While he waited for a reply, the office felt as if it chilled a few degrees.
Oliver fixed him with a steady smile. “You’re working too hard and beginning to see things that don’t exist. There are no angels downstairs. That makes no sense at all. Why would I imprison an angel?”
“That was what I wondered.”
“Soon I’ll be able to authorize a two-week leave for you, Ben. I think you need a vacation. But there are important matters to deal with first. Go get the shifter.”
He knew better than to argue. No one wanted to tell him the truth about what he’d seen, so much so that he was beginning to question his own memories.
Ben went downstairs and his hard-soled shoes made an echoing sound against the floor. The walls were narrow down here. A guard accompanied him. He glanced down the hall at the silent cell that held the winged man to whom he’d spoken only once.
No time to think about that. He had other matters to attend to.
“She’s pretty hot,” the guard said. “Maybe after you’re finished with her later, I can play a little bit.”
Ben’s lips thinned. “Maybe.”
The guard slipped his key into the lock and swung the door open. “Hey, little shifter. Looks like your time is finally up.”
The woman cowered in the corner, her knees drawn up to her chest. Everything about her signified that she was afraid . . . except her eyes. They blazed with indignation. With challenge. With pissed off fury.
She wasn’t going to give up without a fight.
Quite honestly, Ben gave her five minutes max before she started telling them anything they wanted to know—and then some. He’d already been shown some of the interrogation tools the Malleus deemed worthy for use on prisoners. Not much had changed since the Salem witch trials hundreds of years ago.
“She’s all yours,” the guard said.
“Thanks.”
Ben slammed his fist into the guard’s face, then grabbed him and whacked his head against the metal door. That was more than enough to knock him out cold.
Then Ben looked in at the woman in the corner—this so-called evil creature he was scheduled to torture for information in a few short minutes.
“What the hell are you doing?” she demanded.
He held his hand out to her. “We need to get out of here. Now.”
FIFTEEN
Eden sat on the floor of Triple-A for what felt like a very long time. It was cold, with the broken door letting in the chill of the mid-November evening, but she barely felt it.
Darrak was gone forever.
And she’d just realized she was pregnant with his baby.
He’d told her demons didn’t carry human diseases, so she was safe with him when they’d slept together. The only unexpected side effect had been her black magic.
She’d assumed—well, hell, obviously she hadn’t given it any thought at all.
If she felt morning sickness now, that meant it likely happened the very first time they’d been together.
She was one month pregnant.
“What am I going to do?” she whispered.
Darrak had been sent to the Void—a place of endless nothing. Death for demons and other soulless creatures. The end of everything with no chance to ever return.
It was the absolute worst thing that could have happened.
Andy whined.
“He’s gone,” she told him, her voice quiet and broken. “It’s too late.”
She’d never felt so incredibly helpless in her life. The control, once and for all, had been completely taken out of her hands. She’d wanted to break his curse in order to obtain her freedom and privacy again, but not at this cost.
Destroying him managed to do the trick. The curse was officially toast.
Damn Ben and Caroline for doing this without her permission, for not even giving her a choice.
That was the negative side, the dark side that was ready to give up and just cry, yell, and break things.
But Eden had another side, one that was screaming for her to get up off the floor, to let go of the werewolf she was clutching, and to bloody well do something to fix this.
“What am I supposed to do?” she whispered.
Something. Anything. She couldn’t just accept this. It
wasn’t
too late.
“It
is
too late.”
No, it wasn’t. It couldn’t be. She wouldn’t let it.
Darrak had been swept away to the Netherworld, to the Void, and he’d always told her that meant the end of everything.
But maybe it didn’t. Maybe there was still a chance to save him.
After all, Eden did have friends in important places.
Friends who wanted something from her, but it hadn’t been the right time. She hadn’t been taken to the very point of desperation before. Not like this.
Lucas could fix this—he was the Prince of Hell. He might not be able to read minds or see the future, but he ruled the Netherworld and had for an eternity.
