Page 62 of All's Hell That Ends Well

Okay, time to step it up. Grabbing him by the shoulders, I shook him hard.

Gah, this felt wrong. I was used to keeping my distance from him, and he’d always been this intimidating figure whom I’d avoided touching at all costs. And now here I was, forced to shake him like a rag doll.

“Wake up, Your Grace!” My voice echoed uncomfortably loud in the silence of the darkened room. “Please, I need you to wake up.”

His lids fluttered, and my heart skipped a beat. With a surge that made the hair on my arms stand on end, his power rose, snapping outward with enough force to rattle the walls.

The next second, his hand was around my throat, his furious black eyes boring into me as he got to his feet. Gagging, I pawed at his hand, my feet dangling in the air. He’d lifted me clean off the floor. He looked once more like a terrifying eldritch creature that should be bound in another dimension. Frost covered everysurface in the room, heart-stopping cold breathing down my spine.

“It’s me,” I croaked, barely able to get enough air to speak. “Zoe.”

He blinked, inhaled sharply, and then let me go. I crumpled to the ground, massaging my throat. The frost receded, and some warmth returned to the air.

“What is going on?” His voice didn’t quite sound like his own—hollower, ancient, with a fading note of something beyond the laws of time and space.

“My dog—Vengeance—Samael seized her.” I scrambled back to my feet, dashing tears from my eyes. “He wants to execute her. Please, you have to stop him.”

His gaze sharpened, and subtly, that otherworldly vibe around him diminished, the Lucifer I knew returning bit by bit. “Why does he want to execute her?”

“Because she killed five demons. But she only did so to protect me! They attacked me in an ambush, and they were trying to kill me. One of them aimed a sword directly at my neck. Vengeance took care of them, but Samael doesn’t believe me and claims Vengeance needs to be put down for going berserk.”

“You were attacked?” he asked with lethal quiet.

“Yes, Your Grace.”

“Here in the palace?”

“Yes,” I said with a touch of impatience. “We can dissect that later, but right now, can you please order Samael to cancel the execution? He’s taken her to the kennels and could be killing her any minute now.”

He took a heavy breath, rolled his eyes, and then snapped his fingers. “Laphor.”

In a flutter of wings, a hellcat landed next to us.

I jumped about three feet into the air. What the what? Had this one been here the whole time? Gawd, these sneaky cats!

“Send word ahead to the kennels,” Lucifer said.

I do not like that place,the feline said, sniffing haughtily.It reeks.

With a sigh equal parts annoyed and resigned, Lucifer summoned a small container and shook something out of it into his palm. With a flick, he tossed it to the cat, who caught the morsel out of the air. It looked like some sort of dried meat.

“Go,” Lucifer said and waved his hand at the feline.

Still chewing, the hellcat took off and disappeared in the dark above us.

Well. I would never have thought that even the Devil had to bribe his cats to do his bidding.

While I was still staring after the feline, Lucifer had made his way to the door. I blinked and pivoted, hurrying after him. He was actually leaving his room?

Out in the hallway, he strode to one of the large, floor-to-ceiling windows, opened it with a wave of his hand, and then extended his wings with a whoosh that almost swept me off my feet.

I’d only seen his wings once before, back when he’d set foot on Earth during the near apocalypse. It had been from a distance then, and they’d been impressive already. Now, up close, they were awe-inspiring and terrifying all at once.

The feathers were the same deep black as that of all demon wings, though instead of flames dancing over them, Lucifer’s wings held a sheen of dark red, as if they’d been dipped in blood. And it seemed tomove. Writhing slowly like a living thing, the red glaze glistened in the lights of the few candles in the hallway, appearing to be strewn with some sort of iridescent sparks.

As I watched, drops of burgundy fell from his primaries, dissolving into nothing before they hit the floor.

“Keep up,” he threw over his shoulder, just before he stepped off the sill of the second-story window and soared into the air.

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