Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
Roxy
“Zinnia says she’ll be waiting for us.”
“Excellent,” I said as Lothar slid his phone back in his pocket. Especially since we were already on our way there.
The only way for us to enter Limbo was through the gateway located in Oldwood Forest, which was currently dark, and I’d tripped over my own feet several times already.
I didn’t do that. Ever. I’d once walked a tightrope across the burning river, during vysan mating season.
They’d been bursting out of the water one after the other, snapping their jaws, and I hadn’t missed a step.
I was seriously off my game. “Good thing you’re tight with Zinnia.
It’s been a long time since I stepped foot in Limbo.
I wasn’t sure Death would be very welcoming. ”
Demons had been following us since we started through the forest, watching from a safe distance because there was no way they’d come anywhere near Lothar.
But I was a female, and these pricks were forever on the hunt for breeders.
Apparently, they had no idea who I was, or that I was capable of turning them into mincemeat in record time.
I turned when one particularly heavy one collided with a tree and yelped, or at least it sounded like it.
“What did that tree ever do to you?” I called.
Lothar’s white teeth flashed in the shadows. He was grinning, amused by my outburst. It was something that still took me some getting used to.
“You’ve been to Limbo before?” he asked when I quickly looked away from him.
“Yup, I actually accompanied Beelzebub on one of his envoys. Luci likes one of us to go on any official get-togethers, to ensure his best interests are being represented.”
“What’s it like?”
I glanced back his way and caught his gaze dipping to my mouth again.
He’d done it several times tonight, and it was…
disconcerting. “Well, the last time I went, Death didn’t have Zinnia.
He was moody, dark, and inhospitable, and so was Limbo.
His castle was cold and unpleasant like its master.
So I’m not sure what to expect this time. ”
My phone vibrated in my pocket and I slid it free. I was expecting a text from Urs. A delighted laugh escaped my lips instead.
“What’s going on?”
Smiling wide, I held up my phone, showing him the picture. “My grandbabies sent me pics of their babies. I’m their lovey, that’s what they call me. They’re so precious, Loth. I already can’t wait to get back so I can snuggle them again.”
His brows shot up. “Grandbabies?”
I chuckled. “Well, many, many times great, but yeah. They’re my sweet girls, my twin granddaughters.”
“You have grandchildren?” Lothar blinked over at me. “You had your own children?”
The penny had finally dropped, and there was no missing his surprise. “I had a daughter, yes. It was a very long time ago. Before people lived on Earth, before Lucifer created you or the other hounds, before a lot of things.”
“Who sired her?” The question was fired at me like a gunshot.
His eyes changed color, glowing a bright gold, his hound in his eyes now. Was he aware of it? “Lucifer tried, but it didn’t take, so one of his demons, a male I was quite fond of sired my daughter.”
Lothar’s eyes flashed from gold to red. “Lucifer tried?” Disgust curled his lips. “Are you saying that you and him—”
“I’ve been alive thousands of years, Lothar. You thought me and Lucifer had never had sex?”
A rumbling sound vibrated from his chest and there was more of that disgust on his face. “I thought he was like a father to you.”
“Lucifer is many things to me.” My anger rose at his judgement, and it was hard to control, but I wrestled it back down. “Sex is just two bodies giving and receiving pleasure, Lothar. I’m sure you’ve had plenty of experience with that.”
His gaze was dark as it sliced from me. He stared ahead. “Right.”
“Anyway, he wanted the handmaids to have children, to increase our numbers, and I volunteered. I wanted a baby, but he wasn’t able to impregnate any of us, so we used demons.”
More lip curling. “What happened to your daughter?”
A familiar bittersweet feeling filled me.
“It turns out, only handmaids directly created by Lucifer are immortal. Our children were long-lived, but they didn’t survive.
Cassandra, my baby girl, was…she was so beautiful, Loth.
She eventually mated, had children of her own, then eventually grew old.
I held her in my arms when she passed away.
I’ve followed her line through the centuries, and I felt when the twins, her descendants, Kyler and Eve, were born.
