Chapter 30
Chapter Thirty
Lothar
My brothers were here in the shadows and closing in. The plan was a simple one, hit her with every bit of firepower we had, distract her long enough for the angels to come and take her back. Between us and the knights, we had this.
“When do you want to draw Lucifer out?” Chaos asked Sera.
She opened her mouth to answer, then spotted Relic walking out of the shadows. Her gaze flew around the parking lot as my brothers walked forward and circled around us. She smiled, still convinced she was in control. “Excellent, the pack’s all here. My pack.”
Warrick crossed his arms and shook his head. “My pack.”
“Now, now, Warrick. When I take the throne, you will all belong to me.”
He bared his fangs. “You’ll have to do it without us. Turns out, we’ve had a change of heart.”
Her eyes grew wild as they took in the big males surrounding her, power snapping from each one. “What do you mean, a change of heart?”
“I mean, we would never betray Lucifer for you, Seraphina. To even think it shows just how fucking stupid you are.”
“Did you really think we’d want anything to do with you?
” I snarled. “You fucking disgust me. Kissing you was almost as repulsive as fucking you.” The way I loathed her made me shake, and saying this shit felt good, but it wasn’t the reason I was trying to piss her off.
Most beings with powers had limits. If we could get her angry enough to let loose the majority of it in one big initial blast, then we might have a chance against her.
Wind whipped around her as the fury of her power snapped through the air. The knights spaced themselves out, stepping back and blocking her way. “You have made a monumental mistake,” she shrieked.
Beelzebub roared, and Relic and Dirk shifted and pounced, tackling him to the ground, while Jagger bound him with iron forged in Hell, strong enough to hold him while we ended this.
Dirk stood over him, while Relic and Jagger took their places again.
“Looks like you’re on your own, Sera,” Chaos said.
“You think you are strong enough to defeat me?” she said and laughed maniacally. But the humor dropped as fast as it came, and she lifted her arms and screamed in rage, releasing a blast that knocked every male there on his ass.
I bounded back to my feet, and we all ran back to our places, forming a circle around her again.
Chaos and Zenon started first, blasting her with power from either side of the circle.
Jagger and Rome next, then Kryos and Gunner.
Over and over we took turns bombarding her.
Keeping her off-balance, knocking her back.
She shrieked and blasted us with another wave of her power.
We managed to keep our feet this time, pushing back with everything we had.
Gritting her teeth, she squeezed her hands into fists.
Jagger grabbed his throat and so did Rocco.
I called my hellfire forth and blasted her with it. She screamed, but didn’t let up.
“Where the fuck are the angels?” Chaos roared.
There was no sign of them, and Seraphina seemed to have a fucking endless supply of power. My brothers called their hellfire forth as well, and as one, we sent it at her, not stopping until she was engulfed in flames, fucking near burning ourselves out.
As soon as we lowered our hands, the flames died, and the knights hit her all at once, sending her wave after wave of crushing pressure, enough to bring down a fucking skyscraper, but still she remained standing.
Our power was dwindling, we couldn’t hold her for much longer.
Sera spun to me and her arm shot out. Her power wrapped around my throat, and I was dragged toward her with invisible hands.
“You’re all going to die,” she screamed, then bared her teeth. “But you, lover, will be first.”
Relic leaped forward, wrapping his jaws around Sera’s side and shaking her. She sent him flying, slamming into a brick wall hard enough to shatter every bone in his body. I roared.
“The angels should be here,” Jagger snarled.
“They’re not coming. They’re not coming for her,” War roared to Chaos as I was shoved to my knees in front of Seraphina.
He was right. They weren’t coming.
And now I was about to die without telling Roxy I was sorry, without telling her how much I loved her.
Roxy
I burst through the door to Lucifer’s quarters. He was sitting on his chair, Mini resting along the back.
As soon as he saw me, he shot to his feet and strode over. The chains attached to my wrists fell away as he gripped my chin and lifted my head up and to the side, checking out the damage to my throat, then snatched up my hand. “Your fingers.”
I pulled away. “Blessed silver.” I wriggled the remaining fingers on my left hand. “And demon teeth,” I said. “We need to go, you need to come with me.”
“Why is Beelzebub not secured?” he said, because he knew we’d found him and he knew the lord of Hell was aboveground.
