Lucifer looked back at her and nodded slightly, letting the black bleed into his eyes. When he raised his gaze to his princes, all their bloodthirsty chatter fell into a dead silence before he even said a word.
“No one gets involved with the Kincaid family,” he ordered, his voice mild. “I’ll handle them myself.”
The princes exchanged glances, then Belial took a step forward. “You’ll have to intercept them before they get here, Luci. You can’t ask us to do nothing if hunters attack our home.”
Lucifer’s mouth tightened slightly, but he nodded. “Agreed.”
Belial jerked her head in Gali’s direction. “Ticktock, Luci.”
Gali frowned, confused, but Lucifer ushered her to the door before she could ask any questions. She threw the room one last glance, and a sea of unforgiving glares met her in response. Leviathan had picked up his sword, and his eyes carried judgment so absolute, Gali could feel Death itself breathing on her neck.
Fuck.
12.
Lucifer
Lucifer was pulling the parlor door closed behind him when Belial stuck her foot into the doorway. “We need a minute,” she said.
Galilee looked up at him with her sharp eyes, and Lucifer felt a pang of tenderness shoot through him. Timeline and risk be damned, he was still going to fight for her.
“I’ll be right back,” he murmured, lifting her palm to his mouth and dropping a quick kiss on her lifeline. Galilee didn’t respond, but he stepped back into the room and closed the door on her tight, unsure expression anyway. It was better than keeping Belial’s eyes on her.
His prince immediately folded her arms across her chest and searched his face. “I thought you just needed to fuck her and you’d be done, Luci. What’s all this?”
The other princes watched from their scattered seats, restrained but curious. Leviathan had slid his sword into his scabbard, now that he was done intimidating Galilee, but he still looked to Lucifer, waiting for the answer. Their concern was a thorn under his skin, hot and inflamed.
“I have it under control,” Lucifer replied coolly.
Belial raised a disbelieving eyebrow.
“Did you find out what she is?” Levi asked.
Lucifer exhaled. “She doesn’t know, but her family does.”
He could feel their doubts. They thought Galilee had tricked him, played him for a fool. Lucifer almost wanted them to speak the insult out loud—it would be a relief to incinerate someone for their insolence, to watch them scream and curl and blacken. Maybe he’d feel more like himself then, not this raw and emotional creature with fear in the small of his back and desire clouding his mind.
Levi shrugged. “Unfortunate that she has no answers, but it changes nothing. She’s still too dangerous to live.”
Lucifer felt his lip curl, but he kept silent.
Belial had been staring at him, and now she cocked her head to the side. “What’s your plan, Luci? I don’t see you letting us kill her, as cooperative as you claim to be, but I don’t see us letting her live either. Not with this much at stake.”
Asmodeus slid a chair in Lucifer’s direction, and Lucifer took it, nodding his thanks. It wouldn’t take long to debrief with his princes, if he could just control his temper and stop imagining a dead Galilee draped across his arms, if he could curb the resentment that they’d leave him with nothing but a broken body to bury or burn.
“Galilee has no real interest in the artifact.” He rested his elbows on his knees and looked around the parlor. “She wasn’t even familiar with Hell. She wouldn’t know what a hellgate was or how to tamper with one.”
“What if she’s lying?” Mephis asked, their eyes sly and flickering.
Lucifer pinned them with a cold look. “Ask me that again,” he invited.
Mephis paled at the challenge, and Asmodeus put a warning hand on their arm. “Stop baiting him unless you feel like being dismembered.”
Belial cut a careful look at Lucifer. “Please don’t dismember Mephis,” she said dryly. “These floors are centuries old. The gore would ruin the finish.”
“Mephis should watch their fucking tongue.” Lucifer could feel violence gathering in him like a hiss of dark clouds, and from the way some of his princes edged away, they could feel it too.
“So she’s not after the hellgate.” Asmodeus exchanged looks with Belial and Leviathan. “It makes her less of a threat but no less of a problem.”
