Page 106 of The Road to Hell

There were too many.

I couldn’t see the others. Levi. Gorr.

Even Rathiel.

Fear tightened my throat and right then and there, I nearly surrendered.

No.

I couldn’t think like that. I had to believe he wasn’t dead. Because hecouldn’tbe. I would have felt if he had died, right? My entire existence would have ended if he’d fallen.

But the thought, even the faintest whisper of it, set something off inside me—something reckless, something murderous.

Lucifer could kill me. Fine. He could rip my soul from my body and torment me any way he wanted.

But he would never have Rathiel.

I refused.

Lucifer’s chuckle, smooth and mocking, echoed through my ears. He moved into sight, just within my periphery, and said, “Watch.”

He lifted his hand and snapped his fingers.

My stomach dropped.

I barely had time to process what he had just done when Calder crumpled mid-strike, his sword slipping from his grip as his legs gave out beneath him. His body convulsed once, twice—and then went utterly still.

Korrak dropped to his knees, his molten core dimming, his massive frame swaying before he, too, collapsed onto the dirt.

Varz barely made a sound before his daggers slipped from his hands, and he fell, motionless.

Mephisar let out a strangled, hissing snarl—a final act of defiance—before his giant body slammed into the battlefield, his wings twitching once before falling limp.

Sable followed, her enormous body collapsing in a wave of black scales, her heavy tail carving a deep trench in the scorched earth before she stilled.

All of them.

One moment fighting, clawing, bleeding for me—and the next, gone.

Not dead—Irefusedto believe they were dead—but down. Unmoving. Ripped from the fight.

My breath locked in my throat, my pulse hammering so fast it deafened me. My body screamed to move, to run to them, to do something—but I couldn’t. I couldn’t move.

Lucifer came to stand in front of me, amusement dancing in his eyes. He was enjoying this, the bastard.

“You fight so hard,” he mused. “And for what? Them?” His eyes raked over my fallen soldiers, disdain curling his lip. “Tell me, daughter, was it worth it?”

He didn’t give me a chance to respond before his magic slammed into my chest and threw me to the ground so hard, my vision went white and the air vanished from my lungs.

Lucifer walked over to me and pressed a foot against my chest, squishing me like he would a weak hellspawn. His weight was unbearable—not just physical, but something deeper. Something that felt like gravity itself, pressing, pulling, tearing me apart from the inside.

I choked on air, my lungs burning, my limbs refusing to obey me.

Lucifer glared down his nose at me,

“You have never understood, have you?” he snarled, his face warping into something truly hideous.

He pressed down.

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