Hell's Redemption- The Complete Series Boxset

by Grace McGinty

  Eli walked through the side entrance to the arena, stopping to talk to the security guard.

  “Sorry. My surgery went longer than expected.” He leaned in and kissed me, despite me still being in Lux's arms. The security guy’s eyebrows rose, but then he politely looked somewhere else.

  “Ready?” He asked Lux.

  “Yeah. I feel better leaving her now you're here and I don't have to leave her with the three horny amigos.”

  Tolliver flipped him off with both hands.

  I laughed and kissed him again. “Break a leg. Hang on, don't do that! How do you wish a fighter good luck?”

  Lux chuckled. “You kiss him and say good luck.”

  I gave him another hard kiss, my tongue dancing with his. “Good luck.”

  He slid me down his body slowly, and I felt every bunched muscle on the way down. Delicious. I wondered if I could talk him into victory sex later.

  He strode through swinging doors that indicated the locker rooms, and he gave me one last finger wave goodbye.

  Eli took my hand in his. Happiness spread through me. I'd missed Eli. He led me to a VIP area with the best view of the octagon, the other three guys at my back like my own personal bodyguards. Well, until someone pinched my ass. I threw them a stern look and Oz waggled his eyebrows.

  The chairs were plush and reclined. Ah, how the rich lived. Tolliver went and spoke to the promoter, a guy who basically oozed new money, and pretty much lived up to every sleazy stereotype of a promoter I had. Sam handed me a glass of champagne.

  “To us. To the long life we will all have together,” he said as a toast. I bit the inside of my cheek. They were being positive, but the power of positivity wouldn't be enough this time.

  “To us,” I murmured as I sat between Oz and Eli on the couch overlooking the octagon.

  There were thousands of people in the arena, screaming for blood. The pair of fighters in the ring pummeled each other, one getting the other to the ground and wrenching his arm back in a hold that looked as if it was about to pop the shoulder out of the socket. I grimaced. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all. The guy tapped the mat, and the ref jumped in, holding them apart as the siren sounded

  The referee held the winner’s arm in the air, and the crowd cheered. I downed my champagne in one gulp. I was going to need a few more of those before Lux came on.

  Tolliver came over and pulled up a chair to sit beside us.

  “How much does Lux earn a fight?” Surely getting pummeled like that was hardly worth a couple of thousand dollars.

  “About 900k per fight.”

  My mouth literally snapped open. “No way?”

  “He’s a drawcard fighter. People come to watch him. He gets a cut of the pay-per-view as well. He's actually quite a bargain. Some of the other big names get well into the millions, but Lux doesn't like the publicity that comes with those kinds of fights. He hates all the interviews and the show-ponying.”

  I could imagine my softly spoken warrior would hate being the focus of attention. Sam grabbed another tray of champagne from the roaming waitress.

  “Lux doesn't fight for another hour. May as well enjoy the luxury.”

  He must have meant the free champagne, because it wasn't as if we lived in a cardboard box under a bridge. I sipped at my bubbles and sat silently as the guys talked. We’d been going from one drama to the next; I rarely got time just to appreciate them being themselves. Eli was smiling as he told us of a case that came into the ER of a guy who had accidentally shot a nail gun at a steel beam and the nail had ricocheted into his temple. The guy drove himself to hospital, and walked up to the triage smiling.

  By the time Lux’s fight was announced, I'd become a little more desensitized to the violence in the octagon. The sounds of fists hitting hard flesh, and the bright red streaks of blood that didn’t seem to bother the fighters and only stirred up the crowd, none of that made my stomach turn anymore.

  But it was probably going to be different with Lux.

  “I wonder how he’ll fight with Cady here,” Eli asked Sam, and I tilted my head towards them.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, he was Wrath. Before you, he was a different kind of guy. I mean, he still had a good nature, but he was angrier, more brutal, and even more bloodthirsty in the ring. But since you’ve been on the scene, he’s basically a six and a half foot pussy cat,” Sam explained as music blared and Lux walked up to cage.

