Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Lothar
I ran toward the screams, pounding through the undergrowth as I sprinted to get to Roxy. She was a warrior, immortal, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t be killed if someone got the jump on her and managed to take her head.
There was a loud splash just as I burst through the trees and into the clearing.
I stopped so abruptly, my boots skidded in the damp soil a couple feet.
Roxy stood at the edge of the pool, naked and covered in demon blood. One verahn was flailing on the water’s surface and gasping for air. Another with severed tendons flopped around on the ground at her feet, and there were two more piles of ash, demons she’d already taken out.
Ursula sat on a rock a few feet away, picking at her nails with the tip of a clean blade.
“What the fuck happened here?” I rasped.
Urs grinned over at me. “I only caught the highlights.”
“You did this on your own?” I said to Roxy. I knew she was one of Lucifer’s best warriors, that all the handmaids were deadly as fuck. Logically, I knew that, but I hadn’t seen the small female fight in a long fucking time.
Ursula rolled her eyes. “We’re not damsels, Lothar. I know you hounds get off on that shit, but you’re barking up the wrong tree if you think, at any time on this hunt, you’ll be forced to save one of us.”
“I know that,” I said, planting my hands on my hips, while I worked at slowing my heart rate.
Roxy ignored us, jumped in the pool, and shoved the demon’s head underwater, holding him there for several minutes before dragging him, spluttering, up to the surface. “Who sent you?”
He made a bunch of garbled sounds. Scowling, she wrenched his mouth open, then cursed. “No tongue. It’s been cut out. A while ago by the looks.”
She tossed him out of the pool and leaped out after him. Water sluiced off her curvy, naked little body as she leaned over him, gripped his hair, and, ignoring his screams, hacked off his head.
Fuck, I couldn’t look away, and even more disturbing, the front of my jeans started to get seriously tight. The demon turned into ash as Rox spun on the other demon flailing on the ground. “Okay, hog face, time to talk.”
Hog face?
“This the one with the pig dick?” Ursula asked.
It took everything in me not to intervene, but these were not the kinds of females you got in the way of.
It would be seen as a serious insult. They didn’t need me for protection.
I was here to track, but fuck it was hard to stand back and not kill something.
Hounds were deeply protective of females, and it went against everything in me to do nothing.
“Yep, and if he wants to keep the curly little thing dangling between his trotters, he’ll start talking,” Rox said as she strode toward him, the knife in her hand flashing as she expertly spun it.
“He was the only one doing any talking earlier, maybe he’s the only one with a tongue? Is that it, hog face?”
Roxy straddled his flailing body and grabbed his jaw.
Fuck me, she was gorgeous and sweet, but seriously bloodthirsty, and something about that, yeah, it did it for me—was doing it for me. She dragged her hand down the demon’s bloody chest and grabbed his dick. The demon’s eyes flared.
“Who sent you?”
He bit his lips together, refusing to talk.
In a flash she slapped his balls hard, then squeezed. “Who, motherfucker?”
He shrieked.
Fucking hell. I shifted from foot to foot, my throat feeling tight all of a sudden, my gut knotting.
What the fuck? Why the hell was I getting hard over Roxy?
Yeah, she was gorgeous, and her body was…
shit, perfection, but I’d never wanted to fuck her.
Not only would that make shit complicated, it just seemed wrong.
For a start, her scent was—there was no other way to put it—repellent to me.
There was something seriously off with it.
I didn’t know why, but every time I got a whiff, I wanted to get the hell away from her.
It wasn’t bad, just really fucking not right, at least to me.
Which made no sense, because Roxy was the sweetest, funniest, cutest, and, fuck, sexiest little assassin I’d ever laid eyes on.
The demon shook his head, then his eyes rolled back so only the whites were showing.
Roxy’s face screwed up. “Ew, are you getting off on having your balls slapped, hog face?”
Ursula, who had closed in and was looking down at him, shrugged. “Some males like it rough, Rox, you know that. Use your blade. We want to make this fucker scream, not moan.”
The demon convulsed under her, light flashed behind his eyes, and then—he vanished.
Disappearing from under Rox, leaving nothing but thin air.
