“Someone used magic to cover their steps. It doesn’t matter. I’m going to die soon,” I said.
“Stop saying you’re going to die. Fate wouldn’t bring us back together to rip us apart.”
Fate. She was another one of my friends who’d never come looking for me.
“We are not back together,” I said. “I came to tell you Prometheus wants your powers along with Poseidon’s and Zeus’s.”
“But you came to me first. You still care.”
I did, and no matter how much I tried not to, my body wanted to be near him. “If you’re done trying to inflate your ego, we need to get a move on. If I remember correctly, we are close to the end of the first hell circle. I really don’t want to be out after dark when we hit the third.”
Many stragglers lived in the in-between area of the circles, and they weren’t always the happiest people. Most people on the far edges needed to be there, but they weren’t evil enough to be locked in the lower levels. The prospect of not making it to the next center in time sent a shiver down my spine. Years before, I’d loved the challenge. Now, with my powers running low, I didn’t know how I would handle a fight.
“I figured we would spend the night in the house by the water.”
“I’m not sleeping with you,” I grumbled, hefting my bag up from the ground. Evanora had dropped off care packages before we left, one for me and one for Lucifer. They felt like they were filled with rocks.
He reached out and plucked the backpack from my hands and held it effortlessly. “You wound me.”
“You would have to have a heart to care.”
I turned back to the trail and trekked through the terrain. Hell’s sun was starting to set low in the canopy of trees. We didn’t have long before it was gone and the real demons of the world came out. They thrived on the night and on causing others pain.
When the grass became too tall, Lucifer pulled out a machete and cut it down, making it easier to walk. I watched his back and ass flexing as he cut down the long grass. Even in the deep woods of hell, he wore a pair of black suit pants, expensive dress shoes, and a white button-down shirt. The only thing missing from his usual attire was his black suit jacket. He had to have some spell on his clothes because they didn’t have a speck of dirt or a drip of sweat.
I, on the other hand, was a different story. My white tank was stained with dirt and sweat. The leather pants were a sexy idea. When I’d put them on, I’d wanted Lucifer to want me. I hadn’t known we would be walking through the jungle of hell to reach the waters on the edge that would lead us to Poseidon.
An insect the size of a basketball flew past Lucifer and straight at me. This was the first sign of life in the jungle. With the sun setting, it wouldn’t be long before larger, more aggressive creatures came out.
Luckily, the giant flying beetle was harmless. He flew past my head, his little wings beating a mile a minute to keep his large body in the air. He shouldn’t have been able to fly, but many of the creatures that came out at night were unexplainable.
A medium-sized purple pig raced by my leg, startling me. I tripped on a root and fell to the ground, my hands bracing the fall. Pain shot through me, a reminder that I wasn’t going to live much longer. The pain was something I hadn’t known about before. The powers I’d gotten from the gods had made me almost indestructible.
Lucifer continued a few steps in front of me, and he didn’t turn around when I first fell. I rolled over and sat up, trying to ignore the pain. I sat cross-legged.
He glanced over his shoulder and stopped when he saw me. “Why didn’t you say something?”
I glared up at the tall sexy man. “I just fell. Give me a second, and we’ll be on our way.”
“Let’s take a break.” He walked back toward me and set his pack on the ground.
“The sun is going down.”
“I’m the fucking devil.”
I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. “Just because you’re the devil, that won’t stop the creatures coming out at night. Remember the last time we walked these areas at night?”
Lucifer’s eyes blazed red for a second. “That was the best night ever.”
We had different ideas of what a good date night was. One of Lucifer’s demons had tried to escape. Instead of sending his guards to find the rogue beast, he wanted to go himself. We spent the night fighting off strange creatures only to find out, after hours of searching, that the demon was at hell’s pub. But our time in the house after that had been worth fighting half of those creatures.
“Do you think Evanora packed any food in these bags?” I said.
