Bad Blood (Hellhound Heat #3)

Prologue

Roxy

Gripping at the stone wall with bloody fingers, I slid and stumbled down the dimly lit hall, clutching the gaping wound across my side, and desperately tried to keep my insides from spilling out. Shrieks of rage and bloodcurdling roars echoed from the room behind me.

Oh gods.

Pressing the back of my bloody hand to my mouth, I retched violently. How could this be happening? My world had simply stopped turning.

I squeezed my eyes closed as images from that room, from what I just walked in on, flashed like a horror show through my mind.

I clung to the wall, forcing myself to stay upright.

I’d lost too much blood; my legs were on the verge of giving out.

Somehow, I managed to claw myself toward the staircase, calling Lucifer’s name.

My veins burned hot as I collapsed on the floor, unable to stay upright any longer, but as my blood drained from the gaping wound at my side and onto the stone floor, only ice remained.

“Roxy?” Lucifer’s voice sounded distant. His arms surrounded me as he scooped me up, carrying me into another room, and kicked the door shut behind us.

He laid me on the bed, and I blinked up at him, at the shadows dancing across his face from the candlelight and crackling fire in the hearth.

I opened my mouth, but the words wouldn’t come.

I couldn’t speak them out loud. His gaze slid to my side, to the mess there, then back up.

He didn’t ask me who had caused my injuries or what happened, he didn’t need to.

“Y-you sent me to that room,” I rasped. “You knew.”

“Yes,” he said without hesitation. “You needed to know the truth.”

His words pierced through my chest, and if I wasn’t busy holding my intestines inside my body, my hands would have been gripping my chest, because it hurt. It hurt more than being cut open with a blade made from blessed silver, burning and still eating at my flesh now.

A howl full of pain and rage echoed in the distance, and Lucifer’s yellow gaze met and held mine. For a moment, just a flicker of time, I thought I saw regret in their depths, but then it was gone.

The unmistakable sound of rustling wings had Lucifer spinning around, fury rolling off him. The angel stood just inside the room, holding a knife still dripping with my blood. The door slammed shut behind her. “Give her to me,” she demanded through clenched teeth.

“You can’t have her,” Lucifer said, his voice cold, deadly.

An earth-shattering roar exploded nearby, threatening to bring down this building. Seraphina was preventing Lothar from leaving her room, or trying to.

A smile curled Sera’s lips. “I’ll give you what you so badly want, Lucifer, even though you sent your hound to seduce, then steal it from me, and I will spare their lives, but I have conditions.”

“Spare their lives?” Lucifer vibrated with rage. “You think I’ll just stand by and allow you to harm them and do nothing? You overestimate your powers.”

She smirked. “Maybe, but if you succeed in killing me, you will make yourself a target. I may be a traitor, but unlike you, I am still one of them.” Her gaze sliced to me and she tilted her head to the side.

“But very well, you can keep her. Death would be too easy anyway. Give me the hound’s head, and I’ll give you your trinket. ”

“No,” I gasped, shaking so hard I had to clench my teeth. “Don’t hurt him. Don’t—”

“Even after what he did? You still love him, don’t you?” Evil glee filled her eyes. “Fine. Here is my final offer. I will give you the gem, Lucifer, and you and your throne will be safe, at least for now. But only if you give me the biggest quadrant in Hell, make a place for me here, and—”

“What more do you think you deserve, Sera?” he said, ice dripping from his voice.

“I deserve compensation for the way you treated me. You tried to manipulate me, steal from me.” She slid her thumb over her bloody lip. “You sent one of your precious little play things to attack me.”

“You already know you’ve lost. Providing you with refuge would be a kindness, one you do not deserve,” Lucifer said.

She shook her head. “Maybe, but it’s the only way I’ll hand over this…

” A small, intricately carved wooden box appeared in her hand.

“You can’t leave Hell to chase me all over the realms, Lucifer, and as long as I have this, you’ll be looking over your shoulder.

All it would take is a whisper in the right ear, an enemy, a disgruntled demon willing to do my bidding—”

Lucifer snarled.

“Give me my quadrant, and—” She smiled, her gaze darting to me and lighting with glee. “—make the hound forget he ever loved her. Make him forget who Roxana is to him. Let her suffer unrequited love for eternity, and the prize is yours.”

The roaring and snarls reached new levels. Lothar had busted out of Sera’s room and was at our door now, and the sound of his huge body colliding with it, over and over again, made me jolt and tense. The only reason he hadn’t gotten through was because Lucifer was preventing it.

“You dare to threaten what is mine?” Lucifer said.

“Hurting what you love, hurts you.” Her gaze hardened. “And oh, how I’d love to cause you pain.”

Seraphina wasn’t strong enough to kill Luci, but she still held in her possession something that could.

The threat to Lucifer, to his throne, would never be gone if he let her leave with that box.

Sera was desperate for power, and the rare gem inside that she’d stolen when she’d fled Heaven had the ability to destroy him.

The archangels would be coming for her, her delusions of grandeur wouldn’t be tolerated, but as long as she possessed that jewel, as long as she was able to evade them, she was a risk to all of us.

