Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
Lothar
Dawn turned the black night of the Outer Realm into a deep gray. Roxy was pressed against me, she had been all night. I needed to let her go and move away, but she felt too good.
Thank fuck the beast had started to listen to me now, when it came to being gentler with her, but more importantly, when he wanted to mate with her last night. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to stop him, but somehow Roxy had gotten through, and he’d ignored his driving need to rut and held her instead.
This morning the beast seemed farther away and content to let me take the lead.
He was still there, and pushed forward every now and then, but since yesterday I’d been able to take the lead more easily.
I had to assume it was because Roxy was now my mate in truth.
The beast had been calmer since, except of course, when he thought she was in danger and wanted to protect her.
While I’d been in fucking turmoil, the beast had stepped up to do what I couldn’t.
It was slow progress, but I could feel him coming back to me, as if bit by bit, that part of me was latching back on, wanting to make us whole again, like I did.
I shuddered. I thought for a while there, that I’d lost myself forever.
My gaze dipped to Roxy’s hand, to where they’d taken two of her fucking fingers.
She’d used a strip from the bottom of her shirt to wrap it.
The rest of her fingers were missing nails, looking raw and bloody.
My lips peeled back, my fangs sliding down.
The pain she must have suffered, the fear—I looked at her shoulder and shuddered deeply.
I could only see the edge of my mark, and the urge to slide her shirt to the side to get a better look at it, to check on it, had my fingers twitching.
I lifted my hand, unable to stop myself—Roxy groaned, her ass wriggling back and pressing firmly against my cock. I jerked my hips back, and Roxy jolted awake.
“What’s going on?” she asked groggily.
She’d been so cold last night, her hands had been like ice, and it’d taken an hour of me holding her before she stopped shivering. The blessed silver cage plus her injuries were steadily weakening her.
“I can hear Sera and Beelzebub stirring in the tent,” I said low.
She spun to face me. “Lothar?”
Having her this close was torture. I wanted to beg her for forgiveness.
What I’d done in that cell was utterly unforgivable.
I had also never wanted…or fucking despised someone more in my life.
She and Lucifer had messed with my mind, lied to me, manipulated me, and what they’d turned me into as a result, would fucking haunt me for eternity.
I shuddered again, and my stomach rebelled at the thought of Roxy’s much smaller body pressed against that cell wall while the beast snarled in her face, while he spread her thighs and shoved them around his hips…
No. I couldn’t allow myself to think about that, not now.
I shoved it down deep. We had to get through this first. We had to take down Sera and Beelzebub, then I could deal with the horror on repeat in my head.
“I’m finding it easier to take control and hold it,” I said low, swallowing thickly. “You should be safe now. I won’t…”
“Lothar, what happened between us—”
“Is your hand okay? Are you in pain?” I said quickly, cutting her off, sure as fuck not wanting to go there.
“Nothing I can’t handle.”
“Good.” I glanced back at the tent. “When they come out, don’t let on that I’m back in control, yeah?”
She bit her lip and nodded. “Understood.”
The fallen angel thought she could control me, but she was fucking wrong.
“Before she put me in here, she called me her dog of war.” I touched the collar around my throat.
“She means to control me. She knows the…the mated bond will drive me to protect you, and plans to use these to bend me to her will.”
Roxy’s throat worked. “I thought as much.”
Her hand pressed against my chest, and I sucked a rough breath in through my nose. “Don’t touch me,” I choked out. I was in control, but it was still tenuous.
She quickly pulled her hand away. “I’m so sorry, Lothar.”
“You’re sorry?” There was a snarl in my voice that I couldn’t swallow.
“Yes, I’m sorry, you have no idea how much.”
The sooner I could put distance between us, the better. “You think an apology could ever make this right?”
Her eyes were wide. “No, of course not, but I need you to hear me, really hear what I’m saying.”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I said.
“Well, we need to talk about it. I need you to understand that you didn’t force yourself on me, you didn’t—”
“I did, and we both know it. I don’t need more of your lies to appease me. I was reduced to a rutting beast, Roxy. I shoved you against a wall, and I forced you to mate—”
“Stop it,” she snapped. “Do I look traumatized to you? Do I look hurt or afraid?”
I ground my teeth. “We don’t have time to talk about this.”
“Yes, we do.” She shook her head. “Lothar—”
“Maybe you’re just used to fucking monsters against your will?” I fired at her. “Lucifer made you his whore, anyone he chose for you, right? So maybe you’re not the best judge in this case.”
She flinched.
I was so fucking angry with her that I’d been intentionally cruel. Every word had been said to cause harm. I was as much a monster as the ones I’d thrown in her face. I’d already physically hurt her multiple times, but obviously that wasn’t enough for me. “I didn’t mean that,” I rushed out.
“You hate me, and I get it. Believe me, I hate myself more, but if you hear nothing else that I say to you, if you never speak to me again, please hear this—you did not force yourself on me. For better or worse, you are my mate, Lothar, and in that cell, in that moment, I submitted to you in every way. I submitted willingly. I wanted you too.”
I was desperate for that to be true, to believe that she’d wanted me, too, that I wasn’t the worst kind of monster a male can be. “I want to believe that.”
“Believe it.”
That was why she’d avoided fucking me, wasn’t it?
The times we were together on this trip.
She was afraid that I’d work it out, that my body would give away the truth, which is exactly what had happened.
“Then why?” I snarled. “Why did you and Lucifer fuck with my head? Why did you hide the truth of what we were for so long?”
Her slender throat worked. “You still can’t remember anything of that time?”
“Obviously not.”
She chewed her lip, and I hated that even now, even after the betrayal and the lies, I still wanted to kiss her so badly it fucking hurt.
“I…I thought it was the right thing to do at the time,” she said.
In other words, she chose Lucifer over me. Like she would always choose Lucifer over everyone and everything. She’d tossed me aside, as if the sacred bond between us was nothing, to serve her king, to put his needs and wants first, and she didn’t even have the courage to admit it.
“No, you and Lucifer decided to take that choice from me. Everything you do is for him, right? He comes first, always.” I released her and sat up, fucking desperate to put some distance between us.
The beast was still volatile, and with all the new emotions that had been awoken inside me when we mated, I was struggling on a whole new level.
“Lothar, please.” She touched my arm.
I jerked it back, hissing with rage, with confusion. My mind spun and my body ached for a mate who had never truly wanted me. I fucking despised myself, despised her, for how much I wanted to pull her close again.
“We’re mated, but that’s where it ends,” I growled out, unable to even look at her anymore.
“You and Lucifer can have your happily ever after together. I’d rather be alone for eternity than be with someone who was so disgusted by the idea of being mated to me that she’d rather wipe my fucking memories, suppress my fucking instincts, and lie to me for centuries.
” I lifted my head and met her wide-eyed stare.
“I may still be trying to figure out all these new emotions hammering me, but I’m pretty sure I’ve worked out the one I’m feeling the strongest right now.
Hate. I fucking hate you, Roxy, for what you did to me.
When we get out of this, I want you to stay the fuck away from me. ”