He set down his pack and sat on the log near me. “Yes, I think it’s time for you to take your medicine as well.”
“That shit is so gross. How about some food and then we go from there?”
“Gemma… you know you need the medicine.” He pulled out a container of food and a vial. “You should take it first.”
“I should walk back to the palace and shove the vial down Evanora's throat. It’s not like the medicine will magically cure whatever the Titans did to me, and look.” I rotated my arm to show the bruises from when I’d fallen earlier.
“Why didn’t you tell me about this?” Lucifer ran a finger over the bruise, and it disappeared under his touch. The pain went away with the injury.
“We can’t stop each time I get a bruise or a scratch. I’ll be dead before we even reach the border of hell and Atlantis.”
He narrowed his eyes. “If I hear you say you're going to die one more time, I will tie you down in my torture chamber and have my way with you for days.”
“I always knew about your bondage kink. Never knew you had a necrophilia kink.” I couldn’t hold back the laughter.
“I don’t have a necrophilia kink.” Lucifer shook his head as he handed me the vial of medicine. “Every connection I have is working on finding a cure for you, and I know they will find it.”
The green liquid looked as bad as it tasted. I pressed the vial to my mouth and drank. Evanora wanted me to take one a day. “That tastes like day-old vomit.” I grimaced, grabbing the bottle of water. “She’d better have packed some good food.”
Lucifer handed me a Tupperware container along with a knife and fork. “I had her pack your favorite—Ms. Baker’s lasagna with garlic bread.”
When I pulled back the top of the container, the lasagna smelled as good as I remembered. “This looks delicious. It would be even better if it was warm.”
He waved his hand over my dish, and steam rolled out of the top. “There, now—it’s warm.” A second later, Lucifer pulled out another container. This one had spaghetti and meatballs. I was never a fan of red sauce on my noodles, but it had always been Lucifer’s favorite. As with my food, he heated it with the wave of a hand.
He stabbed at a meatball with his fork and eyed it before popping it into his mouth. “I haven’t had her cooking in years.” He let out a groan. “Delicious.”
“It’s so good,” I mumbled with food in my mouth. Since my return to hell, all my favorite foods had been delivered to my room. I knew Lucifer was behind that because he was the only one who knew how much I loved chocolate covered pretzels, and they’d showed up the first day. “I missed this so much.”
“You know, we haven’t talked about what it was like for you for the past three hundred years. Do you remember what you dreamed about, or was it like no time passed?”
I moved the food around in the container, losing my appetite. “I dreamed. Not always of the good stuff… more often than not, it was of people I couldn’t save—the things I did wrong in life.”
Lucifer glared. “Why would they do that? There is no reason they couldn’t add an extra spell to make it seem like a quick nap.”
I’d wondered the same thing the past few days. Someone had wanted me to pay, and I wasn’t sure why. I hoped I would have enough time to figure it out after we warned Poseidon and Zeus.
“The people in that room are the only ones who
know, and I plan to get my answers.” Talking about what happened left a bitter taste in my mouth. “We can’t worry about that now, and talking about it does no good.”
Lucifer took another bite. “You will tell me everyone involved.” Just as he was about to eat another meatball, he froze. He lowered his food to the ground next to him and pulled out a long sword, looking past me. “Don’t move.” His voice had turned low and deadly.
The hell sun was almost down. It would be dark in thirty minutes. A chill ran down my back as I imagined what might be lurking behind me.
Lucifer stood to his full height, the sword in his hands burning with flame. His eyes were the same color as the fire. I heard an ear-piercing screech behind me. It was a basilisk, one of the creatures created in hell, a mixture between a python and a mountain lion. One of its abilities was to send off a noise that would mess with people’s equilibrium and send them to the ground. I covered my ears with my hands as the second screech blared. Lucifer jumped over me and swiped his sword through the air, but the creature moved with the speed of a cat.
