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Alice
Three fucking hours later, I’ve completed the circle needed for the boundary. As it turns out, the circle has to be drawn in blood, but Hell Hold is massive, requiring one to continually draw it.
“I didn’t know there was so much juice in your body.”
I slowly revolve my head to glare at Luri. “It’s notjuice.”
“Maybe not to you. You burn your food.”
“And so she finishes,” Lucifer says, kicking off the side of the castle near where we started. “Just in time too. The council will be convening soon. You’d be doing me a favor by attending.”
Favor? What favor? I glance at him from beneath my lashes. Does he know? Was he able to see that I told Kai about his mother and how Asmodeus was imprisoned? There weren’t any memories I saw that would imply so, but I didn’t stop to watch each one through. Just what I needed.
“You are going, right?” he asks. “Surely if you saw the future while looking to see if my son survived, then you know what will happen tonight.”
I don’t speak, but I stare at him as unease tingles through my nerves, making the hair on my arms stand on end.
He breathes out deeply, his chest concaving. “Alice… I know you didn’t see the future. What did you see? And why were you really searching?”
“It doesn’t matter. Nothing came of it, anyway. It was a waste of time and an invasion of your privacy and I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”
“Well then, the barrier will go up any second now. I hope you’d allow me to answer the burning questions that you have. After all, I’m incapable of lying.”
“Lying, yes, but dancing around answers is your forte.” Bracing for the backlash, I tense, but instead of Lucifer getting upset, he chuckles and teleports away.
“Well, that wasn’t odd at all.”
“Tell me about it. I feel like I’ve known the man my whole life yet know so little. I used to dream and talk to him. It was some sort of limbo statue that he could communicate with me and check on my spellbinding. He was a friend in some of my darkest moments growing up. Now, it’s like none of that mattered. Like it was a game.”
“I still think you should learn more before condemning him.”
Stroking my fingers through Luri’s mane, I look out over the courtyard behind the castle. “You didn’t see what I did. I don’t plan to start a war and claim the king a fraud, but I did warn Kai even if he didn’t want to hear it. At least if Lucifer does come for him, he’ll be ready for it.”
***
One of the village masters slams his fist against the table that stretches across the room. All the lords and important members of the court surround it, snubbing their noses and threading their fingers in their laps. It’s as though none of them particularly want to be here but are required to.
“We are at war! Don’t be ridiculous. We need the Elves here before we can move on Solaria.”
“Likewise, every moment we wait, the more monsters the self-proclaimed king is gathering for a second strike. We bought ourselves time, let’s not waste it twiddling our thumbs and puckering our assh—”
Someone else clears their throat. A beady-eyed man with an odd goatee. He nods in my direction, and the man who was about to drop the A-word, one of my personal favorites, turns my way.
“I’m so sorry. I forgot there was a lady in the room. Typically, these are closed meetings, Miss…” he trails off, rolling his hand in the air.
My eyebrows arch up as I lift from where I’ve been slouched in the chair. This meeting has gone on for hours and the dipshit in Row A, seat 3, still doesn’t know who I am? I’m the only lady in the room. How hard could it be to forget? Especially when Lucifer has introduced me eight times.
“Alice,” I answer, sawing my jaw as I sit back.
“And you’re here, why?” Apparently, he’s gearing up to press every one of my buttons.
I open my mouth, fully prepared to give the same spiel for the ninth time, but before I get a single word out, Kai speaks for me. “Soon to be Princess of Hell.”
“Excuse me, soon to be?” The man shakes his head and wags his finger. “No. Not even the queen attended these meetings, and you’re telling me that some nobody who hasn’t even been married into power yet is sitting in?” He turns his attention to me, snarling his lip as if I’m some hideous creature.
Oddly enough, the gesture makes me snort out a laugh, and shoot him the biggest smile I can muster. “Problem, sir?”
“Well, yes. The ladies are down the hall, knitting. Go join them.” He shoos me away like I’m some annoying little pest he can’t wait to rid the room of.
