Page 106 of Infernal

His words echoed in my head like the harsh finality of a gavel slamming down. Was he trying to scare me out of the deal, or did he just want to see how far I’d be willing to go?

“I said I’ll do it. I don’t care what it takes or what I have to do.”

A pleased smile coiled his lips at my admission, and then his eyes darkened to the color of the open sea. “And you will give me the Sword of Angelus.”

My breath caught in my throat. Um, hell no. “That wasn’t part of the deal—”

“It is now.” He looked at me with all the darkness of a looming storm. “I know you have it, Daughter. I can feel it’s power radiating on you.”

“I’m not going to use it on you,” I whispered, trying to back away from the darkness, from the impending storm, but it seemed to be moving with me.

“I know you won’t,” he said plainly, almost humorously. “You don’t have it in you.”

My back stiffened at the affront, and he chuckled spiritedly.

“Don’t look so offended, Daughter. There’s a reason my consorts choose your soulmate as my vessel.”

My soulmate…Tracewasmy soulmate.

My mind flashed back to the night we danced together at Caleb’s party. He’d asked me if I believed in soulmates. Had he known I was his all along? I shook away the thought, refusing to allow it to hold me back, and the memory scattered away like a cockroach running from the light.

“I’m not giving you the sword,” I said, crossing my arms.

“Then we have no deal.”

“It isn’t mine to give,” I said, grasping at any straw I could grab a hold of.

“It’s always been yours, Daughter.” He smiled kindly, and for the faintest of moments, I’d almost forgotten who I was talking to. “You are the only living soul in all the realms that can yield the weapon, but my bloodline is eternal and far-reaching, and there will always be another you to serve its power.”

Good, I thought, but I kept that thought to myself.

“I’d be a fool to allow that to happen,” he said pointedly.

And I’d be a fool to not. There was no way I could hand over the only thing in this entire universe that could put an end to his reign of terror. He may have been agreeing to leave this world with me, and return to Hades, but would that last forever? What if he changed his mind? What if he decided to return and make happen the one thing that could end us all?

I may have been desperate, but I wasn’t an idiot.

“The sword stays with the Order,” I said, refusing to back down even an inch. “You’ll have my Blood Oath, and I’ll have my own reassurance that you’ll keep your word and stay in Hades.”

His eyes glimmered as he looked me up and down. “You drive a hard bargain, Daughter. I like that.”

And then the trepidation was back, pushing bile up the back of my throat. The way he was looking at me…it wasn’t the way you’d look at relative orDaughter, as he called me. It was the way you looked at someone you planned on doing very bad things to. It made my stomach dip and roll as though something necrotic was eating its way through it.

“Then we have a deal?” I asked again, having no other choice but to ignore my body’s scream to empty itself.

“We have a—” His words broke off as a loud crash blasted at the back of the building.

Both of our heads snapped in the direction of the employees-only area at the same time.

The sound of furniture breaking followed by a piercing wolf howl blew through my ears, raising the hairs on the back of my neck. For a moment, I panicked, thinking Dominic had somehow magically come back to life before his time and was back there tearing everyone to shreds, and then I remembered he wasn’t the only wolf Shifter that had come along.

Ben was here too!

I immediately tried to run towards the noise—towards Ben. I needed to see for myself what the hell he was doing here, and then knock a thousand pounds of sense into him by way of my fist, but Lucifer had already snatched me by the waist and yanked me back into his chest, stopping me from going even a foot further.

“Do not move another muscle,” he warned me, his breath ruffling my hair as he spoke by my ear. “I warned you not to cross me, Daughter.”

“I didn’t!” I said, my back still pressed against his broad chest. “I swear to God I didn’t—”

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