Darrak thought Lucas had a master plan that involved Eden, the reason why he was willing to forgive her slipups, her excuses for not following through on her previous assignments for him. The quest for the angelheart and the attempt to slap the silver chain on Brenda for her hellish job interview had both ended in failure.
And yet Lucas was still willing to take some of her darkness away from time to time so her soul wouldn’t be too damaged. It was still gray, even after all the black magic she’d burned through.
Thanks to Lucas.
Eden had to talk to him, and it couldn’t wait another minute.
She scrambled to her feet so fast it made her dizzy. Darrak was gone, no question about that, but it was possible he wasn’t gone for good. She might have a window of opportunity here—a very small one. So small she hadn’t even noticed it before.
This had to work.
Her hand shook as she slid it into the pocket of her coat to find the marble.
Nothing was there.
She reached deeper, then tried the other pocket, patting down the lining of the coat in case it had dropped through a rip in the seam.
Dark panic returned, chasing away her momentary glimmer of hope.
“Where is it?” she choked out.
Her mother and Ben had stolen Maksim’s containment spell while she’d been unconscious. Had they taken Lucas’s summoning crystal, too? It was all she had—the only way she could contact him.
She tried the pockets one more time as if the marble might have magically reappeared. “Why the hell isn’t it here?”
Then, shaking, tears streaming down her cheeks, she sank back down to the floor and grabbed hold of Andy as an anchor. He rested his currently furry head on her shoulder and whimpered.
“It’s too late. I can’t find it. I don’t know where it went. It was my only hope.”
Andy’s mournful whine turned into a dangerous-sounding growl, low in his throat. Eden froze, then slowly swiveled to glance over her shoulder.
Lucas stood behind her, his palm outstretched. On it lay the marble. “You wouldn’t happen to be looking for this, would you?”
“Wh-what are you . . . ?” She was so stunned she could barely form words.
He cocked his head. “I guess you were distracted earlier. You didn’t see me sitting in the corner of the café drinking a latte. Looked as if you and your mother were having a lovely family reunion. Warms the heart.”
Magic immediately crackled down her arms, begging to be used. “So you saw what happened to me and didn’t do anything?”
He seemed unimpressed with her show of anger. “No, I didn’t intervene. Sometimes it’s important to let nature take its course.”
He’d just been watching her get tranquilized and thrown in the back of a van while Darrak was trapped in here? “Was this all your doing, Lucas? Did you destroy Darrak?”
“If I wanted to destroy him, I would have done so a long time ago, Eden, and no adorable displays of magic would be able to stop me.” He slid the marble into the pocket of his rumpled jacket.
She wondered, not for the first time, why this was the form he chose to use here in the human world. From what she understood, he could look like anything he wanted. And yet, this disarming, brown-haired, brown-eyed man was his look of choice.
“You have to help me.” She forced the words out. “You have to bring him back.”
Andy stayed right next to her.
“But don’t you feel relieved that he’s gone? You’re finally free from him. You can admit it to me, Eden. I won’t tell anyone.”
“Do I look relieved to you?”
Lucas swept his gaze over her. “Not particularly. Honestly, though, it shouldn’t be such a big loss to you. He was trouble, he brought bad things into your life from the first moment he possessed you. I’ve told you before, Darrak was just some hellfire I decided to give a personality to once upon a time. Nothing worth shedding tears over.”
Yes, she’d heard this before, but she still didn’t care. Darrak came from lowly beginnings—so did a lot of people. Maybe not quite so literal, but it didn’t matter to her who Darrak was, how he’d been created, or how he’d spent the first portion of his existence. All she cared about was the man—yes, the
man
—she’d grown to know and love with every ounce of her being. He wasn’t simply hellfire with a personality. Not to her. Never to her.
Lucas cast a glance through the small office space. “You broke the door.”
“Screw the door.”
He touched the frame and it mended itself before Eden’s eyes, the shards of glass reforming so there wasn’t even a crack left to show what had happened to it. “There. I’ve saved you and your partner a few hundred dollars at least.” He glanced at Andy, whose muzzle was drawn back from his sharp teeth. “You’re welcome.”