I grabbed the knife out of my boots, but I was too slow. The creature jumped through the air and pushed me to the ground, and the knife slipped out of my hand. His paws pressed on each of my shoulders, pinning me down. His long thick tongue stuck out as he opened his large mouth, showing massive fangs.
A second basilisk rushed in, charging Lucifer. As Lucifer was fighting it, I reached for the knife. My fingers lightly brushed the edge of the blade.
Saliva poured out of the basilisk’s mouth, and each drip burned my skin. The tail was coiled around my legs, holding me in place. I reached for the knife one more time, but the creature swatted it away.
“Help,” I said as the basilisk’s fangs scraped my skin. Once his teeth punctured my skin, I would die even faster. I pushed against the beast’s undercarriage, trying to get the two-hundred-pound creature to move, but it didn’t work.
His fangs pressed against me. I looked to the side, wanting to see Lucifer one last time. He wasn’t there.
4
Lucifer
I ground my teeth as I slashed my sword at the basilisk. The fucker ducked and rolled to the side. I called on my dark magic and felt it envelop the beast, but he fought back. I needed the creature alive.
His eyes, usually bright green, were the color of coal. With another swipe of my sword, the blade cut through his neck, and the basilisk dropped to the ground. Gemma screamed for help, and when I turned, my heart almost stopped. The basilisk was pressing its venomous teeth to her long neck. I leapt through the air and pushed my sword into the back of the creature. His body crumbled under me, directly on top of Gemma.
Gemma opened one eye and let out a breath. “Took you long enough.”
I wanted to pull her into my arms and press my lips against hers, but I knew that after feeling the touch of her soft mouth, I wouldn’t be able to stop at a kiss.
I shoved the massive beast off her small frame and reached out. Once her fingers were holding mine, I pulled her up. She stumbled into my arms and looked up with her green eyes. In all other aspects of my life, I had control, but not when it came to Gemma. I lowered my head until our lips touched. Awareness shot through my body. It was like a light switch had turned on. The darkness of the last three hundred years disappeared, and bright light replaced the dullness I’d been living in.
Her mouth was as soft as I remembered. She wrapped her arms around me, pulling me in deeper as I swiped my tongue across her pouty lips.
I reached for the bottom of her tank top and felt wetness. I pulled back from the kiss and looked down. Gemma had blood running down the side of her body. I pulled up her white shirt. A long scratch on the side oozed blood.
“You’re injured,” I growled.
“It’s fine.” She pushed my hand away and tried to pull down her shirt. “If we stop every time I’m injured, we will never make it to Poseidon in time.”
Poseidon wasn’t always the easiest to get along with. If he was gone, I could expand hell and take over the underwater city. The population in hell was starting to get a little overcrowded. Fate owned the land on the other side, and she wanted way more for it than it was worth. I would rather create another thousand-story condo building than give in to her demands.
“Poseidon is an overgrown fish lover,” I said.
Gemma narrowed her eyes. “You’re thinking about taking the land if he dies.” She let out a long sigh. “You know Atlantis would go to his son, right? There would be no reason for the land to go to you.”
I batted away her hand away and raised her shirt again. Resting my hand on her wound, I healed the ugly scratch. “It’s been years since we went to war against each other, and I’m tempted. But it will need to wait until all of this is over.”
When the scratch finished knitting together, I pulled my hands from her body and walked over to the dead basilisk. Leaning down, I flipped the creature over. His eyes were still dark black. That was not normal, and coming at us before the moon was shining was out of the norm for them as well.
Gemma leaned down and pressed her hand to the basilisk’s skin. Her eyes widened. “Why would a basilisk have powers?”
“They shouldn’t,” I said. “Something is not right.”
“Besides me,” she snapped before standing.
Reports had started coming in, a week before Gemma returned, that something was wrong in the outer parts of hell. When Gemma had showed up, I ignored everything else, but the two things might be connected.
She was staring at me, waiting for an answer.
“I thought we could figure out both things at the same time.”
