Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Roxy
Asmodeus pressed his mouth to my ear. “How long do I have you, my dear?”
I cupped his face. “Just tonight. I’m needed elsewhere.”
He nodded, but looked disappointed. “That is a shame.”
“I’ll be back before you know it.”
He pressed a kiss to my temple. “I do hope so, Roxy. I honestly do.”
“You know Luci keeps me busy.”
He made a grumbling sound. “Since I only have you for one night, will you join me in my bed this evening?” He trailed his fingers along my spine. “It has been too long since I’ve held you in my arms, my sweetest one.”
My stomach tightened. Lucifer had instructed me to seduce Asmodeus and gain his favor a very long time ago.
It had never bothered me before, sex was just another weapon in my arsenal, but with Lothar here, with his glowing golden gaze burning into me like I felt him doing now, I wasn’t sure I could bring myself to do what I needed to.
Get it together.
This was my job, my purpose. I was created to protect my king. Lucifer was all that mattered. His throne was on the line, it didn’t matter that Lothar was here, or what he thought. The feelings trying to bloom brighter weren’t of consequence, not when Lucifer’s life could be at stake.
I smiled. “Of course, where else would I be tonight?”
Ursula strode over then and Asmodeus turned to her with a smile, pulling her in for a hug.
Urs slipped something into my hand as she hugged him back, a small vial.
The sleep tincture. Ursula knew me like no one else.
She hadn’t missed my reluctance. It was risky, giving this to Az, especially in his own quadrant, but I didn’t think he’d suspect me of dosing him.
I’d built trust with him over more years than I could remember.
“So why the hounds?” Asmodeus asked her. “Why are they with you?”
“Lucifer has us on a hunt,” Urs said and winked, then called out for more moonshine.
“What are you hunting?” he asked me, when Urs strode off into the crowd.
I sighed. “I don’t want to upset you, Az. Let’s not talk business.”
“You could never upset me, my sweetling.”
I subtly searched the room, but not so subtle that Asmodeus didn’t notice, then leaned in close. “Luci has us searching for Beelzebub. We’re on our way to Mammon’s stronghold, someone said they saw him there. Lucifer thinks Mammon could be hiding him.” That was a complete lie.
Asmodeus scoffed. “B would never go to Mammon for help. That’s the last place he’d go.” He shook his head. “Lucifer is so out of touch with his lords, no wonder one of us finally rebelled.”
I bit my lip and gave him a huge dose of wide-eyed innocence. “I don’t like to talk badly about Luci, Az, you know that…”
“I sense a but coming?” he said as he tucked my hair behind my ear.
“Okay, yeah, he is a little out of touch, I guess. He means well…but sometimes he gets it wrong. Beelzebub was obviously really hurt to do what he did,” I said, sighing.
“I hate when everyone fights.” I inwardly shook my damn head.
Fighting wasn’t what happened, Beelzebub committed treason, but there was no way I was using that word right now, not when I needed Az to spill what he knew.
“I know you do, sweetling, but Luci has taken us for granted too many times. B was just the first of us to be pushed past his limits.”
He’d just confirmed that he knew about Beelzebub’s plan without even realizing it. “Do you think he’ll come back, so we can talk about this? So he and Luci can clear the air and move forward?”
Az shook his head. “He’s not coming back, not yet anyway.”
In other words, not until he has the means to overthrow Lucifer. “That makes me sad, Az. Hell doesn’t feel the same with one of us gone.”
Asmodeus swirled the moonshine in his glass and nodded. “I agree. It definitely feels wrong with only six lords here. I feel his absence strongly, as do the others.”
And finally, he’d just confirmed that Beelzebub was no longer in Hell. As Lucifer suspected. I rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m sorry, my darling, that you’re in pain. You must miss your brother terribly. I hope he’s okay?”
Az lifted his red gaze to mine, and it gentled. “You have the softest heart of any being in Hell, Roxy, it astounds me that it hasn’t been blackened like the rest of us.”
“I love you all, Az, you know I do. I worry about my family.”
He gently took my jaw in his gray fingers. “He is well, sweetling. I promise, he’s thriving in fact.”
Az could never resist my little miss innocent act. He hated seeing me worried. He underestimated me like most, and thought me naive, that I was ruled by my soft heart.
I smiled wide, and pressed a kiss to his black lips. For Beelzebub to thrive, he’d need to be somewhere you could look the way he did, and not draw notice.
“I want you, Roxy,” he said roughly.
“Then take me to bed,” I said and wrapped my arms around his neck when he stood.
I looked over his shoulder before he carried me from the room. Lothar was standing, lips peeled back, fangs fully extended.
Then we rounded the corner, and I lost sight of him.
I rolled an unconscious Asmodeus off me, and checked he was still breathing. The tincture wouldn’t kill him, even if his heart did stall out, but if that happened, he’d know I’d drugged him when he woke and realized he had serious bodily damage. Hopefully, I’d gotten the dose right.
Usually, I endured fucking the lord. I did what Lucifer needed me to.
Urs hadn’t missed my reluctance, but thankfully, Az had.
I’d slipped a few drops of her concoction in his wine when we got to his room.
I’d gotten away with a quick make-out session and some wandering hands before he passed out on top of me.
