There must have been some unspoken signal in those words, because Jay relaxed visibly, stepping aside so he was no longer acting as her personal demon shield. “I guess we have a problem then, sir, because I’m not going to let anyone hurt Sasha,” he said.
“It is a conundrum.” Lucifer linked his hands behind his back. “Perhaps if she weren’t holding the angel’s sword it might soften your mother’s feelings toward her.”
“She threatens you, my love. Yet another reason to kill her,” Jezebeth said eagerly, kitten heels slapping the tiles as she pranced to Lucifer’s side to coo up at him.
Sasha looked down at the angelic Desert Eagle, surprised to find it still in her hand. She quickly holstered it and began stammering an apology, but Lucifer held up his hand and the words stalled in her throat.
“I’m sure you didn’t mean to bring a weapon into my presence. Did you, Miss Christian?”
“No, of course not,” Sasha said quickly, raising her now-empty hands as if that could confirm the innocence of her intentions.
Lucifer approached, his smile so charming she felt all her reservations about him melting under its warmth. “You understand my difficulty, Miss Christian,” he said, his blue eyes entreating. “My bride wants you dead and I so wish to please her, but my new stepson is ready to defend your life with his own and he is less expendable. A demon with his unique gifts is so valuable.”
She knew she shouldn’t ask, but…“His gifts?”
Lucifer tapped his temple. “Reading minds. Very rare, you know.”
Reading… Sasha’s stomach took a swan dive toward her toes. Suddenly every thought she’d ever had in Jay’s presence was subject to reevaluation. The concept of privacy vanished. An intense sense of violation rolled over her. Every time he gave her that searching look, was he really digging around in her head?
Sasha stepped backward, needing some distance between herself and the demon who had managed to find yet another thing to conceal from her. Mind reading. Jesus Christ. She sidled away until she had a clear view of all the players—now didn’t seem to be the time to be walking into anything blind.
“If I can’t kill her, just let me torture her a little,” Jezebeth pleaded, pouting prettily and tossing a tennis-ball-sized fireball between her fingertips.
Lucifer smiled indulgently. Jay just stood there, infuriatingly impassive.
Sasha wanted nothing more than to scream at him, but first she needed to get away from Lucifer and his pet psychopath—who just happened to be Jay’s mother. Dodged a bullet mixing with that gene pool.
She tried to remember the gatekeeper’s instructions for negotiating in Hell. How did it start? Give a compliment to figure out what they really want. How did that even work? And what could the Prince of Darkness want from her? For that matter, what did the Devil want from anyone? He was the Devil. He’d fought God and been cast down from Heaven only to build an empire for himself in Hell. If ever someone knew how to take what he wanted, it was Lucifer.
What do you get for the Devil who has everything?
“You’re looking well, sir. Married life seems to agree with you.” Jay spoke before she could. Unease snaked through her mind at the idea that he might have been trolling through her thoughts even now.
“Does it?” Lucifer’s laugh echoed through the room.
Sasha realized she was smiling like an idiot, enchanted into submission by the sound. Even Jezebeth and Jay didn’t appear to be immune to Lucifer dark, compelling radiance. Jezebeth giggled coyly and Jay’s lips quirked up in a hint of a smile.
Shaking off the spell of his laugh, Sasha studied the world’s most famous villain. He was supernaturally good-looking, supernaturally charming, and Hell was at his feet, but everyone wanted something. Demons were notoriously ambitious by nature. So what was Lucifer’s current ambition? And how could she use it against him?
“I’ve been remiss not to visit since the wedding, but now that I’m here, I suppose it falls to me to ask you what your intentions toward my mother are?”
Lucifer went still, his eyes alert, a small smile curving his lips. “My intentions?”
“Why did you marry her?” Jay asked, the slightest edge of challenge in his voice.
Sasha felt certain she was missing the significance of this conversation. The undercurrents in the room were so far beneath her depth she could barely feel them, but Jay was doing something. It’d be nice if she had the first clue what it was.
