Page 107 of Infernal

He spun me around and grabbed my arms, his fingers clamping down so hard around my arms that I thought I’d heard my bone snap. “NEVER speak of Him in my presence, or it will be the last thing you ever do!” he growled murderously, shooting tiny specks of spit onto my face as he bellowed the warning.

“I’m s-sorry,” I stuttered, my voice failing me as it scurried away to hide.

But he was still squeezing me, still glaring at me as though he were going to rip my body in two. And then, as if God himself had stepped in and intervened, his eyes began to flutter, blinking and rolling back, his body shaking violently as though he were having a seizure. It was the perfect time to break out of his hold and run, but my feet were like two blocks of concrete, cemented into the ground.

I was confounded, my eyes unable to look away for even a second.

As quickly as it started, the seizure halted, giving way to a humming electrical current that made my entire body hum.

“Do it now, Jemma! Do it before it’s too late!”

The voice. The eyes. The hum. It couldn’t be…

“Trace?” Every nerve ending in my body woke up as though I’d been sleeping through this life without him. “Trace! Oh, my God, it’s really you. Please stay with me. Please. Please. Please! Just hold on. Don’t leave me again!”

“AARRGH!” A scream tore out of his lungs, penetrating and sharp, as though he were being ripped away from his own body, and the convulsions quickly restarted, harder and faster this time.

I stood frozen with panic, terror infusing every inch of my being as I watched his body shake with a ferocity that was violent enough to make his body split in two.

And then, just as quickly as it had started, everything stopped.

My heart sank to the pits of Hell as the soft humming of my soulmate vanished, leaving only the presence of the cruel fallen angel that had stolen his life.

Lucifer exhaled sharply, almost painfully as he rolled his shoulder and locked his eyes back on mine. I couldn’t tell if he was angry or…amused? “Annoying little thing, isn’t he?” he said and then cracked his neck.

The realization that Trace had just come through, that it actually happened, slammed me upside the head. He’d somehow managed to overpower Lucifer and regain control of his body. But how?

And could he do it again?

“I wouldn’t count on it,” answered Lucifer. He was still holding me by my arms and could hear every thought that was running frantically through my mind. “That won’t be happening again. This time, I made sure of it.”

He madesureof it?

“What did you do to him?! What did you do?!” I wailed, tears aching to break free as I struggled to break out of his impossible grip.

My cries never had a chance to be answered.

The sound of doors crashing open pulled his attention over my shoulder.

“Well, what do we have here?” he said as he released my arms and swung me around so that I could see.

I stumbled back into his chest, my legs turning to jelly as I watched six of Lucifer’s demons walk into the main hall, one of them carrying a bound and gagged blonde with denim-blue eyes that were silently screaming with terror.

“Taylor!” I pushed off Lucifer and tried to run to her, but he promptly grabbed my neck and hauled me back, holding me in place as though I were nothing but a useless bag of feathers.

The last demon filed into the room, forcefully dragging a collared wolf behind him. I blinked several times as I catalogued the glowing leash around Ben’s neck. It seemed to be on fire, only it wasn’t burning him.

“The little beast dropped right out of the ceiling like an Angel,” said Malphas, laughing as he stood beside the dark-skinned meatsuit of muscle that was holding the other end of the leash.

Lucifer didn’t appear to find it amusing. “Reveal yourself,” he ordered, but the wolf just continued to buck and whimper against the chain. “Reveal yourself or Talon snaps her pretty little neck.”

He nodded to Talon, the orange-haired buffoon, who promptly wrapped his hand around Taylor’s neck and lifted her off the ground, dangling her in front of the wolf’s eye so he could see they meant business.

That was all that was needed. The wolf immediately blurred into a miasma of darkness, shifting and reshaping itself before reappearing in human form.

Ben’s human form.

“You got me, aright?” snapped Ben, his tone more angry than afraid. “Now let her go!”

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