“What the fuck just happened?” I growled and closed the space between us before turning in a slow circle. “Where the hell did he go?”
I scented the air, pulling his stench into my lungs, then closed my eyes, using my powers to search for him.
My mind spun, location after location zoomed in, then flared back out, chaotic, confusing, but never able to pinpoint one place, as if the demon was being bounced from one location to the next in a split second, so many, too many.
Snarling, I shook my head. “Whoever took him, they’re scrambling shit so I can’t see where he’s stopped.”
“Fuck,” Ursula muttered.
Roxy yanked a shirt over her head. “Someone sent them to take me out.” She looked up as she tugged on her jeans. “They waited until I was alone, and they went for my head.”
“Not many would be that fucking stupid,” Ursula said. “Going after one of Lucifer’s personal guards is dumb enough, thinking they could take you out, even on your own, was fucking suicidal.”
“The reward must be good,” I said, unable to look away as Roxy pulled her dark hair over her shoulder, wrung out the water, then quickly braided it.
She wasn’t wearing a bra, and the thin fabric showed her tight little nipples as clear as day and—what the fuck was I doing?
Was I losing my ever-loving mind right now?
I wasn’t here to check out Roxy. I was here to do a job.
“It had to be Beelzebub. He has to be behind this. Who else? He’ll have his spies everywhere, watching, waiting for Lucifer to make a move, which means he knows we’re coming for him. ”
“You can’t tell me that guy was important.
He was a crappy fighter with below-average intelligence.
The only reasons to snatch him away would be to make sure he didn’t squeal, and no doubt for intel on our little party.
” Roxy finished lacing up her boots and straightened.
“Which means, we’re going to have to outsmart and outmaneuver the big red weasel. ”
Jesus, the shit that came out of her mouth. My lips actually twitched.
She blinked up at me with her big blue eyes. “What are you smirking about?”
I shrugged. “Just you.” My smile widened. “The shit you said to that demon?” I chuckled, the sound surprising me.
Then Ursula was cracking up as well.
Roxy scowled at Urs. “Whatever.” Then her gaze sliced back to me. “And when did you find your funny bone, all of a sudden? That’s all I need on this trip.”
I shrugged. It had happened slowly, I guess. But then I seemed to understand emotions better than some of my brothers. And sometimes, I thought I felt more than I should as well.
It started when Relic was born. Siring a pup had altered me in ways I hadn’t expected.
Also, having mated brothers and their females and pups at the clubhouse had changed things.
The ability to feel humor had slowly developed for many of us, though.
It was a surprise, but it also made life a lot more enjoyable.
“We better get back to camp. Gus is alone and he’s still just a pup,” Rox said, then spun and jogged away.
I followed her and Urs, covering them from the rear.
Rox had a soft spot for the pups; she always had.
When Relic was born, she’d kept him with her constantly.
When I’d go and check on him, he’d either be napping in her bed or she had him strapped to her chest, carrying him everywhere.
I fully believed she was the reason he was such a good male, and why my son’s emotions had been more developed than the rest of us.
Not that I’d ever called him son, not to his face, anyway.
Yes, I’d sired him, though not because I was mated but because Lucifer wanted to experiment.
I’d donated my seed, that’s all. We’d never had a father-son relationship, that’s not how it worked with us.
He was a brother, like all the other hounds in the pack.
But since he’d mated Fern, I’d felt a shift in him toward me.
We’d always been tight, and I’d naturally been drawn to him.
A part of me had always felt some closer connection, but things between us had changed again.
With his mating, not only could Relic understand emotion, he felt it.
More than once since, I’d wished I knew what he was feeling toward me, because I didn’t miss that he looked at me differently now.
He sought me out, asked me to hang with him more often, and on occasion with him and Fern.
I’d watched Dirk and Elena, and War and Willow with their pups, and honestly, I felt cheated I’d never experienced what they were.
I kind of wished I felt what they did, that I could return what I could only imagine Relic was feeling.
I reached the clearing to find Roxy fussing over Gus. She was holding his head to her chest, rubbing his back and making him promise her to be safe and stay close to us. The pup was nuzzling her tits, looking more than a little pleased with himself.
