Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
Roxy
One of the wheels on the cage dropped into a pothole, jerking it to a stop.
I tumbled to the side, my shoulder glancing the silver bars, burning my skin.
Pain rolled through my body instantly, and I jerked away, wrapping my arms around my knees.
The silver was angel blessed, and given that I was spawned in the depths of Hell, prolonged contact would turn me to ash.
The demons pulling the cart heaved, and the cage finally bounced free with such force, I left the floor, then crashed back down, narrowly missing the bars a second time.
The silver not only kept us caged, it smothered our powers, making us almost as helpless as humans, and slowed my healing even more.
My hand and scar on my side were the worst. My shoulder throbbed from Lothar’s bite, but I tried not to touch it.
If Lothar was in there, watching, I didn’t want him to know it was bothering me.
He sat a couple feet away, his gaze trained on me. He seemed to have moments of lucidity, moments when the wild obsession left his red gaze and instead shone gold—and were full of anger, but worst of all horror.
I turned away from him, again, watching Seraphina and Beelzebub being carried ahead of us like ancient gods in their palanquin.
The wooden box had velvet curtains, and it rested on the shoulders of four muscle-bound demons forced to bear their weight as they traipsed over uneven terrain.
Several more heavily armed demons walked alongside our little party, including my old friend hog face, supposedly protecting us from the creatures with fangs who lived here in the Outer Realm.
Though, by my count we’d already lost at least two along the way.
“Lucifer, he suppressed my instincts, my knowledge that you were my mate?” Lothar asked, and I jumped. He’d been quiet now for over an hour. “And you both kept it from me for centuries?”
His beast-roughened voice grated across my skin. It had always been deep and rough, but not like this. In these short cogent times, his voice didn’t seem to have time to go back to normal.
“Yes,” I said without looking back at him. He’d already asked the same question several times. I didn’t know if he forgot that he’d asked between those lucid moments or if he was just so fucking stunned that we’d done it to him, that he was hoping for a different answer.
He snarled. “Why?”
“It was for the best,” I answered, giving him the same answer I had several times now. The truth wouldn’t help him. Knowing what he had done could only hurt him, and I’d hurt him enough already.
“It was for the best?” he bit out. “Did you think it was for the best when I was driven to…to…” He swallowed audibly and hissed.
“Stop.” I turned to him. “You didn’t do anything wro—”
“The beast took hold of me, forced me to shove you against that cell wall and…and force you…” He groaned in agony, then panted as if he were trying to stop himself from throwing up.
“You didn’t force me, Lothar, and you didn’t hurt me. Please, I’m okay. I let you—”
“You let me?” His gaze dropped to where his bite was, to the mark a male gave his mate, and he bared his teeth. “I gave you no fucking choice.”
My shirt covered how big and jagged it was. Something else that would cause him distress when he finally got a good look at it.
But that would not be now, because like the last time his emotions got the better of him, his eyes flashed red and the beast returned, taking over and pushing Lothar back.
His hand shot out, and he grabbed my arm and pulled me over to him.
I didn’t resist, I let him plaster me to his side, if that helped him somehow.
The beast sniffed my hair and pressed his lips to the bite he’d given me.
His tongue swiped over the part that was exposed before he wrapped a huge arm around me and held me there, his chest vibrating with a low growl of warning as he stared at the demons around us.
Over the next hour, he snarled a lot, sometimes punching the side of his own head before his hold on me would tighten. No doubt Lothar was in there telling him to let me go. I took his hand and tried to soothe them both, not sure what else to do.
Lothar knew that Lucifer had hidden what we were to each other, yes, but that’s all he seemed to know, and that’s the way it needed to stay.
If he hadn’t remembered everything else yet, I could only pray to the gods that meant those memories were gone for good.
The truth would serve no purpose now but to hurt him.
Too much time had passed, and he’d paid more than enough of a price without knowing all the awful details.
Sera shoved back the curtain on her palanquin and called down to one of the demons carrying her and Beelzebub.
They stopped instantly and lowered the box to the ground.
The demons carrying our cage stopped as well.
Another demon rolled out a carpet so Sera didn’t dirty her precious little feet, and she disembarked and strode toward us.
Lothar snarled at her and tightened his hold on me.
“Now, now,” she said. “We used to be such good friends, Lothar, and despite all your growling, I have a feeling we will be again, but until then.” She held up a collar. “This will have to do.”
No fucking way.
“Take it,” she snapped at me.
“Fuck off,” I said. “And shove that bullshit up the wind tunnel between your legs.”
Her hand shot up, her fingers curling into a fist. I grabbed at my throat, instantly choking. It was as if she had an invisible grip around my neck and was squeezing tight. Lothar’s beast roared, confused. He grabbed at me and shook me, so hard he almost broke my spine in his attempt to save me.
Sera eased off, and I gasped for air. The blessed silver had weakened me so much more than the torture had. Anything Heaven touched did that, and I had no way of protecting myself or Lothar from this evil fucking bitch.
“Put it on him now or he spends the night with this lodged between his ribs.” She held up several short spikes.
They were made from the same silver, a couple inches long and pointed at both ends.
They’d burn into his flesh, eventually making their way through muscle, then bone.
They wouldn’t kill him, but they’d do a lot of damage and cause horrific pain, but that would be nothing compared to the agony of extracting them.
“Okay,” I said, because she would do it, and she’d love every moment of my distress. I slid my hand through the bars and took it from her, then turned to Lothar. “I need to put this on you, okay?”