They’re demi-demon and were too vulnerable, too powerful together.
The demons living aboveground would have sensed them if I hadn’t separated them.
Now they’re both mated to knights, and immortal because of it.
I never have to lose them. I love them, Lothar, so much it takes my breath away. ”
“I never knew,” he said, but he still wasn’t looking at me. “I’m happy for you.”
“I’m happy for me too,” I said, stepping over a fallen branch.
We carried on walking, this time in silence. In fact, it was deafening.
The tension rolling off Lothar was thick, but I said nothing. Whatever was going on in his head had nothing to do with me.
“You and Lucifer, do you still fuck?”
Or maybe it did. “What?”
“Does he fuck all of you?” Lothar asked, and there was accusation, along with more of that disgust on his face.
My anger shot to new heights, but again I refused to let it show. “You’re judging me.”
There was a flash of his white fangs in the shadows. “No, I just—”
“I’ve heard of hounds sharing females, of hounds occasionally enjoying each other while the sharing is going on. I don’t judge you or your brothers. Why would I?”
“That’s different.”
“How?”
“Lucifer created you, so there’s a power imbalance. He’s taking advantage of—”
“Stop, right there.” This time the anger was clear in my voice.
“He has never taken advantage of any of us. We are free to do whatever we want. Yes, we have been many things to each other over the centuries, but what you have to understand is the relationship between us, between Luci and all of his handmaids, is…” I struggled for words.
“Unlike any other. Jealousy, greed, resentment, none of those things exist.” Well, that last one had recently made an appearance, but I had a good reason for feeling that way, and he was currently staring at me like I’d grown a second head.
“Lucifer is everything to us. So sure, in the early days, I occasionally shared his bed, but only because the love I felt for him was…was so all-encompassing, so vast, that sex was just another way of showing him. Over time, things have changed, grown, reshaped. What we have now, it’s deeper than what we ever had. It’s pure.”
He scoffed.
“You’re starting to piss me off, Lothar, and I promised I wouldn’t take my bad mood out on you, but you’re not making that very easy.”
“You said, in the early days? So you don’t sleep with him anymore?” Of course he’d ignore everything else I’d said. And there was still a growl in his voice.
I took a fortifying breath. “Not that it’s any of your business, but no. Our connection is so much more, it’s moved beyond the flesh. It wouldn’t feel right to do that now.”
He grunted.
I wasn’t sure how we ended up talking about this, but I didn’t want to anymore.
“Love of any kind is dangerous,” he muttered. “Especially the way you describe your feelings for Lucifer.”
I bit my lips together. Don’t say anything. “You may not understand love, or even recognize it, but your loyalty to your pack, your devotion to Warrick, is love, you just don’t know it.” Okay, apparently, I couldn’t stop myself.
Another grunt. “Loyalty is loyalty.”
“Loyalty is a product of love. Of course there are different forms of love, but loyalty is earned through a connection with someone else, and a connection comes from a relationship that is cultivated over time, over someone showing you they can be trusted. It’s cultivated by them choosing you over and over again. ”
He turned his scowling face on me. “You’re trying to confuse me.”
“I’m doing no such thing.” I hitched my bag higher on my shoulder and gripped the straps tighter. “You’re being closed-minded.”
“I’m being logical.”
“Logic has no place in love.”
“Which is why I’m glad I don’t feel it,” he said dismissively.
I rolled my eyes. “What about your brothers? You’d risk your life for them, wouldn’t you? You have, many times. Why do you think that is?”
“You can try to convince me all you like, but the reason we feel loyalty for each other is because Lucifer created us that way. End of story.”
Gods, he was a stubborn ass. Nothing new there. He always had been. “So you don’t want what War and Jag have, or Dirk and Relic? You don’t want a…a mate, and more pups that you can form a true bond with?”
Shut the hell up! What is wrong with me?
Asking that question was cruel and selfish. He would never have a mate, or more pups, and he had me to thank for that.
“No. Why would I want that?”
