Grave Consequences (Hellgate Guardians Book 2)

by Ivy Asher

  “Umm…” I try to search for a usable lie, but I have no fucking clue how to explain my wings away without telling them everything, so I go for vague instead. “I just never keep them out,” I say, hoping that this is a thing and they can actually put their wings away. If they can, I really need to learn that trick, because I hate these things. It’s only a matter of time before I get scoliosis.

  “Lie.”

  My eyes snap over to Luce. He’s holding a clear glass of blood-red liquid in one hand, regarding me as he lazily swirls the drink around and watches me with an icy, unforgiving gaze. I swallow hard.

  Across from me, Tazreel’s eyes harden on me. “Forgive her, Luce. She’s new to this. She’ll know from now on not to lie to the King of the Underworld. Won’t you, Delta?” he asks pointedly.

  My face pales, and my gray eyes widen with fear. “Wait. You’re...Lucifer? As in the Devil?” I ask.

  He spreads his arms out as if to show himself off. “The one and only.”

  Shit, Delta. You tried to fucking lie to the King of Deceit?

  “Sorry,” I quickly say, hoping that will appease him enough not to burn me alive.

  Fuck. Well, that explains a lot.

  It also leaves me with a shit ton of questions. Exactly who is my sperm donor that he has such an open and friendly relationship with fucking Satan? They’re so chummy. I just didn’t see the King of Hell being so jovial and easy-going. And who exactly are the other six Abdicated? Everyone here must be a big fucking deal if they’re all eating dinner together like old friends. This newfound knowledge sets me even more on edge.

  Lucifer lets me suffer in silence for a second, while everyone at the table is tense and still. Even the musicians and menagerie aren’t moving or making a sound; they’re too busy watching to see what he’ll do to me. They seem excited.

  Sweat beads at the nape of my neck, but I can’t swipe it away. I’m too fucking terrified.

  “You’re forgiven,” Lucifer finally says, and I nearly fall over in my chair with relief as the musicians and dancers start up again. “This time.” That added declaration makes a panicked laugh bubble out of my throat, but I tamp it down by grabbing my fork and shoving the first thing of food into my mouth.

  Bad choice.

  An overwhelming taste of charred meat attacks my taste buds until I feel like I’ve swallowed a piece of charcoal. What the fuck kind of chefs does Tazreel have down here? Gordon Ramsey would throw a fit.

  I want to start coughing or spit the bite out, but I don’t dare. So even though the burnt meat practically turns to ash on my tongue, I force myself to swallow it down and paste a forced smile on my face.

  Everyone is still watching me, even as they start to eat like they’re savoring every bite. “Is the meal not to your liking?” Tazreel asks me, and I wish this fucking table wasn’t so wide so I could reach under the table and kick him right in his shin. It’s like he wants me to get smited. Smote? Smitted? Point is, Tazreel sucks ass at being a father.

  “It’s really...different,” I choke out, while glancing around at the table in search of a drink. Unfortunately, the imps haven’t filled my cup yet, so I’m shit out of luck.

  “Try the Graveworms. They’re Luce’s favorite,” Tazreel tells me.

  Oh, fuck me.

  Barely suppressing a grimace, I look down at my plate and find the pile of pink, spaghetti shaped worms in a neat pile on my plate. “Umm...you know what? I actually ate before I dropped into Hell. I’m fu—” I stop myself from saying full, not wanting to get caught in another lie. “I’m okay,” I say instead.

  “She’s a nervous one, isn’t she?” Elle declares conversationally.

  “Indeed,” Luce muses as he begins to twirl the pile of pasta-worms on his fork. “Makes one wonder if she’s hiding something.”

  Shit.

  My hand trembles slightly around the fork I’m gripping. Things are going downhill fast. Maybe I should’ve just eaten the worms? But one look at Lucifer as he slurps some up confirms that I just can’t do it. No amount of imagination can make me pretend that I’m eating ramen. I’m just not that good.

  “But the question is, is she in on the deceit? Did she hide herself from us? Running from her responsibility as an Abdicated, perhaps?” the ginger warrior female asks. “If so, I’d love to get my hands on her,” she says, holding the butter knife in her hand like she’s imagining slitting my throat with it.