  He was something to behold. He wore black shorts that skimmed his mid thighs, and some kind of compression tights underneath those. Every inch of his scarred skin, each hard cut muscle shone beneath the lights of the arena. His hands were wrapped in bright red wrappings, and a red mouthguard cradled his smile.

  He entered the cage as they announced his name and stats, and then he looked up at the VIP area, finding me despite the crowds and the lights.

  He placed his gloved hand over his heart, his eyes never leaving my face. I pressed two fingers to my lips and blew him a kiss. He winked and faced the ring where his opponent was entering. The guy he was fighting was slightly shorter but only by an inch or two, as fair as Lux was dark. He wore golden shorts, and white gloves. His reddish blonde hair shone. But he had a face that looked like it had taken one too many hits over the years. He looked like the fightin’ Irish and I dubbed him that in my mind. Lux’s opponent bounced around on his toes like a jackrabbit, where Lux moved with an easy grace of a man used to fighting under armor. He held himself as if gravity had no hold on him.

  The siren buzzed and they started, bouncing around each other and sizing one another up. Then Irish moved in with frighteningly fast speed, getting a good punch into Lux’s cheek. I winced, but Lux hardly moved. While Irish was getting his footing back after the punch, Lux’s leg whipped out and cracked across the guys thigh, and Irish turned a little too late to avoid the blow completely. His leg buckled, and with a speed that was almost too fast for my eyes to follow, he was on the ground and Lux had his arm in a hold so tight I was worried not about dislocation, but that his arm would literally tear right off. Irish wiggled and squirmed, trying to get his arms up under Lux’s to break the hold, but it was no use. But I had to hand it to the guy.

  The referee tapped him, and they moved back to opposite sides of the cage.

  “Huh. Normally he plays with them more,” Tolliver said to no one in particular. If this was playing fair, I would have hated to see Lux at his brutal best.

  Irish got a couple of good kicks in, making Lux dance away but not enough to take him to the ground. Lux punched the guy in the face once, before he could get his hands up, then punched him one-two in the ribs, backing him into the side of the octagon before laying the punches in hard until the referee broke them up again.

  They came back out into the centre, and Irish attacked again, aiming kicks at Lux’s ribs, trying to get him on the ground, but Lux punched and got him hard on the cheek.

  His head snapped back with sickening speed, and the guy went down to the mats, out before he even hit the blue vinyl.

  I closed my eyes, and Eli held my hands. “Is the other guy alright?” I asked.

  Eli was silent for a bit. “The medics are in there. His eyes are open. Yeah, he’s up. He should be fine. The medics will check him out and send him for treatment if he needs it. You can open your eyes now; your boy is looking for you.”

  I opened my eyes and found Lux’s intent gaze honed in one me. I gave him a shaky smile and clapped. He bowed his head as the referee held up his arm and declared him the winner, the crowd chanting his name like he was a gladiator of old.

  “We can go and see him in the change rooms if you like?” Tolliver said, and I nodded.

  “Okay, but I want to go to the ladies room first.”

  Oz put down his beer. “I’ll take you.”

  I screwed up my nose. “I can pee by myself.”

  Oz laughed. “I know that. But if anything happens to you and we weren't at least close by, I’d
be eating out of a straw for a year. I’ll just stand outside the door.” He guided me through the crowd, one hand on my lower back.”

  The ladies room was empty, yay for the VIP section, and I did my business in record time. I stood in front of the mirror, and assessed my appearance. The bags under my eyes were a little darker, my skin a little duller. It might have been the fluorescent lighting, but I didn't think so. I wasn’t at walking corpse stage yet, but it wouldn't be long. I fingered my short hair. That would be gone again soon.

  A man appeared in the mirror behind me. I looked again. Not a man. An angel.

  Ace hissed. Azriel.

  I gaped. As in, the Azriel who parted her immortal soul from her body? I spun around and backed up against the sinks. I needed Oz.

  I opened my mouth to shout, but the angel grabbed my face and then I was rushing through time and space to somewhere else.

  Central Park. I recognized the statues.