I lifted it to his neck, but he snatched it away and tossed it through the bars and onto the ground.
“I thought we might have an issue,” Sera said and waved her hand.
Demons swarmed forward and grabbed Lothar’s arms through the bars and held him there. He fought and roared as his skin sizzled, burning against the silver. Sera handed me another collar.
“Put yours on first, so he understands.” I had no choice but to do as she said, the silver could kill him.
It was a struggle without two of my fingers or any nails, but I managed to secure it around my throat, and as soon as I had, the demons released Lothar. He snatched me up again, ignoring his burns, and instead attacked my collar, yanking at it, snarling, and choking me in the process.
“Lothar,” Sera snapped.
He ignored her, still grappling with my collar, getting more and more worked up. My oxygen was restricted enough that I was starting to see black spots. I was going to pass out.
Lothar roared suddenly, jolted, and dropped me. I gasped and choked, desperately sucking in much needed oxygen.
One of the demons held a rod, like a fucking cattle prod.
“Lothar,” Sera snapped again and held up his collar. “If you are in there somewhere, best you persuade the beast to put this on. If you don’t, your mate will lose her head.” She waved her hand and long, thin silver spikes, blessed like the bars, burst from the inside of the collar she was holding.
If she did that to the one I was wearing, the spikes were long enough that they’d burn right through, until I eventually lost my head completely, and that wasn’t something I could survive.
“Put this on, beast, or your mate pays the price.” She tossed it into the cage, and Lothar’s beast picked it up. Then snarling at it, he tried to do as she said, fumbling and struggling with his claws and thick fingers, then finally held it out to me.
I took it and put it on him.
“How sweet,” Sera said, then gave me a cold smile. “Try to get some sleep, won’t you, we have a big day tomorrow.” Then she clicked her fingers at Beelzebub.
The demon’s gaze slid to me, and his lips curled up. He was going for bravado, but I saw the truth he was trying to hide. If Seraphina failed, he was toast. “Lucifer’s going to make you scream, you know that, right, B?” I said to him and smiled.
There was a flicker of fear in his eyes, but it lasted for just a split second.
“You should be more worried about yourself, Roxy. Shit isn’t looking too good for you right now.” Then he scooped Sera up and strode to the huge tent her demons had hastily pitched for them and disappeared inside.
It didn’t take long for oppressive darkness to descend on the Outer Realm. I was hungry and cold and exhausted. I tried to fight the tiredness, but in the end, I lay down in the center of the cage, so I wouldn’t accidentally touch the bars and curled into a ball.
Lothar’s beast had been preoccupied with snarling at the demons and into the shadows for the last couple of hours, but now that the demons were gathered around a fire several yards away, he’d calmed down some.
Shivering, I looked at the fire and wished I could feel its warmth.
“Mate cold,” the beast said, then lay down beside me and pulled me into his arms.
I didn’t resist. He was so warm and, thankfully, wasn’t squeezing too tight since the demons weren’t as close. “Thank you.”
He nuzzled my neck. “Smell good,” he said, and I felt his hard length now pressed against me.
I quickly turned in his arms, and he let me. I looked up at him, into those red eyes. “You don’t want to hurt your mate, do you?”
He shook his head, bared his teeth and growled, as if he wanted to attack himself at the very idea. Then he nuzzled my neck and ground his erection against me again. “Mate, open legs for me.”
The pills Ursula had given me, concealed in that cheap ring I’d given Drake, would have come in handy right about now, but they were long gone.
My clothes had been wet, covered in blood, stripped off, tossed aside.
I had no idea where they’d ended up. Since sedation was off the cards, I had to somehow convince Lothar’s beast that sex wasn’t a good idea.
“I’m still in some pain from being tortured, I need to rest. Being with you that way could hurt me right now.
” I wrapped my arms around him. “Will you just hold me? Like this?”
The beast flared his nostrils, but then slid his arms around me. “Like this?”
He sounded more like Lothar than the beast that time, even though his eyes were still red. “Yes, just like that. Thank you.” I pressed against him tight and squeezed my eyes closed. “I’m so sorry,” I whispered, and hoped that Lothar heard me.
Yes, he’d broken my heart all those years ago, but I’d broken him, too, in so many ways.
The punishment he had suffered didn’t fit the crime.
Taking his memories, forcing him to live in ignorance, driving his beast to madness, was too much for anyone to suffer, and now he thought he’d forced himself on me as well.
My guilt was unbearable. Somehow, I would find a way to release him from the mating bond.
He deserved a good female, someone like Asher, someone worthy of him, someone who would fight for him and cherish him.
What he’d done had seemed unforgivable at the time, and even now it hurt to think about it, but he didn’t deserve this.
No. Better he thinks I am an evil, selfish bitch than blame himself for one more thing.
I felt the bond between us now, so strong, but it was as fractured as Lothar was. It wasn’t flowing easily between us because Lothar was resisting it with everything he had.
He hadn’t chosen this. First the option was taken from him, now it had been forced on him.
I didn’t deserve him, didn’t deserve his love, and even if there was no way to release him, he’d never truly be mine, not now. Not with how fucking messed up this was.
The beauty of what we could have shared was long gone. It was a path not taken, a chance missed and lost forever. We’d both destroyed it, disrespected it, long ago.
Squeezing my eyes closed, I dropped my arms from around him and, breathing deep and slow, I started the slow, painful process of rebuilding the walls around my heart.
Lothar had been through enough, and I’d do whatever it took to save him from more pain.
To save him from me.