Page 87 of The Road to Hell

I studied him and frowned. He seemeddifferentsomehow. Less scowly. I knew Rathiel. He was usually the epitome of a brooding vampire. But now, he seemed lighter somehow, minus the bruises and cuts, of course.

“I have a lot of questions,” I said.

A knowing glint sparked in his eyes. “I would be disappointed if you didn’t.”

I laughed.

“Which one do you want to ask first?”

I lifted my hands and gestured around us. “How are you here?Whyare you here? Why aren’t you at the palace? Did Lucifer send you? Are you here on his orders? What happened to you after I left?”

Rathiel laughed—reallylaughed, which had my jaw dropping—then reached up and took my hands. “I’m free. Lucifer freed me from the vow.”

I blinked at him. Those werenotthe words I expected him to say.

“What? Like, freed you from your actual vow?” I shook my head. “The same vow that gave Lucifer control over your free will?”

He nodded.

Baffled, I stared at Rathiel. “What? How? Why? When?” I paused, my tone that of complete and utter disbelief.

He laughed again, a sound I wasn’t sure I would ever get used to.

“How about I start from the beginning?”

“Yes, please,” I rushed to say.

“After you escaped, Imayhave…let the other hellwyrms loose.”

I lifted my brows.

“Anarchy followed, obviously. No deaths, but the wyrms injured most of the hellspawn in the palace. I fetched Tavira, and we spent hours rounding them up. When we reported to Lucifer, Tavira informed him that the hellwyrms had broken free, and I told him you’d escaped on two of them en route to the dungeons.”

He paused, then continued. “Lucifer was…incensed. So furious that he didn’t stop to questionwhohad opened the hellwyrm cages. He assumed it was you. And I let him.”

“He knows I’m close with Mephisar and Sable,” I said. “So that tracks.”

Rathiel gave a slow nod. “He demanded to know how you got past me. I gave him a version of the truth. The vow kept me from lying to him. I told him Gremory was stabbed—never mentioned by whom—and you vanished into the shadows. Made it to the stables before I could catch you.”

I nodded. The truth, but not the full truth.

“Again, he was so mad that he didn’t stop to ask the finer details. He also didn’t question Gremory. Gremory’s given me a few suspicious looks, but he hasn’t confronted me yet. Lucifer, obviously, wasn’t happy. I had failed him. But failure is a lesser crime than treason. He punished me for losing you, but it wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle. If he’d suspected the truth, he never would have let me live. It wasn’t long after that we received word about the outpost you destroyed. The survivors reported to Lucifer. That you had Mephisar and Sable with you certainly helped solidify your escape story in his head.”

“I can only imagine his wrath when he learned about that.”

Rathiel held my gaze. “He was furious. I’ve seen his rage before, but this was different. He saw your escape as a personal slight. He wanted blood.” His lips pressed into a thin line. “And he took it.”

I clenched my hands, heat curling under my skin. “What did he do to you?”

He paused, as if considering how much to say. “He made an example of me. His usual methods.” His fingers twitched slightly against the cot, but his voice remained flat. “Pain. Humiliation. All reminders that he doesn’t tolerate failure. But he let me live thanks to my assurances that I was loyal to him and only him.”

A fresh wave of anger burned through me. I’d seen Lucifer break his own soldiers apart just to remind them of who owned them. But I’d also endured my father’s punishments myself, so it didn’t take much imagination at all to envision what he’d done to Rathiel.

I dragged in a breath. “Then why would he free you from the vow? That’s not like him. He never lets go of something he owns.”

Rathiel’s expression tightened. “Because he doesn’t see it as letting me go. And he has a plan.”

A chill skated down my spine. Lucifer with a plan was never a good thing.

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