Total pages in book: 153
Estimated words: 144404 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 722(@200wpm)___ 578(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 144404 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 722(@200wpm)___ 578(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
“Only because he was a king. If he hadn’t been, she would be dead right now and Lee would have a big old complex from eating his mother.” I had to wonder if Zoey had known everything would be all right or if she’d been scared out of her mind.
What would I have done if I’d been there instead of fighting Kelsey? Would I have laughed and let it happen? Or would I have found a way to get the queen out?
It shouldn’t even be a question.
“Well, we were lucky,” Casey replied quietly.
He went about putting the lab in order, and I fought the urge to help him. I used to love to clean. That sounds stupid, but it’s true. I enjoyed taking a space and making it sparkle, and it wasn’t about magic. Magic could only put a mask on a thing, to make you think it was clean. For something to be clean, hard work was required.
They made fun of me for not using magic to clean my room at the Coven House. Their rooms were covered in magic spells. They looked perfectly clean, but I knew what was beneath them. Rot. Dirt. Mold.
“I heard something about a party,” Casey said as he pushed the big tray that held the cat’s carcass back into the wall of lockers. “Some of the servants were talking about it. Are we throwing a party? I don’t think that’s a great idea.”
It was good to know something he didn’t know for once. “Nope. Lucifer is.”
Casey huffed. “Of course he is. I suppose this means Kelsey is going through with this insane plan.”
“Doesn’t she always? I think that’s what she was talking to Evan about.” I couldn’t help him with this one. I didn’t see another way out. “It’s truly the only way to save the kid. Do you want to just walk up to that asshole and see if he’ll give up a feather or two?”
“No, but I think we should negotiate.”
“With Lucifer?” I asked. “That seems like a moronic thing to do. Aren’t you supposed to be an academic?”
The words came out of my mouth before I could temper them.
His shoulders went stiff, and he was back to cleaning. “I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree.”
I hated the fact that I’d hurt him. I seemed to know how to go for his throat. It shouldn’t bother me but it did. A few moments of uneasy silence passed between us. So unlike the quiet we had between us before. We could sit and read and never say a word and still feel like we’d spent time together. That ease was natural with him.
“Do you think Tix can hear the baby?” I asked the question because I couldn’t stand the silence.
Casey turned my way, drying his hands on a towel. “Do you want the answer I’ll give Kelsey or the real one?”
“Both.” I was intrigued. I thought he would tell Kelsey the truth about everything since he sometimes treated her like she was some kind of messiah.
Had I been jealous of his relationship with Kelsey?
“Kelsey, of course he can’t hear the baby,” he said as though talking to her. There was an amused sympathy on his face. “That’s impossible.”
“And the real one?”
He winced. “I can’t be sure, but I know a few things. Tix is blood oathed to the House of Sloane, and he’s an empath with strong powers of telepathy. It’s not outside of our reality that he would be able to communicate with his future lord and master. He knows things about Gray that Gray doesn’t tell him. Like when Gray’s in trouble. Tix can feel that across the planes. That kid she’s carrying is unlike anything seen on the Hell plane before. He’s part demon, part Hunter. We don’t know what he’s capable of.”
Rather like the child the queen was carrying, although I did know what that darling would be capable of. Utter destruction. I didn’t think he would want to hear that from me. “So Kelsey’s baby is commenting on her sex life, and he’s definitely seeing some things he doesn’t think he should see.”
A laugh burst from Casey’s chest. “I hope she never figures out Tix might not be teasing.”
I thought he was hedging, and not in the right direction. “I think Tix is being perfectly truthful. You know a demon loves it when the truth is the worst thing he could possibly say. Was he telling me the truth when he said he was a child of Lilith?”
Casey joined me, leaning against the wall and looking out over the now pristine space. “Yes. He’s actually one of her favorite children.”
“What’s Lilith’s place here in Hell? I know who she is but not if she has any power here.” I know this will surprise a lot of people, but Hell isn’t known for its feminist icons. The truth of the matter was most of the demonesses really were kept in the kitchen and barefoot and spitting out other demons. Wives were a thing, but there were usually a bunch of them, and monogamy didn’t really matter. Well, it mattered to the husbands, but only where it concerned the wives. They could fuck all they liked. Men that is.