“Gus,” I barked.
Roxy jumped, her eyes flashing. “What’s your problem now?”
“The pup doesn’t need to be soothed, he’s fine.”
“He needs hugs like the rest of you, isn’t that right, Gussy?”
The little shit nodded, making her chest jiggle. Yes, we craved hugs and affection, needed it, but Gus was taking it too fucking far.
“Having his face buried in your tits is not the kind of hug the pup needs, Rox.” My voice sounded deeper, gruffer, but seeing Gus all over her was starting to piss me off for some utterly fucked-up reason.
Probably because although Roxy was many centuries old, and tough as fuck, she still had this naivety about her, this innocence that made no sense and always made me feel more protective of her than any of the other handmaids—which again, made no sense.
She blew out a long breath and shook her head, before her gaze sliced back to me. “Gods, you are such a dick.”
My brows shot up. “You think I’m a dick?” Rox had been acting weird with me for a while now, I kept asking her if something was wrong and she kept denying it, but she’d never said shit like that to me before.
She shoved Gus away and shot to her feet. “If it acts like a dick and looks like a dick, then it’s probably a dick,” she said and planted her hands on her hips.
I studied her. “What’s really going on here, Rox?
You’ve been giving me attitude for months, and I haven’t missed that you try to avoid hugging me when you come to the clubhouse, and only do it when you absolutely have to.
” I crossed my arms. Yes, her scent fucked with me, and I kept our hugs short because of that, but I didn’t like that she didn’t seem to want to hug me anymore, when she used to always come to me first. “We’re going to be traveling together for a while, babe.
You got a problem with me, we should probably sort that shit out now. ”
“I hugged you earlier, if you’ll recall,” she said.
“Yeah, and you snapped my head off then as well.” Her gaze sliced to Ursula, and the other handmaid subtly shook her head. “What the fuck was that?”
Roxy’s gaze shot back to me. “Nothing. Like I said earlier, I’m not pissed at you, I’m just pissed off in general for reasons that don’t concern you.”
“Nah, I call bullshit. It’s not just now. It’s been for months, at least when I’m around. I’m the only one out of my brothers you’re giving the cold shoulder to, Rox.”
Her face flushed a dark pink, and her eyes glittered brighter. She wasn’t embarrassed, she was flat-out pissed. “You want to know why?” she fired at me.
“Rox,” Ursula growled.
“Yeah,” I said.
“You really want to know why?” she repeated.
“Yes,” I bit out.
Ursula stepped forward. “Rox—”
Roxy’s hand shot up, silencing her sister. “No, he needs to hear this.” She pointed at me. “People underestimate me all the time, Lothar. They think I’m too soft, that I’m some goofy, ditzy idiot, that they can manipulate me—”
“No, they don—”
“Yes, they do, but at least your brothers don’t try to take advantage of it.”
My head jerked back. “You think I take advantage of you?”
She huffed out a humorless laugh. “I sought you out, Lothar, all the time, you know I did, to hang out, to have a drink, to just sit and gab, but you always, always brush me off…until you want something, then you put on the charm, that’s when I get the grins and the winks and the hugs.
I’m sick of you treating me like a fucking moron. That a good enough reason for you?”
Had I done that? I planted my hands on my hips, my gut in fucking knots.
Yeah, shit. I had. I avoided her because her scent fucked with me, but I knew she had a soft spot for me.
My brothers said shit about it often enough.
She was right, wasn’t she? I brushed her off, and I put on the charm when I wanted something from her, info or some other bullshit.
“I’m sorry, Rox, if I hurt your feelings. I didn’t mean to…”
She snorted. “You haven’t hurt my feelings. I’m just sick of playing the fool, and I’m not going to do it anymore.” She sat down and yanked Gus back, pressing his head to her chest and running her fingers through his dark blond hair.
“Rox—”
“I’m done talking about this,” she said. “I’ll take first shift. Everyone needs to get some sleep while they can.”
I studied her for a moment. I didn’t like Roxy angry with me. I wanted her smiles and her hugs again, not this, not her resentment. We had possibly weeks of being together ahead of us. I had to fix this. Somehow, I had to make things right between us.