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“Weapons?” she asked Tana who usually had a stash hidden in every room.
“Duh, I’ve got some. Not as fine as those blades of yours, though. Just remember what Dad said. Call them forth and they shall come. They are a gift, infused with your blood, your essence, and linked to the shadows you house. It’s even possible they’re infused with them as well. Who knows? All I know is Hephaestus is one talented forger, and you are one lucky daughter of a bastard. No offense to my uncle.”
Tana gathered her weapons and headed to the door as silence descended. Jezzie followed as they made their way along the corridor outside the theater. Only the first alarm had been triggered, which meant they were in the entrance hall. The further they went along the labyrinth-like passageways the more prepared for a fight they became. Voices filtered down the hallway, indistinct and muffled. Behind a bubble maybe? But why? Were they that bad at being sneaky?
They stopped at the corner of the hidden hallway and Tana poked her head around quickly before she snapped back and slammed a hand over Jezzie’s mouth.
“He’s here. You can’t say anything about my dad, not that you could if you wanted to. I’m sorry, Jezzie, this is either going to go really well, or really badly. Leraie wouldn’t be here otherwise,” Tana whispered softly into the shell of her ear.
“Who?” Jezzie tried to ask, but Tana just held her hand and dragged her around the corner.
Whereupon, she had her very own ‘Sandra Dee caught in the headlights’ moment, and froze.
Cold, hard stone surrounded them as they stood in the cavernous room, the portal at their backs. The others looked just as baffled as he felt. Nestradia was a place of monsters and nightmares, so why were they in what looked to be a rudimentary cave system? A large one, but still. Several paths led off from the circular space and Roth found his feet itching to move down one as if a magnetic pull was tugging at his body.
“Are we meant to stand here all day, Leraie?” Luc asked, practically bouncing out of his rubber soled boots.
“Patience, Cifer. She’ll be here soon.” Leraie gave him an encouraging, but slightly stiff smile.
“Should we try to go further into the cave system? Is it even safe for her down here?” Athon asked with concern.
“It’s perfectly safe, I built it after all,” she reassured him as she hastily inspected her nails. “Stay where you are. Talk amongst yourselves, and, I don’t know . . . try not to be assholes when she does show up?”
Luc started pacing back and forth. Tension filled the space until it was so thick his shadows seemed to clog the very air. Roth moved back and Deus stepped between him and the General. He glanced over and saw Malphas and Caine bracketing Athon as they herded him further away.
“If things go south and you two can’t control yourselves, or worse, she shows interest in you two, we need you separated and protected from his reaction. Understood?” Deus whispered directly in his ear, the hand on his shoulder squeezed firmly. “So, whatever you do, keep it in your pants, or I’ll chop it off myself.”
Judging by the look on his face Deus had attained ‘critical injury’ levels of seriousness.
He opened his mouth to say something back, to assure the male he knew his place, but words failed him as she came into view. More like was dragged into view by someone else. Another woman, though he couldn’t describe her if he tried, his eyes were solely focused on the redhead who haunted his and Athon’s dreams, his very thoughts. Here she was, so close, yet so far away.
A look of shock was plastered on her face as she elbowed the woman beside her, her gaze locked on Lucifer. In that moment, as his resentment flared he couldn’t bring himself to call him Luc, to call him friend, brother, or General. And he hated the tornado of chaos it caused in his brain.
“I don’t know who the fuck that is . . . but that’s not my Caria!” Lucifer suddenly snarled, whirling away in an explosion of black shadows, disappearing before anyone could react, and as only he could, through the still open portal behind them. The lack of flames an indication of his mood.
Her eyes dropped to the floor as she flinched back as if struck by an invisible blow, her hand held a death grip on the fingers of the woman beside her. And then she looked up and over to Leraie, her chest heaved, whether in anger or some other emotion he wasn’t sure. Her eyes, the color of rain clouds.
“It’ll be okay, Jezzie, I promise,” Leraie’s voice interrupted the shocked silence Luc’s departure had instilled.