  My eyes ping pong between the demons. I feel like I’m one sentence away from getting dragged into that weapons room and strung up onto the wall. My wings cringe behind me, like they’re trying to hide. All of the stunning beauty that is Lucifer’s is quickly changing, hardening into a drop-dead gorgeous temper as he assesses me.

  “Anytime any of my offspring attempt to deceive me, I have them drawn and quartered,” Baldy says as he continues to shovel food into his mouth.

  I have to stop myself from throwing my fork at him and telling him to shut his gorgeous lips. The picture of myself getting dragged by a Hell horse and then cut open like an anatomy project is enough to turn my already soured stomach.

  My eyes fly up to Tazreel, trying to see if he’s considering it. He looks...contemplative. Fuck. Why couldn’t I have had a cool Abdicated father? Why do I have to get stuck with this asshole who doesn’t seem to care whether or not my intestines are inside or outside of my body?

  “It is curious why she just suddenly appeared like that. Your meditation room, was it?” the dude decked out in jewels asks, his eyes gleaming.

  “Yes,” Tazreel replies, but he’s still watching me, and he gives me a look, pointing at his plate with his fork, in a clear warning to keep eating.

  Fucking hell. Apparently, he’s fine with talk about me getting killed, but he’s a stickler for table manners.

  Avoiding the meat, I sink my fork into something that I think might be a vegetable. It’s dark brown with a kind of sauce drizzled over the top. When I put it in my mouth, it’s slimy and earthy, like a mushroom. Can’t there just be a damn bread roll? I flop it around in my mouth before swallowing it whole. This fucking dinner is going to be the death of me.

  “How did you end up there?” Ginger demands.

  There’s zero chance of holding anything back. I’ve gotten that warning clear as crystal. All I can do is answer their questions as vaguely yet truthfully as possible. “I fell through the Nihil portal in the Vestibule,” I say, trying to keep my voice even instead of shaking with nerves. Channel Iceman, I tell myself. Be cool and smooth.

  “You fell,” Elle says evenly, like she doesn’t quite believe me.

  Lucifer suddenly leans forward, and I freeze, unable to answer. How could I have thought any kind of salacious thoughts toward this guy? I can feel the oppressive predator prowling just under the surface. If I had anything in my bladder, I’d be pissing myself right about now. His eyes hold me captive, worse than the bars down in the dungeon.

  “Are you a spy?” he suddenly asks, a darkness descending over the dinner table. It’s menacing, and out of the corner of my eye, I see the menageries huddling in the corner, cringing away.

  My heart wants to thump right out of my chest and run out of the room. This isn’t a threat that hangs in the air—this isn’t just a curious discussion over dinner. Everything is suddenly very clear. They won’t hesitate to end me, and then probably go right back to eating their fucking worms. I’m in mortal danger.

  Suddenly, my right hand prickles with heat. I flinch at the sensation, and right before my eyes, my scythe appears in my hand, sturdy and solid.

  My fingers grip around it at the same time that I jump to my feet with wide, shocked eyes.

  There’s a collective gasp that rings through the air like a whip.

  “You dare draw a weapon?” someone shouts—I’m not sure which male it is.

  “No, I—it was an accident!” I exclaim as I try and fail to drop the damn thing. I shake my hand frantically, opening up my fingers, but the fucking scythe won
’t drop. It’s like it’s super glued to my palm. Oh, now it wants to be best friends? Where was it when I was fighting for my life before? Or when my prick of an Abdicated father was locking me in a cell? I glare at the black and silver staff in my hand, not sure if I want to smash it to splinters or hug it.

  “Tazreel, let me kill your offspring for this grave offense,” Ginger says, her face a blaze of wrath and looking even more like a warrior who’s ready to behead me.

  Smash it to splinters, it is...

  “Wait.”

  Everyone freezes, including me, as Lucifer gets to his feet and walks over to where I’m standing, shaking in my heels.

  “Luce—” Tazreel says, but the Devil just holds up a hand to shut him up as he stands in front of me, eyeing the scythe.