Lucifer always fucking knew. He frowned.
“You’ve been through a lot, my precious one, I felt your pain, but he needs to be locked down…
” He stilled suddenly, before I could answer, and closed his eyes, breathing in deeply.
When his eyes snapped open, they were glowing. “A loss of balance. I can feel it.”
“It’s Seraphina, you didn’t know?”
His gaze burned with fury. “The angels wouldn’t tell me anything. No matter what I tried. No matter what I offered. I’ve had blind spots this entire time, to what was happening, there was so much I couldn’t see.”
“She escaped Heaven. She’s making another play for your throne. She’s the one who’s pulling Beelzebub’s strings. Right now, the knights and the hounds are fighting her to protect it, to protect you. You need to help them before she brings down the entire city.”
Lucifer’s eyes flashed. “I can’t believe those motherfucking angels are behind all of this. They set her free.”
Lucifer tried to touch me, and I jerked back before I realized I was going to do it.
His yellow eyes bored into me, probing inside my head, and when he flinched, I knew what he’d seen.
“Lothar knows what we did,” I choked out. “That we took his memories from him, that we hid who I am to him. You said you’ve had blind spots, was I one of them? While I was gone, did you know what was happening to me? To Lothar?”
“Yes,” Lucifer said. “You and Lothar are mated.”
“Do you know how it happened?”
“Yes.”
The betrayal almost fucking choked me. I hugged myself. “Even though it’s the last thing you wanted, you let it happen anyway? And worse, the choice was taken from Lothar again, because of what we did to him.”
His expression didn’t change. “What will this mean going forward?”
For him. What did it mean for him, he meant. I still loved him, but Lucifer was a selfish being. He always had been. “It means, I’m leaving. You, Hell, this city, to free Lothar from me.”
“The fuck you are. I won’t allow it,” Lucifer growled.
Again, all he cared about was himself. “You said you sent me to that room to catch Lothar and Seraphina so I’d know the truth,” I fired at him. “But you sent me there so you could keep me all to yourself.”
He said nothing.
Pain sliced through me, the rest of it unraveling. I’d never wanted to believe it, but I knew it was the truth. “But that’s not all, is it? You put Lothar up to sleeping with Seraphina, didn’t you?”
“Roxana—”
“Answer me.”
“I gave him a choice. I didn’t force him to do anything. You can blame me all you like, but Lothar could have refused me.”
“Really? And what were his options? Fuck Seraphina or what?”
His features were calm. “I needed information. Sera always had a soft spot for him, you know that. I gave him the choice to charm her, to get the information I wanted, and as payment, he would be free to mate with you.”
Rage rolled through me so strongly, I shook. “And if he didn’t?”
“He could never have you,” he said without a shred of emotion.
I grabbed for the wall, my heart breaking all over again.
“That’s not a choice,” I cried. “Especially since you never planned to honor it. You made him think we’d finally be together, in truth, then you sent me to find them so you’d get what you wanted, anyway.
So you’d keep me here, tied to your side.
” Then the rest of it finally hit me. “Oh gods,” I choked out.
“Let me explain,” he said. “You’re misreading—”
“I’m not fucking misreading anything! For the first time, I’m finally seeing the truth.
” I held his stare. “The deal you made with Sera that day, the one where she gave you the gem that you’d convinced me could harm you, the deal where I agreed to give up Lothar to protect you…
” I gripped my stomach, feeling fucking sick.
“You didn’t need to make a deal, did you? ”
“The gem can, and still could harm me.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about.”
“Roxana,” he said, shaking his head. “Stop this.”
“You didn’t need to make a deal, because the angels were already there, waiting to take her.
You’d already made a deal with them. You took Lothar’s memories of me, his knowledge of our bond, because you could, because you didn’t want to share me, because I was too valuable an asset for you to lose.
You used the situation with Sera to manipulate me. ”
“My precious one, you need to listen to me.” He cupped the side of my face, and I jerked back again.
“You told me if Lothar ever learned who I was, if he one day got his memory back and knew I was his mate, there’d be dire consequences…but for who, Lucifer?” I demanded, my voice shaking as hard as I was.
He said nothing.
“For you, right? The dire consequences were you losing me, right?” I demanded louder.
“Losing you would destroy me,” he said roughly.