Page 87 of Dark Prince

I keep fighting, although I know it’s useless. She’s knotted the rope and is winding it around my elbows now, stretching my shoulders as she restrains my arms behind me.

“I gave him everything,” she bites out, anger burning in her voice. “I left Hell for him. I’ve stood by him, supported him, made the world work for him. I’ve turned him into a king on this wretched plane of existence. All these years, stuck in this cesspool of humanity, I’ve been his rock, his partner. And what do I get out of it?”

She grabs a fistful of my hair and yanks me away from the wall, forcing me to my knees. I cry out in pain and she digs her nails into my scalp as if she gets some kind of sick satisfaction out of my cries.

“One night,” she snarls, answering her own questions. “That’s all. One night of passion, one moment of connection.Real connection.Then a promise that it would never happen again.” Her voice breaks, and she screams. “He didn’t choose me!”

Shoving my head to one side, she pushes me down to the floor. I land awkwardly on my side, and she winds the rope around my ankles as she wrestles her voice back under control.

“But I stayed,” she says grimly. “I was loyal. I stayed on Earth, doing everything in my power to help him, to build him up, to be his foundation. I knew it was only a matter of time before he would come to his senses and crawl back to me, begging for a second chance. I was so sure.”

She has me well and truly hog-tied now. But because of the awkward angle of my arms, there’s a little slack in the ropes if I twist a certain way. If she turns her back for a few minutes, maybe I can use it to break free. Maybe.

“Then he chose a fucking human!”

She pulls the rope so tight it hurts as she shouts the words, dashing my hopes of being able to wriggle out. She’s got her heel pressed between my shoulder blades, and as I feel her body tense, I squeeze my eyes shut, anticipating her crushing my spine.

For a second, I’m absolutely certain that I’m about to die. Her rage builds behind me like an impending hurricane. Then, suddenly, she’s calm as the eye of the storm.

Easing off me, she speaks in the same firm, clipped voice she uses when she makes an executive decision up on the thirty-ninth floor.

“It’s time to show Lucifer what happens when you fall in love with breakable things.”

Chapter30

Sophia

Liftingme up as if I weigh nothing, Naamah spins me around and shoves my back against the wall so hard my head bounces off it. My ears ring, and my heart pounds with both terror and fury.

This bitch!

I thought she was my friend, the only woman in the company who wasn’t threatened by my existence or relationship with Lucifer. The only woman who wasn’t bitterly jealous of me, angry at Lucifer’s obviously preferential treatment, but no. She was just a better actor than the rest of them, biding her time, earning my trust.

Manipulative, spiteful…

My mind rattles off a lot of words to describe the woman standing over me, but I keep them behind my teeth. Well, mostly.

“Maybe he just doesn’t like his women sociopathic,” I say in a quiet growl. “Ever consider that?”

Her eyes widen and flash red. Her skin ripples like Lucifer’s did the first time I saw him shift, shimmering like a heat wave as she transforms into her demon shape. Horns, not quite as big as his, curl from her head. Wings, shiny and black, sprout from her back. She has a tail, and it’s thrashing like an agitated cat. None of that, though, is as frightening or intimidating as the talons that have replaced her polished nails.

I’ve seen what those things can do, and hers are reaching for me like she’s planning to shred me to ribbons.

I cringe hard, curling into myself as much as I can with the rope holding me back. I don’t know what people are talking about when they say that your life will flash before your eyes in the moments before your death. The only thing flashing before my eyes are her fucking talons.

Rather than slash me to bloody pieces, though, she simply hooks those claws through the rope across my chest, pulling it even tighter as she yanks me toward her vicious, sneering face.

“I’m looking forward to seeing you get what you deserve, you impudent little slut.”

I cry out as she whirls around and drags me across the floor. The room spins around me, and she’s moving too fast for my gaze to latch onto anything—except the scorched circle on the floor ahead of us. Images of being burned alive flash through my head, so vivid and palpable that I can almost believe she put them there.

I can’t help but scream, the sound ripped from my lungs by the raw force of my terror.

A resounding boom rings through the room, stopping Naamah in her tracks. She freezes, then slowly turns back toward the door. Gasping for breath, I look the same way. Whatever it is, it pounds the door again, even louder, bowing the steel plates apart.

Naamah shakes her fingers out of my bonds, letting me fall helplessly to the floor. I barely manage to keep my head from smacking against the concrete floor the same way it cracked against the wall as she steps over me, ready to face whatever is breaking in.

I only hope it likes a challenge more than it likes killing people, or I’m screwed. I make a very easy looking target compared to the demoness standing over me.

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