Page 63 of The Demon Prince's Accidental Mate
“No,” I said. “Not from me, and it’s my magic doing the summoning, using your blood and thoughts as a guide.”
“What does that mean, then?” Lily asked, pulling her hand away at last while I tossed the imp back through the hole in reality and closed it up.
“It means,” I said guardedly, “that she more than likely isn’t dead.”
“What?” Lily yelped, taking a step back in shock. “My mother isalive?”
“Probably,” I said. “Only probably.”
Lily started to get excited, then went still, looking at me with sudden intensity. “But …”
“But, if she is alive, then it likely means my brother still has her. At his castle. In the Underworld.”
Lily didn’t speak for close to a minute. “Oh.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Lily
“So, we’re going to go get her, right?”
The words came flying out of my mouth before my brain could verify them as being rational and worth speaking.
We? I had absolutely no business going into the Underworld as a human. Even one who could apparently be a bit stronger than normal. That was the realm of demons and nasty things. Creatures like Belial. I had seen his brother. Against someone like that, I was nothing more than a leaf on the wind. It was a literal death sentence.
Belial slowly blinked. “We?” he asked in the same voice I’d said in my head.
“It’s my mother,” I found myself saying firmly. Where had this sudden bout of insanity come from? “If that’s where she is, then he’s had her for over twenty years. Bee, I can’t let her stay there any longer than that.”
“You don’t understand the gravity of what you’re talking about doing,” Belial rumbled, shaking his head. “Going into the Underworld is no small task for a human.”
“My mother did it,” I said, quietly stubborn. “She did it, and she’s still there.”
“Not of her own will, I’m sure,” Belial pointed out. “She … might not even be savable.”
I ran my fingers back through my hair. “But she might be.”
He didn’t look happy.
“How can I live with myself if I stay out here while she’s there, suffering every day at the hands of your brother?”
“You assume she’s suffering.”
I shook my head. “What on Earth are you talking about? You just said she might not be savable. Talking as if she was too far gone because of what your brother has done to her.”
Every time I mentioned his brother, he flinched ever so slightly.
“I know,” he replied stiffly. “But there’s the other side of it as well.”
“What ‘other side’ could there possibly be?”
He visibly braced himself. “That she went with him willingly.”
“I’m sorry, what?” I stared at him, trying to comprehend whether he was serious. “Is that a joke? It must be a joke. You can’t seriously think she went with him by choice.”
Belial didn’t flinch.
“Can you?”