  I leaned over to the left and puked onto the grass.

  “Apologies. I needed to talk to you.”

  “And kidnapping me was your answer?” I said between dry heaves. It felt like the worst hangover I’d ever had.

  What do you want Azriel? Ace growled. But beneath the boiling anger, I can sense her hurt. The festering wound of her betrayal.

  “I will speak out loud. I do not want to cause more distress to your host.” His voice was perfectly modulated. It was a nothing voice. Neither too low, nor too high. It was completely without character.

  “I'm with Ace on this; what do you want?” I frantically willed my stomach to stop somersaulting.

  “Merely to talk. To fill you in on some carefully omitted facts. For better or worse, Lucifer has set you up as the queen in his game of chess with the Father, and I believe the queen should be able to see all the pieces on the board.”

  “I'm really getting tired of the chess analogies. You are talking about living human beings here. And their immortal souls.”

  “Hardly living beings, are they? Your sinners?”

  Jesus, Azriel, you didn’t get any less verbose in the last two thousand years.

  “So eager for me to spill your secret, Acerezeal? So be it.”

  I could feel Ace’s sudden apprehension.

  I frowned. “What secret?”

  Arcadia… Ace sounded cagey.

  What secret? I asked her.

  “It’s Acerezeal’s soul in your body that is making you sick. Her immortal soul inside you is literally killing you, like a parasite feeding off its host. A body was not made to house two souls. What Lucifer has done is an abomination, and nature, in all His glory, is trying to right the wrong by killing off the anomaly.”

  I blinked, my mind suddenly filling with white noise as I struggled to grasp what he was saying. “But I have lymphoma?”

  “Your body is attacking itself, because it can’t find the foreign body that is feeding off you. The rapidly enlarging hole in your heart is because it is working twice as hard to sustain you both, even though you possess only one body.”

  Ace? Did you know?

  There was a long silence. I suspected after the doctors said that your cancer had come back. I didn’t think it could be a coincidence.

  “I am here to save you, Arcadia. I can remove the parasite from your body, and you will begin to heal almost immediately. However, if you do not, I am afraid you will not last the year.”

  I slumped to the ground. My mind was just empty. Ace had saved me so many times over the years. I couldn’t just abandon her. Let her soul be ripped from a body again. Her scream as she remembered that moment still haunted my dreams sometimes.

  But keeping her was an inevitable death sentence. I would die, and any chance of the guys being redeemed would probably die with me. At the very least, I would break their hearts.

  But at least they would move on. Ace would be gone forever, from the very fabric of existence.

  I couldn't let that happen. Ace deserved to be saved as much as the guys did. I couldn't let Azriel have her.

  “No. I believe that I can redeem the guys in enough time that Luc will win the bet and Ace will get her body back. You don’t sell out the ones you love when times get tough. Ace has been with me through the toughest times, and I won’t abandon her out now.”

  Arcadia…

  Why did Ace keep saying my name like that?

  The Angel grinned, and it was disorientating. He was so beautiful, but his face was almost cruel in its perfection. His huge white wings sat high on his shoulders, the snowy feathers a whisper from the ground.

  “Humans. Sometimes I can understand why Acerezeal fell, though it was mostly Lucifer’s doing. But you are so pure in your love. It's breathtaking in its innocence.” He was still smiling. “It is commendable that you would sacrifice your life for the Fallen Acerezeal. But are you willing to sacrifice the life of your unborn child?”

  My world shrunk. Blood rushed in my ears. I ceased to breathe even as my heart thundered in my chest. “What?”

  “The child that grows now in your womb. You cannot sustain both. Is Acerezeal’s life worth that of your child?”

  Part III

  Chapter Twenty-One

  I couldn't breathe. Black spots danced in my vision as my heart beat in a discordant rhythm. I was going to pass out. Or vomit. Or both.

  Call for Lucifer, Ace yelled in my head. She seemed really far away. I ignored her. Lucifer! Her yelling wasn't helping the encroaching darkness.

