oh, no, that completely ruins my decade.” He pressed a hand to his chest in mock despair, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
I turned away from him, focusing on adjusting the straps of my backpack again, even though they didn’t need to be. The most infuriating part of it was that I didn’t want to punch him.
I wanted to kiss him.
Had I turned into a succubus demon?
He grabbed me around the waist again, and this time we went airborne. Everything was a blur, and before I could give him a piece of my mind about warning a girl next time, we landed on a roof.
I gasped as I took in the vast expanse of water. Not because his fingers dug into my waist.
“That’s the Pacific Ocean. Usually, we land in Lucifer’s backyard, but I thought you might like to see it.”
He was giving me whiplash. One minute he was a complete asshole asking me if I had tentacles growing out of my pussy and making fun of my soap carving, and the next he wanted me to see the ocean.
It was beautiful. The ocean. Not him.
Definitely not him with his muscular arms and his gorgeous wings that quickly disappeared.
“Ready?”
I snapped out of my thoughts and had barely completed my nod before we were there.
We landed on a bed, and I wobbled on unsteady feet before I fell, taking Raphael down with me.
He didn’t move to get off me and smirked. “I never considered this as a tactic to get a woman under me.”
“Aren’t you scared my tentacles are going to get you?” I shifted under him since the soap was digging into my back.
“I’ll take that chance.” He looked at my lips before his eyes snapped to mine, narrowing slightly. “What are you?”
I’d never met someone who got under my skin as much as he did, and I wanted to scream. The worst part was how aware I was of every point where our bodies touched.
I wanted to shove him off but also wanted to pull him closer. Why were my brain and body making everything so complicated?
“A demon who carves soap. Are we going to lie here like this all day or figure out just how stupid I’ve been to trust a vampire?”
There had to be some explanation for why Val’s father had sent his guards after us and locked Nico and Amari in his dungeon. The question was, why wasn’t Val locked up with them?
Raphael rolled off me, then extended his hand. I stared at his offered palm for a beat. Taking his hand felt like admitting something, so I pressed my palms against the mattress and pushed myself upright, ignoring the flicker of amusement that crossed his face.
I brushed imaginary dust from my clothes, needing something to do with my hands that didn’t involve touching him. “Where are we?”
I looked around the room. It was all dark wood and dark bed linens and had a faint masculine scent. It was definitely a man’s room.
“Lucifer’s lair. Well, it used to be.” He opened the bedroom door and stopped to wait for me.
I purposely hit him with the bag of soap as I passed by. “So, we’re inside the gates of Hell? I heard rumors it’s a really large estate with a small village.” I followed him down the stairs and down a corridor.
“That’s correct.” Was that all he was going to tell me?
We entered a large kitchen, and a man walked in from another door. His eyes flashed black when he saw me but then returned to normal. I recognized he was an incubus demon immediately.
Raphael greeted the incubus with a handshake. “Any news since you texted?”
I eyed the incubus demon warily. Most succubi and incubi demons couldn’t resist creating sexual tension and feeding off it. But there were no signs he was using his abilities on me or Raphael.
“I got word that a vampire released all the prisoners. One of the prisoners was dead.” His voice was all business.
I tried to calm the erratic beating of my heart. “Do you know which one?”
Alex turned his attention to me and bowed his head slightly. “Princess. I do not know who died. If you want to catch up with them, you should leave now.”
Raphael nodded. “I’m going to take some weapons. Thank you, Alex.”
“Before you go, I need a recharge.” Alex took out the same phone Raphael had and placed it on the counter.
I watched with wide eyes as Raphael put his hand on it, and the light flowed into it. “I need one of those!”
“No, you don’t.” Raphael removed his hand and turned to face me. “Let’s go.”
I gave Alex a polite nod and jogged after Raphael, who was already walking out. “What do you mean, no? I can talk to my brother!”
“You can’t walk around Inferna with a cellphone, Samara. In the wrong hands, it can do serious damage.”
“Oh? Will it put them in a trance like it does humans?”
He looked over his shoulder at me as he stopped in front of a metal door. “You noticed that?”
“It’s hard not to. Someone almost ran into me when we left the coffee shop because they were staring at it.” I demonstrated by staring at the palm of my hand without blinking.
“Exactly why you can’t have one. But I will put in a request for clearance for you to come here and contact your brother whenever you want.”
My eyes immediately filled with tears, and thankfully, Raphael turned his attention back to the door. He did something with his hand, and the door swung open.
I followed him inside the weapon room, and my attention was grabbed by a gleaming sword. “I’ll take this one.”
“Do you even know how to use it?” He strapped a sheath to his waist and sheathed a sword. He grabbed a few others and swung them over his shoulder by their straps.
“I’ve been alive a long time. Just because I carve soap doesn’t mean I can’t kick your ass.” I grabbed the sword and the sheath. “Do you know how to use your sword?” I looked at his crotch.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” he muttered under his breath as we walked out of the room.
Maybe the incubus had done something because suddenly, the desire to rip off his clothes and have him slam into me was overwhelming. I shook my head and let out a shaky breath.
I needed to focus. We didn’t know what we were about to walk into. But looking at the way his pants hugged his ass was a distraction from thinking about who had died. What if Nico or Amari had been killed?
Val better have a damn good answer for his involvement in this.
“I’ll need to hold you again.” Raphael stopped outside the door and waited for me to nod before he pulled me against him as his wings extended.
“They’ll see us coming.” My fingers settled on Raphael’s chest.
“I’ll conceal us.” He shot into the sky, flying toward Roseford.
Angels flew incredibly fast, and we made it to the village in no time. We circled overhead and immediately spotted a commotion in the center of the village.
We landed on a rooftop and took in the scene before us. There were several guards on the ground with their throats ripped out, and several others wielding their swords against Amari, Val, and another demon I was unfamiliar with.
Where was Nico?
Just as fear had taken hold, there was a flash of brown that darted between the guards’ feet. Nico scaled one and ripped out his throat before the man could even react.
“Is that a fucking squirrel?” He jumped down to the ground with me.
“There’s the princess!”