Page 126 of All's Hell That Ends Well

No more black hair. No more obsidian eyes of primordial darkness.

Oh, God. Oh, fuck. Ithadbeen a dream. I was back at the Fall Festival, the amrit fucking up my system, Lucifer was a grade A asshole, and he’d somehow caught me.

A panicked scream tore out of me. Or so I thought. In reality, it came out as a choked gurgle, my body still groggy and failing me. I bumped my head on the foot of the couch as I tried to scramble back.

“I’m sorry for booping you on the nose!” I wheezed, my words slurred. “And for almost poking your eye out! And calling you a bad octopus!”

“Hell’s bells,” Lucifer muttered, then grabbed me by the front of my shirt and heaved me up to the couch with a grunt. Having deposited me on the cushion, he grasped the armrest for purchase and caught his breath for a moment. “You need to snap the fuck out of it. While I’d love to reminisce with you about our first encounter, we don’t have time for a stroll down memory lane.”

“What?” I was dizzy from breathing too quickly, and the room threatened to tilt sideways.

Still, I glanced around, and with every rapid breath, more of my surroundings shimmered back into focus. This was the same room in which Azazel and I had met with Lucifer to tell him that he was Death. A lone lamp lit the previous gloom, and frost covered every surface, yes, but I recognized the low table with platters of food and drinks, and next to me—my heart stumbled.

Azazel lay sprawled across the couch, his chest painted with crimson…but without a sign of injury. He’d healed already.

Yet he was unconscious.

Eyes closed, his features slack in sleep, his chest rose faintly with his breathing. On instinct, I probed across the bond. Velvet darkness greeted me, a whisper of ice, and a deep well filled with that moment when the breath of life had left a body.

Snap.

I whipped my head around to stare at Lucifer, who lowered the hand with which he’d snapped his fingers next to my face.

“Focus,” he barked, an urgent note to his energy.

His energy…which now felt like that of a powerful demon. Nothing more.

No more frost creeping out from his pores. Gone was the chill of his aura. All I sensed in him now was the spark of fire typical of our kind, and a touch of darkness, though this one tasted of the scorched earth of Hell rather than the cold space between stars.

He was a regular demon now. Though incredibly powerful, from what I could tell through the quality of his energy. He was definitely a seraph, likely as strong as an archdemon.

That was when I noticed his injury.

The hole in his chest had healed, much like Azazel’s, but his shoulder sported a deep laceration. The edges of the wound seemed like they’d started healing, but it was still oozing blood that hadn’t yet clotted. Given how fast our kind recovered from injuries, this one had to be really fresh.

“What’s going on?” I croaked.

“Catching up, I see,” he gritted out between his teeth. “We’re under attack. You need to get up on your feet and ready yourself to fight before the next wave comes.”

“Wave? Attack? What the?—”

He gripped my chin and turned my head so I looked at the door—which was barred with the rest of the furniture. The floor in front of the door glistened wet in the light of the single lamp that illuminated the darkness of the room.

Blood. What glistened so darkly there on the floor was a pool of blood.

With a jolt, I sat up. Or tried to. My body still didn’t obey my commands. “What’s happening?”

“The transfer knocked us all out,” Lucifer said quickly, “and when I woke before you both, the bells were tolling.”

I stared at him in utter incomprehension.

He rolled his eyes. “They’re a warning system for when the palace is attacked.” His features grim, he added, “This is the first time they’ve sounded since I built this place.”

I listened then, focusing on trying to hear anything from outside the room. A faint boom came from far away. Muffled screams followed.

“I went to check what was going on,” Lucifer continued, speaking fast, “and when I opened the door, a staff member was running toward us, saying a scout had arrived from the outer edges of my territory. She’d spotted an army crossing the border from Abaddon’s domain. A large host, flying fast toward the palace.”

“Abaddon?” I grabbed the back of the couch to pull myself up further, my muscles protesting the movement. “He’s attacking you? Has he lost his mind?”

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