Jezzie’s eyes . . . Her name, he finally knew her name, or at least part of it. She wasn’t Luc’s, whoever, whatever Luc thought she’d be. As that knowledge trickled into his stunned frontal lobe, the force of his loyalty and friendship, the command of his superior—which had held him immobile in his belief she’d never be his, be theirs—shattered. Luc had no claim on her, his warnings were no longer a blockade to Roth’s lustful intentions. To his and Athon’s plans.
He’d once thought to fuck her out of his system, drive her from his dreams, eradicate her strange hold on him. Facing her now, he doubted any of his previous aspirations would be achievable. Oh, he’d fuck her every which way he could devise, but somehow, he knew she was irrevocably tied to his heart, his soul. The question remained though . . . could he really trust her with either?
Her gaze roamed over them, one by one, before zeroing in on him and Athon. She ignored the others, her eyes flicked back and forth between them as though she didn’t quite believe they were there. Or maybe she was worried about what they might do, say, or think. She inched backward until her back hit the wall, and jolted. She seemed surprised to have ended up there, and yet she took a breath and pushed away from it, straightened her back and steeled herself for whatever came her way. Still, she managed to look small and lost, in need of strong arms to help support her. Their woman was full of courage, but he’d known that when she’d stood up to him beside a filthy dumpster in a dark alley all those years ago. Thankfully, whatever had happened to her since hadn’t diminished her spirit.
His eyes flashed to Athon, the only one who knew how broken he truly was, but Athon was completely focussed on the woman who could be theirs for eternity, his eyes slightly glazed over, his mouth so lax he was surprised he didn’t see any drool hanging out.
Minutes passed in the blink of an eye as Roth moved toward her slowly . . . But Athon got there first. As usual his more empathic side shone through as he wrapped his arms around her, and gathered her close. Suddenly the strong woman from earlier seemed like a child crushed by the weight of the world. Dejected and betrayed. Athon’s gaze snapped up and locked with his, heat flared in his eyes, his spine stiffened as lust and magic seemed to wrap itself around him, his head inclined toward her once more. Inhaling deeply, Athon nodded, inviting him to come closer. He watched as Roth reached out, his fingers reverently caressed a lock of her magnificent hair, afraid to do anything more lest he startle her.
Just that slight contact, not even with her bare skin, was enough to send sparks shooting down his spine. A strange magic flared out and encompassed the three of them, swirling and penetrating his very soul. His desire ignited as it licked over his balls, his cock rock hard in an instant. And all the while his eyes never left Athon’s face and look of wonder which perfectly portrayed his own awestruck emotions.
Having been unceremoniously dragged around the corner by her cousin, Jezzie couldn’t help but stare at the one being she hadn’t been even remotely prepared to see. For staring back at her was an almost carbon copy of her uncle. The only discernible difference that she could see was in their hair and the color of their eyes. Where Uncle Micah had forest-green eyes, Lucifer’s were the color of lapis in sunlight. Her uncle kept his naturally golden-brown hair cut short but longer on top, and very dapper. Lucifer’s hair on the other hand was as black as pitch and reached just below his chin with layers that slightly curled at the ends.
He stared at her for a lifetime, or for what could have been a split second, a micro moment. The passage of time itself seemed suspended, passing without recognition. Emotions flitted through his eyes, across his brow, his features morphing with each one. First with shock, then confusion, and finally with anger and some other indefinable emotion which hovered somewhere between hatred and despair. And she felt them all, tasted the bitterness of his rejection to her core.
Lucifer’s angry proclamation shocked her into silence, even as a silent tear slid down her cheek. And then he was just . . . gone. Departing the same way he’d arrived, only, she surmised, much more dramatically, and Jezzie stared down at the floor to hide the raw hurt which filled the little girl she used to be. The one who’d longed for a father, her father, to hold her and love her, to read her stories and all those silly things little girls with fathers took for granted. All those things she had from her aunt and her mother, when she could, just not from her father. A father who hadn’t known she’d existed.
She shook herself internally. How could you lose what you’d never had. She wasn’t that little girl anymore. She was stronger, strong enough to face the crowd before her. He’d come with others, and Leraie. She must have brought them with her, no way they’d have gotten there otherwise. When she looked over at her questioningly, Leraie shook her head with a sad smile, but her eyes held a fire and brimstone kind of anger she knew wasn’t directed at her.
