Authors: Cambria Hebert
Sam nodded.
“I’ll drive.” That
nobody home
look he had going on was starting to freak me out.
Kimber was still standing in front of the car, and from the look on her face she hadn’t known about Heven until now, either. Sam was already in the passenger seat when I stopped next to her.
“Heven’s dead?” she whimpered.
I nodded.
“But how?”
“I have no idea. I don’t think he could tell me even if I asked.”
She wrapped her arms around herself and looked back at the fire.
“Look, I can give you a Lucent Marble. Go home. I’ll deal with Sam.”
“Cole is dead,” she said quietly. “Heven is dead.” Then she looked at me. “I don’t have anyone left. I’m coming.”
I shrugged. “I don’t have time to play babysitter.”
She dropped a colorful phrase on her way into the back of the car, a phrase I hadn’t even heard before.
I pointed the car in the direction of Leviathan’s castle, thinking destroying his land was a good place to start, and then we’d move on until everyone’s land was burning.
Sam stared out the windshield like a mannequin, and I wondered what was going on inside his head. From what I knew about Mindbonds, they weren’t meant to be broken. If one person died, the bond was severed and then the remaining one slowly went insane until they died too.
Beelzebub had taken everything from me. He took my grandfather, Callum. He cursed me from the day I was born, forcing upon me some kind of darkness that wrapped itself around my soul and squeezed until I was no longer worthy of love. Ana’s love. I might still be alive, but he cost me my life.
I saw the outskirts of the town that bordered Leviathan’s land and I prepared to push the car harder when something—
someone
—fell from the sky, landing on the ground ahead of us and uncurling, standing up and planting two strong legs into the ground, almost like he was challenging us.
I glanced at Sam.
“Run him down,” he growled.
I laid the pedal to the metal and the scent of melting tires filled the air as the car raced over the uneven ground, barreling straight for the man who dared stand in our way.
Two feet from colliding with the man, he threw up his arms and with them power radiated outward. The power was so great it was white and it pushed toward us like a tidal wave, slamming into the hood of the car, ripping away the ragtop, and sending us into a spiral.
The car spun around—how many turns it made, I wasn’t sure—before jerking to a complete stop. We all stared out the windshield over the dented hood at the man who still stood in exactly the same spot.
I climbed out of the driver’s seat, going around to the front of the hood where Sam and Kimber joined me, and we all stood there, measuring each other up, preparing for some kind of battle.
“I’ll watch your back if you watch mine,” I said, low, to Sam.
He nodded. “Let’s take this dude out then wipe out the town.” He hitched his chin toward the cluster of houses about half a mile away.
We started forward when the man held up his hands. “Allow me to introduce myself.”
“I don’t need to know your name to kill you,” Sam said, the hound within him calling to the one within me.
The man looked pleased with himself for Sam’s threatening retort. “I knew you had it in you,” he said.
The knowledge of who he must be began to push past the rage from Ana’s refusal and the pain from Heven’s death.
“Sam.” I caught his arm as he moved forward. “Wait.”
If this guy was who I thought, then challenging him would only get us to a faster grave.
“Allow me to introduce myself,” he said. “I am Lucifer.”
“You expect us to believe you’re the Devil?” Sam said. Behind us, Kimber made a choking sound.
“I don’t
expect
you to believe anything.”
“You’re smaller than I am,” Sam observed.
“How does that saying go?” he wondered out loud. “Oh yes, it isn’t the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog.” He grinned. “When one has enough power to essentially win any fight, he doesn’t need big muscles.”
“I don’t know,” I drawled. “I’ve heard size matters.”
Irritation flashed over his face, causing it to look like impenetrable stone. “I’ve enough of this conversation. I’ve come to offer you a deal.”
A deal with the Devil?
It was almost cliché.
Sam was back to looking vacant and I wondered if he even heard any of this. It appeared I was going to have to do the thinking for both of us today.
Of course, this was the moment Kimber decided to open her mouth. “No one is stupid enough to make a deal with the Devil.” She snorted.
Lucifer’s eyes snapped to her and I angled my body in front of her, blocking her from sight. The last thing I needed was her blabbing her big mouth and getting us all killed. “Shut up,” I growled out of the side of my mouth.