  “I know this weapon.” His light blue gaze flickers up to my eyes, and a slow, scary fucking smile spreads across his face. “I know who your mother is.”

  6

  Peals of laughter fill the cavernous room, and I stare dumbfounded as I watch Evil Incarnate lose his mind to the giggles.

  One second, he was standing over me with that creepy fucking grin after he announced the truth bomb that he knows who my mother is, and the next, hysterical with laughter.

  I don’t know if I’m supposed to be offended by this, but I am really fucking confused.

  I’m not sure which freaks me out more about the Bearer of Light: when he’s serious and exhaling pure foreboding or when he’s laughing so hard he has to wipe tears from his captivating frost-blue eyes. Both are pretty scary.

  The room watches Satan slap his knee and hold his side, gasping for breath in between guffaws. I look to Tazreel, who watches his friend with a look of frustration, shock, and mortification. He does not like Lucifer laughing at his expense. Not one bit. I study the other Abdicated and see a mixture of surprise, satisfaction, and burning curiosity.

  Lucifer looks over to Tazreel and shakes his head as he titters. “I don’t even know how you found her, let alone convinced her to fuck you,” he comments, upping the need that’s bleeding out of everyone to be let in on the secret that has him in hysterics.

  “Who is it then?” Tazreel demands, his tone flustered and his eyes sparking with exasperation.

  The Devil shakes his head. “Oh, no. It’s just too good. I might just have to sit on this one for a while longer. But new rule, Taz. You’re not allowed to punish this progeny of yours. She’s officially under my umbrella of protection.”

  Tazreel crosses his arms and sits back in his chair with a humph, like he’s pouting. I jump when the Devil’s hand comes down on my shoulder. Luce leans on me as if the laughter has weakened him too much to support his own weight. He’s really fucking heavy. I suppress the instinct to move away, careful to hold my stick far from him so that I don’t accidentally scythe the Devil. He did just tell Taz he can’t punish me, so that’s something. Whoever my mother is, she just made it so I get a free pass. I’ll take it.

  “You are officially my favorite niece. Oh, I haven’t laughed this hard since the Inquisition,” Luce chuckles, his voice merry as it comes down from his laughing fit. “I see it now. I knew there was something there that was resonating at a frequency I hadn’t heard in far too long, but I get it now.”

  He pulls me in for a tight hug that forces all the oxygen in my body to whoosh out. He smells like bad choices and ecstasy on a warm summer night, and I have to fight to keep from nuzzling him.

  Fucking Rings of Hell, do I have a death wish?

  He pulls back and slaps me on the shoulder a couple times while fixing me with a smile that makes my brain take way too many mental pictures of his gorgeousness. We’re talking helicopter-mom on prom night level of pictures.

  “Did you fuck a Grim?” Elle demands, fixing Tazreel with a look and gesturing toward my dormant scythe.

  “No!” Tazreel defends, as if he’s offended at the suggestion.

  “Who else carries them?” Baldy asks, like he’s wracking his brain to come up with an answer at the same time that he dusts the crumbs off the front of his shirt.

  All of their stares grow distant, like they’re thinking it through. A Where’s Waldo of demon weapons, so to speak.

  “Why were you in the Vestibule? What Ring were you coming from?” Driftwood asks suddenly.

  I clear my throat, still standing awkwardly behind the table with Lucifer at my side. When I send him a look, he nods, like he’s urging me on. “Uh, the Guardians I was with said that I needed to see what Ring I was from before they could induct me. We were trying to find out when we were attacked by Outer Ringers.”

  An ache starts in my chest, and I hate stating what happened like they’re simple facts and not things that have rocked my soul beyond recovery.

  “Guardians?” Tazreel questions angrily as he gets to his feet. “What Guardians? Why have you not mentioned them before?”

  My eyes hook onto him. “I did! I told you I answered an ad to guard a graveyard. It turns out the job was actually to guard a Hellgate. I met the Guardians, and that’s how I learned that I wasn’t human.”

  Lucifer gasps, but it sounds delighted, like this just got even more fun for him. “She hid you in the Mortal Realm? Oh, that’s sneaky,” he says, his tone sounding shocked but his eyes looking impressed. “That’s why you showed up in Tazreel’s house. It was your first trip through the Ring Portal, wasn’t it?” Lucifer’s tone makes it sound like I did something precious and adorable.