Eden shook her head. “Bring Darrak back.”
Lucas stood by the door he’d fixed and stared out at the parking lot, likely a very bland sight for someone like him. He said nothing, and it was driving Eden literally insane with every moment that passed and nothing changed.
“It’s not that simple,” he finally said. “The Void is a one-way trip. None have ever returned from that region of the Netherworld. You must come to terms that he’s gone and get back to the rest of your life. You have more important things to concern yourself with now.”
“Lucas,
please
.”
That earned her a look. “Are you so desperate that you’re actually begging for my help?”
There was no time to play games. “I’ll beg if I have to.”
“He’s gone, Eden. And it won’t be long before he’s lost to you forever.”
Harsh words, but they worked exactly the opposite of how he’d likely meant them. They gave Eden a glimmer of hope. “
Won’t be long.
But that means there’s still a chance.”
This earned a laugh from the prince. “You’re very determined. Pregnancy becomes you. You have that special glow.”
A breath caught in her throat. “You knew?”
“I sensed it the last time we spoke.”
“You didn’t say anything.”
“What was I supposed to say? Demons like Darrak—those who were never human to begin with—shouldn’t be able to father a child. I guess he’s changed more than even I realized.”
“I guess he has.”
Andy paced in front of Eden, as if marking the line Lucas wasn’t allowed to cross. Lucas glanced at him with humor. “The werewolf is very protective of you.”
She willed herself to remain calm and inhaled slowly. “What do you want from me?”
He looked at her curiously. “Pardon me?”
“You want something from me. Something you haven’t asked for yet because you said I wasn’t ready.” She blinked. “I’m ready. Ask me.”
He approached her, ignoring Andy’s warning growl.
“You’re right, Eden, I do want something from you. And if you agree, then it’s possible I might be able to help you find Darrak before it’s too late.”
Hope grew inside of her, tempered with worry. “What is it?”
He slid his hand into her dark red hair and pushed it off her face. She watched him warily, as he leaned closer to whisper in her ear. “I want your angel half.”
Eden pushed back at him with surprise. “What?”
Lucas’s gaze was steady on her. “I want your celestial energy, that which has sustained Darrak and given him more power than he’s had in three hundred years. The energy that’s changed him into something else, something that’s never been seen before. You have to give it freely to me. And I want it all.”
She wasn’t sure why this came as a shock. “But . . . but why?”
His expression grew pained. “I want to return to Heaven, but I’m weighted down with too much darkness. The celestial energy inside you would burn that darkness away enough for me to unshackle myself from Hell once and for all. A nephilim must give that energy to me of her own free will, every last piece of it, and I can accomplish my one and only goal.”
Eden paled with every word he spoke. She already knew Lucas wanted to go back to Heaven. He’d tried other solutions to this age-old problem of his. This, though . . . this was new.
“Have you tried this with another nephilim?”
“All nephilim have been cloaked to me in the past here in the human world, and now I know why. It’s an angel thing. Your black magic helped remove part of that angelic cloaking from you and I was able to see you for what you are.” His lips twisted wryly. “This is a solution to my problem that I began considering the same time the angelheart was in play. I’ve been trying to find a way to kill my darkness, but my darkness is immortal. To rid myself of it forever, I must give it to another.”
“The job interview,” she said, putting it together. “You’re trying to find your replacement for when you leave Hell.”
“Yes. I might be a selfish bastard, Eden, but I know I can’t leave Hell without another to take my place. That someone must control the darkest shadows of Hell—and only someone with true, pure goodness inside them can do that.”
She gaped at him. “You’re trying to tell me you have goodness inside you?”
“I was an angel—the brightest and best of them all.”
“And the least modest.”
Lucas smiled. “My target from earlier today was only one possible candidate. There is another I have lined up who has already enthusiastically agreed to take my place.” He crossed his arms. “Tick tock, Eden. Darrak has very little time left. Time works differently in the Netherworld. You said you’d do anything for the chance to save him. Are you willing to give me your celestial energy for that chance?”