She made a sound like she was going to protest and I turned my head to glare at her. “Shut, it, Red.” I growled and thankfully, she fell silent.
“What kind of a deal?” I asked, turning back to Lucifer.
“I’ve been watching you two… both a renegade of your kind. I could use men like you on my side.”
“You want us to work for you?” I scoffed. He couldn’t actually be serious.
But he was.
He was completely serious.
“With my power and your abilities and instincts, your take charge attitudes, we could be unstoppable.”
He actually thought Sam could be swayed to the dark side? I mean, I could understand why he might think I would be interested (maybe I was)… but Sam? Sam might as well join the Boy Scouts and learn how to knit. I glanced at him now to see what kind of reaction he was having to this offer. He didn’t look offended. In fact, he looked… intrigued.
Well, shit.
“Now, really isn’t a good time,” I said, putting my arm out around Sam. “My bud here is having a bad day.”
“What a shame,” Lucifer said, not sounding in the least bit sorry. “Perhaps the death of his mate would be less of a blow if I promised revenge?”
Sam stiffened beneath my arm.
“How did you know about Heven’s death?” I demanded.
He smiled.
“You son of a bitch,” I whispered. “You’re the one who killed her.”
“It’s true. I thought the light one needed a bit of persuasion to join me.”
Sam let out a roar I was pretty sure burst my eardrum and shoved me aside so hard I fell onto the ground. He leapt into the air, shifting, his body contorting and changing faster than I’d ever seen before.
Pieces of clothing fluttered down onto the ground around us as he shot forward, gunning for the man who just admitted murder.
“Get in the car,” I told Kimber and then prepared to shift, preparing for a battle that would only end in my death and realizing maybe death wouldn’t be as bad as being rejected and cursed.
Lucifer lifted his hands and shot out the white-hot power, aiming it right at Sam who was so far gone with grief and rage he just kept barreling toward it.
Just as it was about to overcome him, something happened. It seemed to bounce off him and fling back at Lucifer. The devil was unprepared for the unexpected, and it knocked him down, flat on his back.
What the hell?
I looked behind me where Kimber was standing, feet apart, wind blowing her hair around her in fiery waves as she held out her hands, focusing on what was going on. She somehow threw the power back at Lucifer.
Lucifer was going to make her pay for that.
Sam pounced on the surprised man, getting in one great swipe of his claws and lifting his arm back to take another swipe when he was thrown off, bouncing off the ground with a crack and then lying still.
I wasn’t sure who to run to, who needed protection more, so I settled for a spot somewhere in the middle of Kimber and Sam.
Lucifer got to his feet, blood dripping off his chin. The left side of his face was practically skinless, with deep gouges marring the skin. “It seems I underestimated you,” he said, not sounding as angry as I thought, which only worried me more.
I watched as his face healed itself, the skin knitting back together and smoothing out in seconds as if nothing happened to him at all. Sam got to his feet, crouching low and preparing to attack again.
“He’s never going to join you,” I yelled. “You just admitted to killing the woman he loves. He’s no good to you now anyway. Without the Mindbond he’s going to slowly go insane and die.”
Behind me Kimber made a sound. I really wished she would just get in the car.
“I see,” Lucifer said, staring at Sam. “What if I told you she wasn’t dead?”
Everything around us stopped. The air became so still I began to wonder if Lucifer’s statement didn’t suck it all out of this place.
“Are you saying Heven isn’t dead?” I asked, flat.
Sam began to pace the ground, back and forth, back and forth.
“That’s exactly what I am saying. I couldn’t very well kill her until I understood the full impact it would have on my recruit.”
Sam let out a sharp growl that pierced the dark sky.
“How do we know you aren’t just saying this? That this isn’t some kind of trap?” I demanded.
“Why, it’s simple.” Lucifer replied. “I’ll show you.”
Sam
He lied.
He spoke only lies. He only tried to give me hope so I would join him, so I would give in to the darkness within me and become just like him. The proof of her death was undeniable; it reverberated inside the walls of my body, trying to find a place to settle, trying to find a place to latch on and kill me too.