Page 5 of To Crave Truly

“Where is she?” I yelled.

“I don’t know, sire.”

“That’s not good enough!”

I paced the floor, unable to keep still. I couldn’t feel her through the bond. Selene had managed to fix the connection to Lori by taking me to the very edge of death but doing that had knocked me unconscious. I hadn’t been there when she had needed me and now she was missing.

“We will find her, sire. And Mordecai won’t harm her. He needs her for something.”

“Don’t you think I know that?”

“Yes, but—”

“This is your fault.” I turned on him. “You took me away instead of staying to protect her.”

“She ordered me to. I didn’t have a choice.”

“You killed her.” I pushed his chest, and he stumbled a step backwards. “This is your doing.”

His eyes dropped from mine, and I saw all the shame and regret in them. The sorrow I saw there made me snap. His head snapped to the side as I connected my fist with his jaw. All my rage manifested into aggression, and I took it out on Torsten.

He didn’t even defend himself, believing on some subconscious level that he deserved this punishment as much as I did.

“Lucifer, stop!” Hands grabbed me and pulled me away, but I was so angry, so consumed by it, that I didn’t see anything other than the red hue of my own fucking wrath.

I fought against the grip, desperate to unleash my fury on something, anything, damn it.

My head snapped back, and pain radiated along my jaw.

Awareness flooded back and I found a pair of bright emerald green eyes staring at me, full of pity, anger and a touch of amusement.

“Micheal?”

“You need to calm down, brother. You’re not going to be of any use to anyone if you catapult yourself into one of your Hellfire rages.”

“You hit me.” My tone was barely civil. I’d never been this angry, not even when I Fell. This felt like a living, visceral thing that yearned to consume everything in its path.

He nodded. “You were getting out of control and that’s no good to anyone. Lori needs you, so get it together.”

He was right. I wasn’t going to be useful to anyone until I burned through this anger. And I knew just how to do that.

“I’m going to see to some personal torturing. I’d suggest that no one comes to find me until I leave the Pit.” I wasn’t going to be able to guarantee anyone’s safety until I’d calmed the fuck down. And as much as I wanted to maim and murder someone, I didn’t want that someone to be my brother, or Torsten. So I called my magic to me, grateful it was back to normal, and disappeared into thin air. Selene might have rendered me unable to stop Lori from disappearing, but she had fixed the soulbond to the extent that I was back to full power.

That was going to be her biggest mistake.

The symphony of screams still rang loudly in my ears. I’d forgotten the sweet music the damned made when they were being punished. It went a long way to soothing my mind to the point where I was almost able to think about talking to someone without wanting to kill them.

I put on a dark charcoal grey suit and immediately thought of Lori. She’d always liked me in a suit. Her eyes lit up and her lips parted on a silent gasp as she drank me in. It made me feel like the king of the damn universe when she looked at me like that.

Fuck, I missed her. My wrath threatened to rise to the surface again but I pushed it back down. There’d be time for that later, when I had Mordecai’s throat beneath my boot. Right now I needed to focus on making a plan.

I would get her back. And I would make Mordecai pay for this. But first, I was going to need some help.

I pressed the intercom and Darius, my head of security, answered gruffly.

“Yes, your Majesty?”

“Bring me Iver.” I didn’t wait for a response before disconnecting the intercom. Iver was the last of the original three to cross my path since the other two had managed to escape. He was the original demon and he’d always been the less hot headed out of the three of them. He’d also been somewhat of a mediator between us all. He always tried so hard to keep the peace and look where that got him. Left behind in the Pit by the other two while they went off on their mad plan to take control of my throne.

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