AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Lilith had even joined us—for whatever this was— and was seated to the right of Daniel. Her four assistants stood surrounding her, which was over the top in my opinion, but she’d taken to needing the extra attention over the last few centuries. Each of them held tablets filled with the latest designs and fabric choices, waiting to hand them off when she motioned. Well shit, if Lilith isn’t at her design table or in Hell, then things are serious!
She’d been spending a lot of time at the office or in Hell, and I’d been grateful for that. Why did I have to be the one to bear the hassle of watching her? Scratch that; I knew the reason. This was the only time my powers became a curse; I was the only one who could read her. She hadn’t been the same since her imprisonment in Hell. Though there were still moments when she was her old self, the one I mated with and loved more than anything, and the others saw it too. Over time, those appearances had lessened, and it wasn’t enough. So, I’d been appointed “the man” she’d be seen with and the one to keep an eye on her.
Carl would have jumped at the chance, but with her being so different, we got him to see reason. We agreed to allow her around our children and be the mother figure they sorely needed, but until we all agreed and felt the same, we were being cautious. We wanted to trust our mate, but something was obviously wrong with her, and we still hadn’t figured out what.
“Thank you for coming so soon. Please have a seat.” Carl motioned to the table, and I took my seat next to Lilith, nodding my head in greeting toward the rest of the room. Glancing at the frosted window, I noticed a blank TV monitor up in the right-hand corner I hadn’t seen from the room’s entrance. Carl moved to the center of the window, grabbing my attention. Watching him pace for a few moments while he gathered his thoughts, I observed his appearance and feelings. His salt and pepper hair was disheveled, and his short beard was untrimmed. His pristine lab coat barely hung on his tall, thin frame. On any given day, it could be normal, except for his eyes. Yellow flecks shined through his chocolate brown eyes, betraying his nerves and excitement. What is he excited about?
After another lap, he stopped his pacing and faced us with his fingers laced in front of him. “We had a breach in the wards as of thirty minutes ago,” he stated.
Gasps rang out around the room, and the looks of shock mirrored my own.
Anticipating our reaction, he gave us a moment before he continued on. “Obviously, this is a serious matter and the reason for this meeting,” he said. As I watched, I noticed his eyes flare once again with excitement.
This is a fucking disaster, not something to be excited about, I thought to myself.
We haven’t had a breach in over 3000 years, not since the Rebels last attacked.
“What do you mean, the wards have been breached? That’s a mistake, surely,” Jessup roared, slamming his fist down on the table. Everyone sat up straighter in their seats, including me. Having a short fuse on a good day made Jessup a loose cannon. Since he was already agitated when I first walked in, this reaction made him downright lethal.
The last thing we needed in this small, crowded room was a pissed off Shifter. Sitting back, I watched as he fought to contain his temper. I had to agree with his outrage, though; the reports must be wrong.
Clearing his throat, Carl continued his pacing, while fidgeting with his glasses. I wondered why he even wore them since he’d never actually needed them, but the fidgeting was a nervous habit that I’ve told him a million times he needed to work on.
“The wards detected activity from Diablo. The guards were notified, and they found a young woman unconscious in the rubble.” He motioned to the officers in the corners. “Captain Brooks and his team detained her and brought her in for me to check on her injuries. From my initial observation, she’s human.” A few murmurs went up around the room, but I didn’t miss the accusatory glare from Jessup to Captain Brooks.
“Human? Here?”
“That’s Impossible.”
“This has to be a joke.”
I couldn’t tell who was talking with the state of chaos that erupted, but my attention turned to the window in front of me when it changed to opaque. “I ordered a blood test, and I’m awaiting the results.” Carl’s voice carried over the dying murmurs.
The monitor flickered to life, showing a picture of a young woman. The sounds of shuffling feet accompanied my own as we all moved over to the window for a closer look.
The young woman looked like she was in the middle of a nightmare, her body convulsing and twitching as we watched through the window. What’s going on? Is she hurt?
“To keep her from waking, I called Delvin. He placed her in a heavy Tranqspell. Even though she seems human, she continued breaking through his lesser spells,” Carl said, answering my internal question.
“So,” Lilith spoke up. “She has strong mental capabilities then if you had to call in Delvin to subdue her. No one’s been able to surpass his Tranquil spell before; well, except you, Matthew,” she purred, giving me a look. A smile crept onto her secretive lips as she turned back to assess the young lady. My stomach clenched just thinking about her last ‘project’ in Hell. She’d always loved the strong-willed types and often enjoyed the challenge of breaking them, slowly. The Demon couldn’t help herself; it was in her blood. It was one of the reasons we had our own chasm between us. If this human girl had already caught Lilith’s attention, then no pits in Hell would keep her safe.
Murmurs started back up among the assistants, trying to offer solutions. A bunch of brown-nosers if you ask me. That’s why I’d only stuck with Abs, and that relationship started out as friends at school.
“Lock her up,” one of Lilith’s stooges threw out.
“Just kill her,” Jeffrey said flippantly, before going back to his scribbling.
“Why don’t we just wipe her memories if she has any, kick her back through the gate, and reinforce the wards so she can’t pass back through?” Captain Brooks asked, quickly snapping his mouth shut when Jessup sent him a look.
“I wish it were that simple, Captain,” Daniel said, walking over to the window and peering at the young woman. “You forget, she has already crossed over. The only way to get her back to Earth is for her to obtain the ability to cross, or if Diablo sends her back himself, but why would he so soon after bringing her here?” Quirking an eyebrow at the captain, he asked, “You were there shortly after she came through; is Diablo fully functional now?”
The young male, being Captain Brooks, stepped up and shook his head no. “Dormant, sir.”
“That’s what I thought,” Daniel continued. “That means he brought her here for a reason. It’s not the fact that our wards are weak. It means our oldest and most powerful gate, which we thought was destroyed, woke up and allowed her access.”
That fact alone mesmerized me. I pressed my hand against the window and traced her outline with my fingers, intrigued by the mystery surrounding her.
“Diablo stopped working thirty centuries ago, after the rebellion, so there has to be a reason she’s here,” Jessup said in a gruff voice. I already knew what he was thinking, that she was a spy for the Rebels somehow. It wouldn’t surprise me to know they were taking extreme avenues to topple our system. But there’s no way that Diablo would allow her to cross if she was.