My fingers ached from gripping my bag so tight, and my heart felt as if it were ten times too big for my chest. “I get you’re freaking clueless, Lothar, but even you must be able to see how happy your brothers are now?
” And still I couldn’t shut my damned mouth.
I had wondered, though, many times over the years, if he thought about a mate for himself.
If he wanted what some of his brothers had.
Obviously not. That was a good thing. It should make me happy.
I didn’t want him to pine for something he’d never have.
It was stupid to feel sad about that or hurt. In fact, it was masochistic. A form of self-mutilation. I wanted it this way, right? I’d made a decision a long time ago, and I had to live with it. I had been living with it, for hundreds of years. I’d made peace with it, or at least I thought I had.
I glanced his way. “Let’s change th—”
Lothar dived at me without warning, hooking me around the chest and throwing us to the ground mere moments before an axe whistled a centimeter past my face.
What the fuck? How had I missed that?
I tried to get up, but he held me down, pressing a finger to his lips.
If I wanted to, I could move him easily. I could flip him, hurt him in multiple ways that would make him get off me, but I indulged him for a moment. I let him take the role of protector as hounds often needed to do, and if having him pressed against me was nice, I wasn’t going to dwell on that.
But more than those things, I was seriously shaken that I’d allowed myself to be distracted enough by him that I hadn’t seen that axe coming.
He reached up, tugging the axe from where it was buried in a tree trunk, and inspected it, causing his hard body to press more firmly against mine.
I curled my fingers into tight fists so I didn’t run my hand up his back, seeking more of the heat radiating from his skin, and forced myself to study the weapon.
It was intricately carved. I touched the side of the blade with the tip of my finger and hissed.
It was made of an ancient steel, the kind capable of killing immortals.
I’d had up-close-and-personal time with a weapon made from the same steel a long time ago and was lucky to survive it.
The memory was still so raw after all this time, just touching the weapon made my scar ache like some kind of phantom reminder.
How did some asshole in Oldwood Forest have one of these?
“Can you see how many?” I whispered, taking the axe from him and sliding it into my bag.
He shook his head.
“We need to move,” I mouthed.
He nodded, lifted his head again, then ducked back. “Hang on.”
I frowned. “To what?”
A split second later, Lothar tossed me over his monster shoulder, bounded to his feet, and exploded into the forest.
I hung there, utterly stunned for several seconds, while I flopped around like a dying fish. “Lothar?” I ground out. “Why are you carrying me?”
He didn’t answer, too focused on running like hell through the trees, determined to save me. Me, a being more than twice his freaking age, a warrior who had literally been given the name, The Blade, because of my expert skills with a knife.
“Put me down,” I ordered. “Now.”
Lothar continued to ignore me, still running so fast, the forest was a blur around us.
“Put me down,” I said more forcefully.
Still nothing.
We were being pursued. Our assailants were camouflaged, blending with the shadows, but they were closing in. I could see the trees moving, the undergrowth being crushed as they moved at a rapid speed after us.
Any moment now they were going to attack, and I refused to be dangling here over Lothar’s shoulder like an idiot when they did.
Straightening my back, I hooked my arm around Lothar’s neck, shoved my feet into his hips, forcing his arm from around the backs of my thighs, and flipped, pulling one of my blades free as I did.
As soon as I landed on my feet, I let it fly.
Nothing, not a scream, no scent of blood. What the hell? I never missed.
Shit.
I shoved Lothar, as I took off. “Keep running, big guy. And, hey, your mouth is hanging open.”
“What the fuck, Roxy?” he snarled, bursting into action again to catch up with me.
“I needed to know what we’re dealing with. If they bleed, we can kill them. And I could say the same thing to you,” I fired at him as we burst through the trees, finally reaching a clearing.
The rocks that would form a gateway into Limbo were just ahead.
We just had to reach them before the immortal killers hot on our tails reached us.
“And do they?” Lothar asked. “Bleed?”
“No.”
“Fuck.”
Fuck, indeed.