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They sat in silence as Athon’s words met their end. Jezzie held his hand, her thumb stroked over his fingers softly.
“You’re not an idiot, you know. It’s a long time to be missing a piece of yourself, you got impatient, that’s all. No one could have predicted what she’d do.” Nithe was the one to voice what she herself was thinking.
Athon looked up at him with devastatingly soulful eyes, sad and hopeful. Jezzie watched them, her mind returning to the note from that psychotic bitch and the implications of it returned full blast.
“When do you think he got the letter? And how? I mean, it had to be after we got here but before we met with everyone, right? But how would she have known so fast, and did she get in here herself or does she have a spy? Who knew we were coming or that we were here before the meeting?” Jezzie barely paused to take a breath, her words tumbled out in rapid fire succession. Both males looked at her with lowered brows, clearly pondering her questions.
“Get dressed, you two, we need to go speak with your father, Jezzie. He needs to know about this, and it’s time we contacted Leraie and have a little chat. I’m beyond ready to end this mystery shit and get Roth back home, here, with us.” Nithe’s gruff voice sent flutters directly to the horny bitch at her core. She refrained from jumping him as best she could because she wanted the same things he did and getting Roth back was more important. Still, she couldn’t resist swatting at his sexy ass as she fled Athon’s room for her own.
She dressed as fast as she was able, though she nearly fell while pulling on a skater dress, lacy underwear, and hiking boots. She wanted boots because if they found Roth she was sorely tempted to kick his ass for leaving in the first place and the dress because she wanted to look cute and sexy doing it.
Once done she headed back to Athon’s room, only to stop and watch them together. A small smile played on her lips as Athon and Nithe embraced each other. It wasn’t one of those bro hugs, one full of macho bravado and ‘it’s not a hug’ hugs. It was a hug of comfort, support, and genuine care. With a final, gentle pat on the back they pulled apart. Athon grasped the letter from Mara in his hand tightly.
“I put the rings and Roth’s letter back. No one but us needs to see those yet.” Athon took a deep breath and continued, “Let’s do this. Let’s get our idiot back.” They all chuckled and headed out the door.
Lucifer’s door opened as they approached and Jezzie was met with a glare. Doe-like lavender eyes shot sparks at her from a lightly tanned face framed by collarbone length blue-black hair.
“Lily,” Lucifer’s voice called out, and the woman half turned back. “Just remember, nothing’s actually changed between us, sweetheart, deep down you know that.” Lily shut the door behind her and turned back to them, her chin in the air as she shouldered Jezzie out of her way.
“You okay, Lil?” Athon asked, concern in his voice.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be? Not like everything’s changing or anything, right?” Lily threw one more glare at Jezzie over her shoulder before she stormed away. Jezzie caught the faint taint of jealousy and unease wafting her way beneath the anger Lily used to mask them, and shook her head.
Jezzie knew she was going to have to figure out what was up with this Lily chick at some point. If Lucifer was involved with her. Jezzie wasn’t sure how her mom would react to the news. Right now, though, she needed to focus on the bigger problem they seemed to have.
Athon knocked on the door, shaking his head as he did so. Jezzie watched as the long strands swayed around and realized that since Roth left Athon hadn’t bothered to style his hair, not that she minded, it was still sexy as fuck.
Lucifer was happy to see them, his arms wrapped around her in an unexpected hug, and it felt like she was a little girl getting a daddy hug at the end of the day. At least that was what she thought it would have felt like, since she’d never received one before.
“What can I do for you today?” Her father looked at her, a cheeky spark in his eyes.
She hated to be the one to put it out. Luckily for her, Athon spoke up first.
“We have a problem. A big one. There may be a traitor in our midst.”
“We know, we are working on it already, but you knew that, so what’s going on?” The spark left her father’s eyes and her smile faltered in response.
“Well, either the spy is working with more than one person, or we have two spies working for two different people.” Athon cut Lucifer off before he could open his mouth to respond. “Somehow, Mara either left this herself for Roth, or had someone else leave it for him to find. We believe it’s the reason he left.” He handed over the crumpled paper. “You know what happened last time she got her claws into him. She fucked him up in the head for centuries. I can’t believe no one has caught her yet.”
“Oh, I’ll catch her,” Jezzie vowed. “And I’ll have fun with her before I hand her over too.”
“Calm down, dearest,” Nithe soothed. “We’ll get her together.” He winked with a smirk. “Can’t let you have all the fun.”
“Shit!” Lucifer exclaimed, his eyes locked to the paper. “It definitely was hand delivered and not through our mail system. Her name would have been flagged in the scanning process. It doesn’t match the handwriting samples we have on file for her either.” He moved to flick through a cabinet until he pulled out a thick folder, dropped it on his desk and leafed through it.
“Yeah, nah, not a match. The words are right, they follow along the lines of what she’d probably say, but she didn’t personally write this. Not unless she’s taken handwriting and calligraphy classes in the last ten years. Possible but not likely. Looks like someone here wrote this for her, using Mara’s words, and following her directions. Which means someone here is in active communication with the most wanted female angel criminal in all of our history. Like things couldn’t get any worse . . .”
“Could Mara be working with Raum?” The question popped out of Jezzie’s mouth as soon as it entered her head.
“Maybe, but he hates females, remember? So I don’t think it’s likely,” Nithe interjected. “But they might have the same connections, the same boss. Do we know what Mara’s motivation is? Why does she hate Roth so much?”
“Good points. No, we don’t. And it’s not just Azaroth she’s gone after, or angels either. She’s done similar things before to multiple individuals and lots of species. Sometimes to bad people, sometimes to good ones. Lots of death, destruction, and disappearances.” Lucifer turned the file around and spread the loose-leaf papers out.
Scenes the like Jezzie was all too familiar with littered the table along with witness recounts, notes, and photographic evidence. Her eyes snagged on one photograph in particular, a couple posed next to a wooden staircase. A sense of dread filled her mind, fear swept like acrid smoke into her lungs and her eyes stung with unshed tears and terror.
Nithe and Athon touched her shoulders, pulling her back to reality. What the fuck was that? The feeling faded before she could grasp the reason for her reaction and she snuggled back into the waiting warmth of her mates bodies.
“So, what are we going to do?” Nithe’s hand rubbed up and down her back soothingly.