“You think they’re tied together?” She frowned. “Did you know I was coming back before I showed up in hell?”
“No… but I felt a shift not too long before you arrived and knew something big was going to go down. Believe me, I wasn’t expecting my fiancée to show up.”
“Fiancée?” She rolled her eyes. “More like your secret.”
“I told you many times I didn’t want to keep our relationship a secret.”
“But being with me would’ve caused you problems.”
“Like someone finding out about us and using you against me?” Sarcasm dripped from my mouth. “It happened. When you didn’t show up, I changed.”
“I noticed. You had a bunch of kids.” The sadness in her eyes hurt me more than anything.
“My daughters will always mean the world to me, though I will deny that if you tell them. But it was meaningless sex.”
“Yeah, but I spent years dreaming about you,” she whispered.
“Just because I slept with women and didn’t cry to the world that you left me,”—I reached out and pulled her into my arms—“doesn’t mean you weren’t still the only person to hold my heart.”
Gemma rested her head against my chest. “I wouldn’t say that too loud. You don’t want the world to know you have a heart. Someone might think they could overturn hell or take it over.”
Over the centuries, many had tried to take over hell. Only one person had come close. That had been after Gemma disappeared and I’d spent too much time away and a few demons had worked their way into the palace and attempted to open the lower gates.
A peace I hadn’t felt in years washed over me as I held Gemma in my arms. It wouldn’t be long before the night creatures came out in full force. I wanted to get closer to the cabin so I could figure out what was going on outside while Gemma rested inside.
It had felt strange not having my indestructible woman next to me. I rested my hands on her tapered waist. Dark circles had formed under her eyes.
In the distance, I heard the crack of a limb. Predators were creeping up on us. In a matter of minutes, we would be surrounded by evil. I couldn’t put Gemma in more danger.
When I pulled back, Gemma let out a whimper. It took everything in me not to reach out and pull her back into my arms. “We need to get going.”
She
nodded, and I grabbed both our packs. The grass path wasn’t as thick as it had been. I nudged Gemma to walk in front of me so I could watch her every step and keep the creatures behind us away from her.
The farther we walked away from the city center of hell, the stronger the buzz of magic became. There shouldn’t have been magic in the jungles of hell.
With each step, the trees and plants sagged, no longer fertile and vibrant. “Did it stop raining over here?” Gemma asked.
“It’s hell. We don’t need rain for the jungle to be the way it is. But something feels off.”
Gemma reached down and plucked a once pink flower from a shrub. “It’s the same magic I felt in the catacombs. When the Titans sealed me in, I felt this magic, but I could never figure out who it was coming from.”
This wasn’t from a Titan—it was dark magic. Only the dark witches and warlocks produced this type of magic. That would also explain how Gemma had been locked away so easily. The Titans wouldn’t have had the power to lock away a power wielder. She was one of a kind, created by the gods.
“How did they get you to go into the catacombs or even agree to the plan?” What I really wanted to know was why she hadn’t come to me. If she had, there was no way I would have let her go.
Gemma slowed to a stop and looked over her shoulder. “They told me you were in the meeting and agreed with everyone.”
“And you thought that sounded like me?”
“Yes… no… I don’t know. I figured you would’ve come for me.” She whispered the last part.
“Well, we both didn’t count on each other. I will always come looking for you.”
She glanced back down the path. “Let’s keep heading for the house. The past is behind us, and we need to figure out what’s going on.”
I gripped her arm. “It’s not behind us.”
She ripped her arm from my hand. “Let’s go, Lucifer.”
“Gemma, stop.”
“Don’t snap at me.” She turned and rolled her blue eyes.
“I said ‘Stop’ because of that.” I pointed to a demon on the ground. Usually, the demons were bright red. This one was dark purple, close to black. His chest barely rose as he breathed. “Fuck.” I dropped to the ground and rested my hand on his chest. “Something took his soul.”
Fated Mates of the Underworld, Books 1-3 Page 30
