Ronen #3
Lucille didn’t have an Obscurus Rune carved into her skin as I did.
If she exposed herself and our gates opened, releasing souls and blood-banded, they could tell the council or Michael.
She’d no longer be safe here. And even if an Obscurus Rune could help hide her from those who’d talk, it came at a high price—one Lucifer and I had both agreed she wouldn’t pay.
So what the fuck went through his head?
I reached Lucifer’s rooms and banged my fist against the dark wood.
“Leave, General Ronen,” Lucifer ordered, his voice muffled and strained.
Of course he knew it was me. No one else would dare bang on his door.
“Let me in, Lucifer,” I growled, glaring at the ice sealing his doorknob.
“I said leave!”
“I want answers!”
Rustling and clanging sounded on the other side before he whipped open the door. My fist paused midair.
Lucifer wore a red-and-black sleeping robe with the hood up. His eyes were bloodshot and veiny. It was a sight I’d never seen before. Then again, I rarely stormed to his chambers this late. And it was just after his ex-cordistella’s funeral, no less.
“Answers about what?” he asked sharply.
Words failed me as I realized what I was doing. I’d stormed down here in a rage, about to confront him about his daughter. He didn’t know about our bond, but he sure would if I kept going down this path, and I wasn’t ready to see how he’d react.
Not after I had debriefed him about our unsanctioned mission to Lilith. I don’t think I’d ever forget how my body had seized with dread when I realized he had figured out the truth.
My breath fogged around me as I walked into Lucifer’s hall. It was the first bad sign. The second came in the form of ice coating his door. I lingered in front of it, my fist unwilling to rise.
I knew what waited for me on the other side.
It would be worse than what I had just left.
Although, remembering the hellion’s puffy red eyes and watching as her body shook while she cried into her pillow, I wasn’t so sure.
Her waves of grief were so strong, I had to add an extra layer of shadows to my block just to keep her out.
What would Lucifer be like now that his ex-cordistella was dead?
I knocked.
“Enter, General,” he said through the door.
Gooseflesh prickled down my spine. His tone sounded normal—cold, but not more than usual. The frost melted on the door handle, and I took a deep breath before entering.
Frost consumed every inch of his sitting area, his black and red colors smothered in white. Even the furniture glinted with frost crystals. And the door to his bedroom… At least a foot of ice covered it.
She was in there. Barricaded in. Dead.
“Report, General.” Lucifer sat back in his desk chair, his suit immaculate, his white hair styled, hands steepled, expression patient. To say his composure unnerved me was an understatement.
I recapped everything that had happened in the Tenebrous Kingdom, doing as much as I could to take the blame. I was the general. I should’ve demanded Lucille bring us back instead of following her. Every death, wound, and action fell on my shoulders.
Lucifer listened—not interrupting, not moving, not blinking—but a second coating of frost crackled across the ground, and my fingers turned white from the dropping temperature.
Once I finished, his chair creaked as he stood.
He slowly walked toward me, boots tapping against the icy floor.
The rings in his eyes glowed with restrained fire.
He stopped in front of me, and an icicle grew in his palm. I straightened, my shadows skimming just below my skin.
He held out his empty hand. “Give me Tsal-mawet.”
It took all my self-control not to frown. Out of everything I had just said, his first response was to ask for Tsal-mawet?
I eyed his icicle and removed the black dagger from my belt, then handed it over.
Lucifer squeezed the dagger in his palm and turned. “Ready your feather for after Saraqael’s funeral. We’re performing the Unmaking Ceremony.”
Why would he want to perform the Unmaking Ceremony right after her… Then it hit me.
“You know.”
That was why his grief wasn’t completely ruining him. He had found a way to be with Saraqael. He’d figured out the Unmaking Ceremony would kill him.
He wanted me to be king.
He wanted me to go through the process of changing my soul, stealing my wings, and severing my cordistella bond. It was the deal we had made from the beginning. A deal I had agreed to. But a deal I no longer wanted to go through with.
I may have scorned the cordistella bond before. I had pushed the hellion away because of it. Yet the mere thought of the bond being stripped from me pooled in my stomach like scorching liquid ore and solidified around all my organs.
A vehement response sat on my tongue. The wrong one. The one I couldn’t say to the King of Hell, who owned my soul. But I was going to. If I opened my mouth, I wouldn’t be able to say anything else.
So I left.
“General?” Lucifer spat, jerking me from the memory.
“Your plan for the infection. Lilith’s death clearly didn’t stop it. What are your orders?”
His pale face reddened. The tendons in his neck tightened, his nostrils flaring.
Did my question anger him?
He grabbed my collar and jerked me forward. “You must train them all and find a cure before it spreads.”
Then he shoved me away and slammed the door in my face.
It was already spreading.