If she managed to overthrow Lucifer, the world as we knew it would end.

I tugged at the leg of Lucifer’s pants with a bloody hand.

He leaned in. “What is it, my precious one?”

My throat was raw, but I forced out the words. “D-do what you must. You can’t let her take it with her. The risk is too high.”

He leaned closer. “Are you sure?” he asked as he carefully moved my hand from my side, getting a closer look at the damage Sera had caused.

“Take his memories away,” I choked out, pressing a shaking hand to my chest, because the agony of being forced to love Lothar from afar had to be less painful than the agony of my shattered heart now.

I could not live in this torture one more moment.

It was unbearable. “Take them.” My chest felt as if it were caving in, as if the organ in there ceased to beat and had crumbled to dust. The bleeding and burning slice down my side was nothing compared to my breaking heart.

“That wound in your side may never heal,” he said gravely. “And if it does, it could still take years.” He ran the backs of his fingers down the side of my face. “I could try to turn back time, to before this happened,” he said softly. “It won’t be easy, not when an angel was present…”

I squeezed my eyes closed, and the images were still there, still flashing rapid fire through my mind.

Against all odds, fate had chosen a mate for me, something that shouldn’t have been possible.

Handmaids didn’t have mates, Lucifer had made it so.

I’d had so many hopes and dreams, but they’d all been scorched to ashes now.

I shook my head and gasped. “I would rather be f-forced to bind my body, to hold my insides in every day for eternity, than go back. Going back won’t change the truth.

” I gripped his hand. “Y-you need this, you need what’s in that box. L-let me do this for you.”

Lucifer’s gaze searched mine. “You’re sure? Once too much time has passed, you know I can’t undo what has been done.”

I nodded as another howl echoed just beyond the door. I grabbed Lucifer’s hand. “Give Sera what she wants. Make him f-forget what happened here tonight, make him forget what we are to each other.”

“Roxy, my sweet child, you can’t want that,” Lucifer said, brushing back my blood-soaked hair.

“Just do it. Please—”

“His beast…a hound’s instincts are strong, Roxy.”

“C-can you suppress it?”

“I can, but this can never be reversed. If Lothar was to ever learn the truth of this day, of your connection, the consequences would be dire,” he said. “This can never be undone—”

“I don’t care. Please, just do it.”

Lucifer stood and turned to Seraphina. “It will be done.”

She held up the small box. “I want to see it done for myself.”

Lucifer’s gaze slid to the door, and a moment later, a massive hound burst through, charging into the room, his huge paws leaving bloody footprints, his eyes blazing red.

His gaze found me, and he shifted immediately, blood-soaked fur giving way to bare flesh.

Lothar stared down at me, nostrils flared, chest heaving, and there was unbearable pain in his eyes.

He bared his teeth, struggling, trying to talk, but his beast still had his throat.

When he opened his mouth, instead of words, he roared and snarled.

“Do it,” I said to Lucifer.

Lothar roared again, but this time, I heard part of my name as he struggled to take control. His face flashed between beast and man, his body contorting, his skin rolling with the urge to shift back, but he fought it. He stumbled to the side, then his gaze flashed gold.

Lothar stormed toward me, but Lucifer got in his way, facing off against the blood-covered hellhound.

“You can’t stop me,” Lothar said, finally forming words, even if they were garbled.

“I’m afraid I can,” Lucifer said and lifted a hand.

All it took was one simple movement, nothing more than a wave, and Lothar stopped. He blinked at Lucifer, shaking his head as if he were trying to clear it. Lucifer laid his hand on Lothar’s shoulder, and his wounds closed before my eyes.

“You can head back to your quarters now, brother,” Lucifer said to him, opening a gateway back to Hell. “When you wake, you’ll forget you were ever here.”

The hound nodded, then without even looking at me, without seeing me, he walked through the opening and back into Hell.

“It is done,” Lucifer said, and his hand shot out. The box Seraphina held flew to him. He snatched it out of the air and quickly checked inside, making sure the gem was there.

A flash of bright light filled the room, and when it subsided, Sera was gone.

“Where is she?”

Lucifer’s gaze came back to me. “I’m sure she’ll soon be back to take her place in Hell. Sera will hold me to my bargain.”

I didn’t want her here. I didn’t want to see her smug, evil face ever again.

His yellow gaze held mine. “I can repair your broken heart, I can take all you are feeling away. Sera will never know. There is no reason for you to suffer this way.”

I shook my head. Despite what Lothar had done, I couldn’t let Lucifer take my pain away. The thought of erasing the love I felt for him was unthinkable—it was all I had left of us now.

I coughed, tasting blood as agony wracked through me.

“I hope, my precious one, that you will not live to regret this decision,” Lucifer said as he scooped me up off the bed and stepped through the gateway to Hell, closing it behind us.

It was my job to protect Lucifer and his interests. It was what I was created for, what all the handmaids were created for. He came first, always.

Regret would be pointless.

What was done, could never be undone.