Shit.
My hand trembles slightly around the fork I’m gripping. Things are going downhill fast. Maybe I should’ve just eaten the worms? But one look at Lucifer as he slurps some up confirms that I just can’t do it. No amount of imagination can make me pretend that I’m eating ramen. I’m just not that good.
“But the question is, is she in on the deceit? Did she hide herself from us? Running from her responsibility as an Abdicated, perhaps?” the ginger warrior female asks. “If so, I’d love to get my hands on her,” she says, holding the butter knife in her hand like she’s imagining slitting my throat with it.
My eyes ping pong between the demons. I feel like I’m one sentence away from getting dragged into that weapons room and strung up onto the wall. My wings cringe behind me, like they’re trying to hide. All of the stunning beauty that is Lucifer’s is quickly changing, hardening into a drop-dead gorgeous temper as he assesses me.
“Anytime any of my offspring attempt to deceive me, I have them drawn and quartered,” Baldy says as he continues to shovel food into his mouth.
I have to stop myself from throwing my fork at him and telling him to shut his gorgeous lips. The picture of myself getting dragged by a Hell horse and then cut open like an anatomy project is enough to turn my already soured stomach.
My eyes fly up to Tazreel, trying to see if he’s considering it. He looks...contemplative. Fuck. Why couldn’t I have had a cool Abdicated father? Why do I have to get stuck with this asshole who doesn’t seem to care whether or not my intestines are inside or outside of my body?
“It is curious why she just suddenly appeared like that. Your meditation room, was it?” the dude decked out in jewels asks, his eyes gleaming.
“Yes,” Tazreel replies, but he’s still watching me, and he gives me a look, pointing at his plate with his fork, in a clear warning to keep eating.
Fucking hell. Apparently, he’s fine with talk about me getting killed, but he’s a stickler for table manners.
Avoiding the meat, I sink my fork into something that I think might be a vegetable. It’s dark brown with a kind of sauce drizzled over the top. When I put it in my mouth, it’s slimy and earthy, like a mushroom. Can’t there just be a damn bread roll? I flop it around in my mouth before swallowing it whole. This fucking dinner is going to be the death of me.
“How did you end up there?” Ginger demands.
There’s zero chance of holding anything back. I’ve gotten that warning clear as crystal. All I can do is answer their questions as vaguely yet truthfully as possible. “I fell through the Nihil portal in the Vestibule,” I say, trying to keep my voice even instead of shaking with nerves. Channel Iceman, I tell myself. Be cool and smooth.
“You fell,” Elle says evenly, like she doesn’t quite believe me.
Lucifer suddenly leans forward, and I freeze, unable to answer. How could I have thought any kind of salacious thoughts toward this guy? I can feel the oppressive predator prowling just under the surface. If I had anything in my bladder, I’d be pissing myself right about now. His eyes hold me captive, worse than the bars down in the dungeon.
“Are you a spy?” he suddenly asks, a darkness descending over the dinner table. It’s menacing, and out of the corner of my eye, I see the menageries huddling in the corner, cringing away.
My heart wants to thump right out of my chest and run out of the room. This isn’t a threat that hangs in the air—this isn’t just a curious discussion over dinner. Everything is suddenly very clear. They won’t hesitate to end me, and then probably go right back to eating their fucking worms. I’m in mortal danger.
Suddenly, my right hand prickles with heat. I flinch at the sensation, and right before my eyes, my scythe appears in my hand, sturdy and solid.
My fingers grip around it at the same time that I jump to my feet with wide, shocked eyes.
There’s a collective gasp that rings through the air like a whip.
“You dare draw a weapon?” someone shouts—I’m not sure which male it is.
“No, I—it was an accident!” I exclaim as I try and fail to drop the damn thing. I shake my hand frantically, opening up my fingers, but the fucking scythe won’t drop. It’s like it’s super glued to my palm. Oh, now it wants to be best friends? Where was it when I was fighting for my life before? Or when my prick of an Abdicated father was locking me in a cell? I glare at the black and silver staff in my hand, not sure if I want to smash it to splinters or hug it.
“Tazreel, let me kill your offspring for this grave offense,” Ginger says, her face a blaze of wrath and looking even more like a warrior who’s ready to behead me.
Smash it to splinters, it is...
“Wait.”
Everyone freezes, including me, as Lucifer gets to his feet and walks over to where I’m standing, shaking in my heels.
“Luce—” Tazreel says, but the Devil just holds up a hand to shut him up as he stands in front of me, eyeing the scythe.
“I know this weapon.” His light blue gaze flickers up to my eyes, and a slow, scary fucking smile spreads across his face. “I know who your mother is.”
6
Peals of laughter fill the cavernous room, and I stare dumbfounded as I watch Evil Incarnate lose his mind to the giggles.
One second, he was standing over me with that creepy fucking grin after he announced the truth bomb that he knows who my mother is, and the next, hysterical with laughter.
I don’t know if I’m supposed to be offended by this, but I am really fucking confused.
I’m