“She thinks you only married her to gain more access to me—but you were already more father to me than any other creature on Hell or earth. You had all the influence you needed. So why agree to marriage after all these centuries?”
Lucifer’s good cheer vanished. “What are you playing at, Jay?”
“I want to live on the mortal plane. Indefinitely.”
His mother gasped, horrified. “Jevroth. How can you mean that? Why would you want to leave Hell to live among the filthy, small-minded humans?”
Jay continued speaking, pleading his case directly to Lucifer. “I never belonged here and to some it is risky to have me here. If I stay I will never be anything other than a tool in the power games. A dangerous tool.”
“Jay,” Jezebeth pleaded, her voice unnaturally high. More fireballs began orbiting her like hyperactive moons. “You belong here. You’re a demon. Where else would you belong?”
“There are no secrets around me.” Jay ignored his mother, his dark eyes intent on Lucifer. “And some secrets are bombs just waiting to be detonated. If, for example, I were to tell my mother how you—”
“Jevroth.” The single word was a command. Lucifer didn’t need to raise his voice to freeze Jay’s words in the air. “Leaving isn’t without risks.”
“I’ll take my chances with redemption. I love Sasha—without manipulations or power plays.”
Lucifer arched one golden brow. “You show your human side tonight. But love without conditions, manipulations and power plays—that isn’t the demon way. You will tire of it, much more quickly than you think. I would have grown bored of your mother centuries ago if I didn’t suspect she was secretly trying to dethrone me and rule in my stead.”
“Oh, Luc,” Jezebeth said, blushing prettily.
Trust the psycho to be flattered by being suspected of treachery.
“Are you afraid?” Sasha asked, then shuddered as all eyes in the room locked on her. But she kept talking, hoping she wasn’t digging her own grave. “Sure, everyone knows you can hold your throne by manipulation and deceit. No one can outmaneuver Lucifer. But if they had a choice, if Jezebeth had a choice, would you still rule? I think you covet respect that isn’t forced, but freely given. Love that isn’t bought, but a gift.”
The Devil laughed. “Save me from the humans and their psychotherapists.”
“I think you want your people—demons, whatever—to choose you. But they can’t do that unless you give them the chance to choose—”
“Stop. It’s adorable, your attempt to fight for young Jay. But I will not give him the choice to leave any more than I will give you the choice whether I allow Jezebeth to kill you. You cannot persuade me, my dear.”
Sasha’s heart plummeted.
Lucifer steepled his fingers in front of his lips, studying Jay. “It’s a dangerous game you play, Jay, threatening the Devil. Are you sure she’s worth it? It’s still a risk.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
“If I allow it—”
“Luc! You can’t honestly be considering this. He’s my son. Mine.” Jezebeth stomped a dainty foot, sparks shooting from her fingertips to singe the tiles.
“And what’s yours is mine, my dear. I’ve decided it’s time young Jay left the nest.”
“Lucifer!” Jezebeth shrieked.
The Devil ignored her, waving them toward the arched doorway. “Go on. Both of you. Before I change my mind.”
Jay started to reach for her, but Sasha ducked away from his hand. Mind reading. His lies just kept snowbal
ling.
“I’m not finished with you, angelspawn!” Jezebeth screamed and the door in front of them burst into flames.
Sasha gasped and fell back away from the searing heat. Jay caught her, her back pressing against his chest as his arms steadied her.
“Jezebeth,” Lucifer roared and the room quaked. This was one lovers’ spat Sasha really didn’t want to be in the middle of.
“Come on,” Jay whispered against her ear. “It’s an illusion.” He began to guide her toward the flaming door, but Sasha balked as the heat from the flames made her skin feel baked.
“I can feel them,” she protested.
“My mother can’t conjure fireballs, but she’s Queen of Lies. Trust me, it’s an illusion.”
Trust him. Always those damn words.
As the room shuddered again, Sasha put her hand into his. “Don’t make me regret this.”
