My stomach rolled at how easily he’d maneuvered me, and how he’d set it all up against me. Try as I might, I didn’t see another option. The banshee would kill them if I didn’t agree.
“Okay,” I whispered. “I agree.”
Lucifer dropped his hand, the banshee’s scream quieting.
It was Kase who rose first, who showed that astonishing speed as he rushed the woman, grasped her chin and snapped her neck.
Her body fell still to the ground, and the crowed exploded into applause.
“I will see you tonight,” Lucifer said before rising from his seat and walking away, as if I were no longer important.
Then again, I wasn’t.
He’d outsmarted me, and I had no idea what he wanted from me….
Chapter Nineteen
I was amazed that the guards heeded my request when I asked to see the black team. I had to assume Lucifer had already approved it. He probably knew that if he didn’t allow it, he’d have to deal with my complaining.
Down one floor and across the courtyard, the guard stopped in front of a door with had another guard.
“You have one hour,” he said. “Then Lucifer wishes to see you.”
I nodded, then slid into the room, closing the door behind me.
Inside was a huge room set up with seating and tables full of food. Doors sat the sides, likely the quarters rooms off the main area.
A woman walked from one of the rooms, her eyes drunk with lust and her hair messy. On her heels was Kase, a spot of blood on his lip, his hand on her lower back.
I froze, the sight painful in a way I hadn’t expected.
Kase lifted his gaze to mine, an uncomfortable moment of silence as if he wasn’t sure what to say.
Instead of saying anything to me, he escorted the woman to the door, then knocked.
“But I don’t want to go,” she said in a slur, turning and pressing her lips to Kase’s.
He set her aside, firm hands on her arms, then peered at the guards. “Please return her. I am quite satisfied.”
Satisfied.
How satisfied would he feel if I kneed him right in the groin? Then again, if he’d already finished, I suppose he didn’t really need to use that equipment anyway.
When the door shut again, leaving us there, he didn’t speak right away. Leave it to Kase to play the long game.
“I told Lucifer to pick ugly donors. I should have also specified men for you.”
He let out a slow sigh. “I didn’t sleep with her.”
“Of course you did. She looked like the poster child for just rolled out of bed.”
“She wanted to, yes, but as you saw, I sent her away after feeding.”
When he tried to reach for me, I pulled back and stormed past him. “You made it pretty damn clear that resisting wasn’t possible when you fed on Troy. Or was that just a game to see what you could get me to do?”
“Werewolves are different. The blood is more potent.” Even as he spoke, there was a quiver to his voice that reminded me of when he’d fed from Troy.
I gave myself that moment to recall, to remember how his lips had looked at Troy’s throat, how I’d wrapped my lips around Troy’s cock, how lost to it all we’d been.
Then I spotted the blood on his lip and my passioned chilled.
“You can’t be angry that I had to feed, Ava. If I don’t feed, I die. While I would happily feed from only you, that isn’t possible, so we are in this situation.”
I narrowed my eyes, wanting to argue it more because I really didn’t like the thought of that other woman pressed up against him, of the way she’d kissed him, of how his lips would have looked at her throat.
I hated it, and it being unfair to be angry didn’t really matter.
Still, I took a deep breath and tried to let it go. Reality sucked some of the time, and this seemed just another example.
Besides, the memory of the blood that had leaked from his ears as well told me that he had probably needed to feed.
“What happened?” he asked. When I furrowed my eyebrows, he continued. “The banshee quieted for no reason. I doubt Lucifer leaves much to chance, so I assume that was due to you? What did you promise?”
I grabbed a bottle of water from the shelf and took a drink before sitting to explain. I told him about my deal to submit to Lucifer.
He didn’t speak, and yet the tension inside him made me want to scoot farther down on the couch.
He waited for me to give every detail, to tell him everything that had happened before he answered. Finally, he set his arm on the back of the couch and frowned. “You should not have agreed.”
“You could have died.”
“Trust me, I know. I have never encountered a banshee before. It feels as though your brain is dissolving. I could not move my body, couldn’t think or see. Even still, you should not have agreed. Who knows what Lucifer wants from you?”
His words were strange in that they were honest. He would have rather I left them to die just to avoid becoming entangled with Lucifer?
What an idiot.
I shifted to my knees and shoved his shoulder. “If you really think I was going to just sit there and let you die, then you really are a fucking moron.”
He tilted his head, that blank expression he wore when he thought I were being entirely irrational. “You have no idea what Lucifer will ask of you, and you’re now obligated to comply. Do you not recognize how dangerous that is?”
“I recognize that if you all died, I’d have been—” Alone.
The word made me freeze as I realized how true it was and how stupid it would have been to answer.
Not speaking it aloud didn’t change the truth, though. If they’d died, I’d have been alone. Not just to figure out