  I nod warily, a little freaked out by his turn of demeanor.

  He claps once excitedly and looks over at my sperm donor. “I put a fail-safe on the Ring Gates for lost progeny,” he explains, and understanding lights up in everyone’s faces.

  “Ah, that makes sense,” the jewelry-wearing male says.

  “What makes sense?” I ask, because I’ve been lost since the scythe somehow appeared in my hand like it was answering some silent call I put out when I thought I was about to be charbroiled.

  “Why you landed in his meditation room, of course,” he replies. “Luce’s fail-safe. If lost progeny pass through our Gate, they automatically are transported into their Sire’s home.”

  “Oh.”

  I feel a second of resignation. I guess the Savor was right—I’m definitely Tazreel’s offspring.

  Tazreel fixes Lucifer with a determined look. “What do you want for the answer? I need to know who her mother is so I can punish her for this offense. It is forbidden to keep progeny away from their Sires.”

  That scary fucking smile is back on Lucifer’s face. “The price would be too dear, brother. This is a barter you don’t want,” he warns, but his light blue eyes are full of temptation and excitement.

  Tazreel studies him for a moment, deciding how to proceed. “The lake house in Purgatory, two Hellhound pups for your newest twins, magistrate duty for the next millennium, and…” he trails off in thought.

  Lucifer shakes his head. “Three picks from your menagerie, and Cedrice for my first born son,” he throws out casually—way too casually for it to actually be casual. Lucifer manipulated this whole thing.

  Tazreel balks and looks at Lucifer, completely stunned.

  “I told you it would be dear, my friend,” Lucifer teases, though his eyes are sharp and biting.

  Tazreel looks at me and then back to the Devil, pained. I’m not sure what’s being bargained right now, but clearly it’s a big deal, and I have a feeling it’s for this Cedrice person.

  “You know I can’t force that arranged marriage, since I’m not her Sire, but I’ll encourage it. I’ll even go so far as to give it my blessing if that will suffice,” Tazreel finally relents.

  The others all watch the negotiations with rapt attention, like a pack of wolves waiting for their turn at the carcass.

  Victory shines in Lucifer’s features, and he turns to me with a calculating smile. “When you see your mother, tell her the Ophidian says hi,” he tells me on a chuckle before he turns back to Tazreel.
>
  The Ophidian.

  I don’t know what comes over me in the next second, but just as Lucifer opens his mouth to divulge the secret Tazreel is dying to hear, I lose my shit. One second, I’m watching the Devil’s lips form the Ophidian, and the next, I’m hooking my now-activated scythe blade around his neck.

  Every single one of the Abdicated snap to their feet and move toward me, but Lucifer holds his hands up to stop them. They obey without question, though their eyes stay trained on me and my blade. Lucifer turns back to me, like he doesn’t care that my blade is right against his neck.

  His body language may be casual and relaxed, but the look in his eyes screams of the suffering he’s now planning for me. I should probably shit my pants right about now, but I can’t seem to move past the rage sparking in every synapse I possess.

  “You attacked us? You’re the reason they were ripped away from me?” I ask on a growl. I try to work through what’s happening, but it’s a struggle. If he’s the Ophidian, then he’s responsible for what happened. But something about that doesn’t make sense to me. Why would he attack his own guards? Crux, Jerif, Echo and Rafferty guard his Hellgate, why would he kill them?

  “Careful, niece, you’re quickly losing your coveted spot as favorite,” he quips. “I’m going to need you to be a bit more specific so I can address your accusations before punishing you.”

  I tamp down a foreboding shiver at his words.

  “The Outer Ring demons that attacked me kept saying they were supposed to take me to the Ophidian. There were hundreds of them pouring out from the portals. We tried to fight, but there were too many,” I tell him, my vision suddenly far away as if I’m back in the Vestibule again, my voice haunted with the memory of it all. “Why would you do that?”

  I blink away the pain and crushing grief and try to focus my anger back on Lucifer. His frost-blue eyes look confused for a moment, and I can see questions flash through his cold stare.