He shouldn’t wake after the amount I’d given him, at least not for a good eight hours.
We’d been on the road for a couple days, so I took advantage of his excellent shower, then grabbed some fresh clothes from my bag, dressed, braided my still damp hair, checked on Az one more time, then slipped out of his quarters, carefully pulling the door closed behind me.
I turned, and jumped, my hand moving before my brain registered who it was. My blade was about to fly, about to imbed itself in Lothar’s skull, right between his glowing eyes.
“What the actual fuck, Lothar? I almost scrambled your brains.” I slid the blade back into the sheath at my hip, looking back up at him when he didn’t reply. “Well, what do you want?” I said, and couldn’t shake the unease that was suddenly crawling all over me.
Lothar shook his head, like a wild lion. “I was making sure you were okay,” he said, his fangs fully extended, his voice a deep rumble.
I straightened, this wasn’t right. Why the hell was he out here? “Why wouldn’t I be?”
He shrugged a massive shoulder. “I don’t like that Lucifer uses you this way, Rox. It’s not right.”
My heart thumped hard in my chest, as anger pulsed through my veins in an instant. “What did you say?”
He growled. “You are family, Rox—”
“I’m not your family.”
His eyes flashed brighter, glowing in the shadowed hall. “Yeah, you fucking are. I’ve known you longer than I can remember. You take care of all of us…when Relic was born, you—”
“Relic was an innocent pup with no one to care for him. I was only one of many handmaids to look after him.” My head spun. Where was he going with this?
He frowned. “I know that. What I’m saying is, you take care of everyone, Rox, and for once, I wanted to do that for you.”
I huffed a laugh. “By standing outside Asmodeus’s room while he used me?”
His chest heaved with his rough breaths. Why was he breathing so hard? As in control as he sounded, his body was giving away how he was truly feeling. He wanted to fuck someone up, and I got the feeling that someone was Asmodeus.
“Like I said, I don’t like that Lucifer makes you his—”
I closed the space between us in an instant and pressed my finger to his lips. “Whore?” I held his stare. It cost me, but I refused to look away.
He grabbed my hand, taking my finger from his lips. “I never said that.”
“Maybe not in those exact words, but yes, you did. I know you, Lothar. I know exactly what you’re thinking.”
“No, you don’t.”
“You think Lucifer is pimping me out, using poor, innocent, naive little Roxy to get what he wants.”
His eyes flashed again, and that jaw was granite.
I laughed, and it wasn’t nice, then lifted my chin.
“I am Roxana the Blade, handmaid to Lucifer. Warrior, torturer, seductress. Yes, I love deeply, and I look for the best in people, but I also have more kills under my belt than you ever will in your entire immortal life.” I grinned.
“I take immense pleasure in hearing the screams of those I take to my chamber of pain to extract the information we need.” I pressed closer, lowering my voice, letting it go a little husky, sexy.
“And if it benefits Lucifer or me, I can fuck like no other. I can make any male I set my sights on scream my name, then walk away while he’s begging me for more.
Without regret, and without emotion. So no, I don’t need you to follow me about to make sure I’m okay.
I don’t need anything from you, Lothar. Understand? ”
He dragged in a rough breath.
“Do you understand?” I repeated, adding a growl of my own.
“I understand,” he said.
I stepped back, putting some much-needed space between us. “Good.”
“I don’t doubt you are all of those things, Rox, and more, but just so you know, that will never stop me from looking out for you. The way I see it, I owe you.”
My heart seized. “For what?”
“Relic.”
The frozen organ in my chest burst back into action. “I told you—”
“I don’t buy that bullshit. You protected and loved my pup as if he were your own, Rox.
I fucking saw it with my own eyes. I wasn’t able to give him what War does Violet, and what Dirk does Brick.
I couldn’t give Relic what my brothers can give their pups, something that took me seeing them as fathers to realize the importance of.
I wished I could’ve loved him then, that I could love him now.
You gave him that, what he needed, what I couldn’t.
You showed him love, and yeah, maybe the other handmaids helped out occasionally, but not like you.
You were the constant he needed, that I now know all pups need.
So yeah, even as emotionally devoid as I am, I know that, I understand that.
You made him the good, loving male, the devoted mate he is now, and I will forever be thankful to you for it. ”
Why was he saying all of this now? I couldn’t take it.
“I love pups. It wasn’t about you, it was about me,” I said, curling my fingers into tight fists, though that was a lie, wasn’t it?
Deep in my heart, I’d thought of Relic as mine.
I’d wanted him to be mine. The pup Lothar and I would never have together.
“Either way, I’m eternally in your debt.”
That’s all I needed. “You owe me nothing,” I said and started down the wide stone hall. The sound of his heavy boots following me, echoed off the walls. I stopped. “Are you following me?”
He shrugged a big shoulder again. “Yeah, but not intentionally. This is the way back to the main room.”
I huffed, turned, and marched ahead. And bit my lip as every thud of those big boots seemed to slam through me. What the hell was I doing? Every time I told myself to act normal, to rein the emotion back in, I lost my shit even more. I couldn’t believe what I’d just said to him back there.
This wasn’t me. I felt as if I’d been possessed by some unstable imposter, and as hard as I tried, I couldn’t exorcise the demented, demonic bitch.