  “Well?” Azriel asked, stepping closer. I scrambled away out of instinct. I didn't want the angel to touch me.

  I was pregnant. Ace was killing me. Those two thoughts just went around and around in my head.

  “I can help, Arcadia. Ace would understand. All I need to do is touch you.” He reached out a hand. His long, beautifully sculpted fingers snapped me out of my shock. I didn't know what I was going to do, or even what I was thinking, but I knew one thing for certain; I didn't want anything to happen right now.

  “LUCIFER!” I yelled with every ounce of will I could muster. The danger of calling for the Devil wasn't lost on me, but the only people I could trust were across town and couldn’t just teleport themselves around like angels and devils.

  Luc appeared in the time between one frantic beat of my heart and the next.

  “Azriel. It's been a long time.” He positioned himself between the angel and I, and I instantly felt better. That was all kinds of messed up, but right now I was all kinds of messed up. There was nothing okay about this situation.

  Today, Lucifer had wings. The shone like polished onyx in the sun, soft and smooth, and a discombobulated part of my mind wondered what they felt like. Could I touch them? Where had he put them all those other times he'd come to visit? He spread them wide, hiding me from Azriel’s view.

  “Lucifer Morningstar. Did you think you could hide her from him, that He would not know?”

  “She needed a chance to live.”

  “Arcadia or your precious Acerezeal?” Azriel almost sneered.

  “Both.”

  Luc knew. He knew that placing Ace in my body would slowly kill me. If I was expecting guilt, I would be disappointed; expecting guilt from Lucifer was useless.

  “You stole her from me once, Azriel, I will not let you do so again.” Luc lost the pleasant edge to his voice, and almost growled.

  “She will die with your Redeemer, anyway. The seed of life sits in Arcadia’s womb. It will accelerate the only gift you really have to give, Lucifer Morningstar. Death.”

  Lucifer laughed. “Oh Azriel. The Angel of Death, lecturing me? You always did have a great sense of humor, even if you are oblivious. You have not spent enough time amongst these children of the Father. You do not understand their medicine or their hearts. I believe that Arcadia will redeem the Sins. She will restore Ace to her body and she will hold that child in her arms. The fact she carries that life at all means she has already redeemed one of them. Maybe she will even name the baby Luc.”<
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  Un-fucking-likely. Azriel tsked at my mental bad language, and I did something that the old Arcadia would never have contemplated doing. I flipped him off. The angel Azriel. A messenger of God, even if he was rude and creepy as hell.

  “It is always a pleasure seeing you, Azriel. Every time we meet, I see just how close you are to falling yourself. Soon, you will be in my domain, old friend.” The promise of pain tripped silently off his tongue.

  “Unlikely, Lucifer. Arcadia, call me when you are ready to save your child.”

  Luc turned quickly, wrapping me in his arms and his wings, and the whirling motion sickness returned.

  He materialized us back in my apartment, in the bathroom, and I promptly leaned over the toilet bowl and dry heaved as my body succumbed to the worse form of vertigo imaginable. I wiped my face on my sleeve. Luc stared down at me patiently.

  “You knew all along.”

  Lucifer nodded. “Yes. But you are strong, body and soul. I knew you could survive sharing your mortal body with Acerezeal.”

  “And the baby? Did you know about that too?”

  This time he grimaced. “No. That was a surprise from the other side of this chess match. For what it is worth, I am sorry.”

  And you? Are you sorry too? I trusted you above anyone else. I trusted you more than I trusted myself. And you betrayed me, I couldn’t keep the accusation, or the hurt, from my voice.

  I’m sorry. Ace's voice cracked a little. I truly wasn’t sure until Friday either.

  But you've suspected since you got your memories back and you said nothing. Nothing, I hissed.

  I wanted to slam out of the room, away from them both, but you can’t escape yourself. I heaved a few more times and Luc made a bottle of sparkling water appear in his hand.

  “Drink this. It will help.”

  I took it from him, scowling, but desperate to settle the churning in my stomach.

  I pushed to my knees, and then to my feet. I had to call the guys. They would be frantic.