Closing her eyes, she let him pull her straight into the fire.
Chapter Ten
Truths & Consequences
As soon as they touched the flames, the sensation of heat vanished. Running through the doorway, they stumbled into a hallway that matched the blandness of her first foray into Hell, but this time Sasha knew the beige paint was hiding secrets. She’d found nothing but secrets here so far.
Jay began to pull her down the hall and Sasha slipped her hand from his grasp. “I’m not going one more step with you until…” Until what? She couldn’t even issue a good ultimatum. Her brain was still playing catch-up from the satanic duel she’d just started.
Jay backtracked to her side. “I know you have questions, but we don’t have time right now for an interrogation. We have to get you back to the mortal plane.”
“We have hours before dawn.” And even though he knew the way, she couldn’t be dependent on him to get her out right now. They’d gone beyond questions and mistrust. She needed to get away from him. Just a few minutes out of his presence to think, to sort everything through.
“We don’t have hours,” Jay said, patience in every word. “Time works differently here. We have an hour, max, and the exits aren’t always where you leave them. Hell’s like a casino—everything is designed to bring you in and keep you here. Getting out is always a challenge, even if you know the way, so we need to run. Unless you want to be stuck in Hell with me forever?”
“Running is good.”
They jogged in air-conditioner-humming silence through a maze of corridors which occasionally rumbled with earthquake tremors—reminders that Lucifer and Jezebeth were still going at it.
“Are they going to kill each other?” she asked, grateful for her morning cardio routine so she was only panting a little.
“They haven’t yet,” Jay replied, not even a tiny bit out of breath—this from the man whose exercise regimen consisted of sitting on the couch with a remote control. Demonic physiology was just unfair.
“What did you threaten him with?”
“I can read his mind,” Jay admitted. “I can see he loves her. I implied that if I stayed in Hell I would tell her.”
Telling Satan’s wife he loved her was their get-out-of-Hell-free card. She couldn’t make sense of this world.
Sasha’s thoughts raced, replaying the last hour as her emotions swung back and forth like a pendulum. Jay had told the ruler of the Underworld that he loved her, but his mother was the Queen of Lies and the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. He’d protected her from the demonic minions, probably saving her life a dozen times in the last hour, but he’d also lied to her more times than she could count over the last six months. Even his behavior had been a lie. The mild-mannered Clark Kent. Sure, she’d hated the niceness of him, but this was swinging a bit too far in the opposite extreme. From too-nice-for-me to demon—her heart couldn’t keep up.
“Does he really love her?” she heard herself asking, because it was easier than the question she needed answered—Can demons love?
“In a way. In the only way he can.”
That really wasn’t comforting. “What way is that?”
Jay frowned. “Angels and demons…It’s complicated. Love means something different when you look at your life in millennia rather than decades.”
Millennia. She frowned, distracted by the thought. “Just how old are you, Jay?”
“Thirty-four. I told you.”
“You also told me you were human and that hasn’t turned out so well.” Though she was unspeakably relieved she hadn’t been screwing someone who’d been around for the dawn of humanity. The age difference would have been way too creepy, even if all the demons she’d seen so far were ageless and youthful. Even Gerry had a timelessness about him.
“You assumed I was human. And I left some stuff out I probably shouldn’t have, but all the words I’ve spoken to you are technically true.”
“Silly me not to ask you if you were a demon from Hell who could read my mind. That goes right to the top of the list for my next first date.”
“I can’t,” Jay replied sharply. “Read your mind. I never could. Jezebeth created me to be a weapon against demons, not man. The demons around me might as well be screaming their innermost thoughts in my ear, but humans are just a muddy background noise. Even when I concentrate I can’t always make it out. And I could never hear you. Not even a little. Your natural shields kept me out entirely.”
He grabbed her hand to pull her around a tight corner. She let him keep it—but only for steering purposes. It had nothing to do with the fact that she liked him a lot better after she found out he hadn’t been rooting around in her brain.
Provided he wasn’t lying.
“How am I supposed to believe you?”
Jay grimaced. “I don’t know. I can promise to be honest with you until the day I die, I can tell you why I felt I had to deceive you, but I can’t make you trust me.”
The thing was she did trust him. She didn’t want to, but she couldn’t seem to shake the foundation they’d built. That had to be unhealthy. Dysfunctional relationships warning sign number one.
“Why lie?” she asked, avoiding the question she really wanted answered. “Was it just because you thought I’d react badly if you said you were a demon?” She probably wouldn’t have believed him. Angels and demons existed, sure, but the idea that there was one hitting on you in a library stretched credibility too far.
“Part of it was habit,” he admitted. “You learn early, growing up in Hell, that anything you say can be used against you. So you learn to shut up. Especially if your mother is a deception demoness who can sense whenever someone is lying in her presence.”
“Is that why you were so quiet?”
“And why Lucifer was careful never to say he wanted to do you harm. He likes you, you know.”
“I’m delighted. You might have mentioned your mother is a walking lie detector before I started bullshitting her.”
“I told you not to say anything. That’s always safest—because if she can tell a lie, she can also sense the truth and sometimes that can be just as damning. It’s why Lucifer can’t say he loves her, even if he does. She would know the truth or lie in it and use it against him either way. He can’t give her that power over him. The best demonic diplomacy is silence.”
He pulled up suddenly, pressing her flush against the wall with an arm across her torso. “Minions ahead,” he said quietly. “Jezebeth must have them guarding the exit.” He swore softly.
“Is there another way out?”
“Not that we can be sure will still be open when we get there, even if we had time to go to the next one, which we don’t.”
“So we fight our way out.” Sasha drew the reloaded Desert Eagle. “Any tips on demon killing I should know this time?”
“Aim for the body. These are lesser demons so taking out the brain doesn’t slow them down much.”
“I don’t suppose you have another clip of angel ammo lying around?” Though she had no idea where he’d hidden the first one. Tight bloodstained jeans sho
wcased his ass to beautiful effect but didn’t leave many places to hide ammunitions.
Jay frowned, then blinked at her. “I keep forgetting you don’t know all you should.”
“You don’t have to be a dick about it.”
“No. It’s just…odd. Having to explain things I’ve always known. The human lack of knowledge about angels and demons is stunning. And for you to be kept in the dark…”
“It’s not like you guys are doing a lot to educate us,” Sasha snapped. “Angels just love to perpetuate the rumors about them. They can smell sin from a mile away. They can hear impure thoughts and every time a bell rings an angel gets his wings. It’s all bullshit, but we don’t even know bullshit about demons. So why don’t you enlighten me, oh wise one?”
“Those guns—” he gestured to the Desert Eagles, “—they aren’t really guns. That’s an angel’s sword. I’ve heard of them turning into bows, staffs, whatever the user is most comfortable handling. Apparently your favorite weapon is a .44 Magnum—which isn’t much of a surprise.” His mouth quirked in a grin. “An angel’s sword can never run out of ammunition, but they are strongly affected by the desires of the wielder. I think the only reason you were able to come up empty earlier is because you were so certain there could only be so many bullets. The sword was handicapped by your belief. So I told you there were more, and when you believed it, there were.”
Sasha frowned, remembering something else he’d said about the guns when they were pinned down by demonic minions. “Why couldn’t you fire it? Because you’re a demon?”
“Sort of.”
Sasha glowered. “No. No more half truths. Why?”
“Because I don’t have angelic blood.”
For a moment, Sasha said nothing, trying to make sense of that. “But I’m not…”
Jay looked away down the hall, evading her eyes. “I wasn’t sure, at first. I thought I sensed angel light in you, but you didn’t act like them. You treated me like there might be something worth redeeming in me—which an angel would never do. Angels and their offspring are forbidden from loving demons. It would be chaos if good loved evil.”
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