“Ugh.” Ava wrinkled her nose. “You don’t need to tell me about that one. He’s my counterbalance, and somehow in his tiny little brain that translates to my superior.”

“I can believe that.” Haziel had seen the way Michael flexed in front of Ava. “And Cassiel will lecture anyone who stands still too long.” Haziel dared dipping a toe in territory she had never gone before. “Raphael never bothers to explain but goes ahead and does whatever he thinks is best.”

Ava cocked her head. “And Ramiel?”

Conflicted feelings writhed inside her. She didn’t want to be disloyal to her archangel, but he had sent her to follow Wrath and set in motion this entire situation. “Ramiel can be a bit hard-headed and uncompromising. He tends to think he always knows better.”

“Right.” Ava thumped the table. “I mean, what does he mean by sending you after Wrath? He’s the one who should be shadowing Wrath. You can bet Wrath wouldn’t have managed to slip away from him, what with the way they can sense each other, and Ramiel would have been able to track him.” She growled. “Instead, he sends you down here, and honestly, anything could happen to you in hell.” She filled Haziel’s coffee cup. “I mean, you’re with me, so you’re perfectly safe, but he didn’t know that.”

Haziel felt uncomfortable with Ava’s criticism and even more so because she couldn’t outright deny the truth of what the hell prince was saying. “He probably didn’t consider the danger to me. He finds me very valuable and wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to me.”

“I’m sure he does.” Ava gave her an admiring glance. “But that doesn’t give him the right to toss you to the hell princes like a piece of prime rib.”

Righteous indignation burned away any lingering feeling of disloyalty. “No, it doesn’t. And I’m not a piece of meat.”

“We have to stand together.” Ava leaned forward and tapped the table with her forefinger. “We female supernaturals. Hell princes, archangels, even those guardians. We females need to stand together and remind the penis contingent that we are as powerful, and as important.”

“Yes, we do.” Haziel clinked her coffee cup against Ava’s. “Screw the patriarchy.”

“Screw it.” Ava clapped. Her expression grew crafty as she leaned closer. “And now, girlfriend, let’s fuck with them. Starting with…oh, I don’t know…Wrath.”

Chapter Twelve

The niggling feeling sat in Wrath’s chest like annoying vermin as he winged across the border into his brother’s demesne. His full power had returned in the small hours of the morning, and with it, his ability to fly. There was nothing keeping him cooling his heels while Ava toyed with him. Haziel could stay and get any useful information from her.

He’d done the right thing, he assured the voice trying to tell him otherwise. Haziel was safer with Ava while he tracked down Lucifer. And he was going back for her as soon as he found Lucifer.

Lucifer’s horde resembled their master; impossible to deal with and full of arrogance and bravado. Lucifer’s demesne was no place for a sweet, trusting soul like Haziel. Lucifer’s horde would feed on her soul first and ask questions later. He would be far more effective and quicker if he wasn’t worried about protecting her all the time. No, he’d done the right thing.

He wasn’t feeling guilty. Not even the tiniest of jots. Nope, he wasn’t. His feelings were more like residual concern that Ava would take out her anger with him on Haziel.

“No, she won’t,” he spoke out loud. Ava may want to have him strung up by the scrotum, but she wouldn’t hurt Haziel. If he knew Ava, she would merely show Haziel to the nearest hell gate in her demesne and send her back to earth, safe and sound, and probably well fed and watered. Ava had an excellent chef.

After the delightful jumble of Ava’s demesne, Lucifer’s looked even more constipated than it normally did. His twin had poured every ounce of his conceited self-importance into his area of hell. Even the fucking trees grew to precise heights and bordered roads that Wrath could put a tape measure to and they wouldn’t deviate by as much as a fart. The whole place made him itch to fuck shit up. He took childish delight in letting his wings blow dirt onto the pristine paving of the road he flew above.

As far as plans went, his was simple. He was going to march right into the heart of this uptight, asshole squeak of a place and demand entry to the palace. Of course Lucifer had a palace. And one full of reflecting surfaces to remind the thunder cunt of his cum-filled sweaty sock of a face.

That was another reason he’d done the right thing in leaving Haziel behind. She really wouldn’t like his language, and he’d have to tame it down in front of her. She could probably read his foul thoughts from his face. Plus, he was heading straight into—and with no small delight—a fight with Lucifer.

A bird sang a precise rising crescendo of notes from the forest.

He’d been flying for most of the day when it occurred to him that he should have seen at least one demon on the road. When nobody had challenged him at the border, he’d assumed he’d slipped through undetected, but in light of the unnatural nothing, his mind churned. Yesterday he’d told Haziel the border would be warded, yet he’d felt no confirming tingle as he crossed. As far as he knew, the road beneath him was the major thoroughfare to the palace, and Lucifer’s sycophantic minions should have been on their way to worship at the crusty feet of their leprous master.

He entered an immaculate settlement of thatched, whitewashed cottages. Flowers bloomed in the precise order of the color spectrum in the angular garden beds in front of each cottage. He bet there were precise regulations to height and type of bloom as well.

The silence was so complete it made his nape prickle. No smoke drifted from the chimneys either, and even the tavern door was shut with no sound coming from inside the yellow mullioned windows. The place was deserted.

It was the same in the next three settlements he passed, and it creeped him out.

His senses were on high alert as he approached the palace.

Lucifer’s pennant snapped smartly and perfectly from the top of all twelve towers in a breeze that was neither too strong nor too weak.

Wrath had seen human storybooks, and the palace reminded him of something from a human fairytale in its gleaming white perfection.

Finally, a sign of life as he stepped up to the guardhouse.

A sentry in a smart black and white uniform stepped onto the road leading into the castle and stopped him.

Wrath’s power crackled and spat beneath his skin, and he kept his wings unleashed.

The sentry eyed his wings nervously and said, “The master is not within.”

“And I’m supposed to take your word for that?” Wrath let his stare linger on the demon.

Sweat broke out on the sentry’s top lip. “The master left a message for you.”

That shook Wrath out of his purpose momentarily. “For me?” And then rage surged through him. Lucifer had known he was coming. It was further proof that his brother had Eddie.

Wrenching the sentry aside, Wrath strode into the castle. He didn’t want to end the demon, but if the fucktard followed him, Wrath wouldn’t hesitate to let him know he wasn’t going to be turned aside.

The great doors slammed against the wall when he threw them open. His boots resounded against the pale marble floors.

“Wrath.” A demoness in a starched and pressed white gown glided down the stairs toward him. With her long, dark hair and flawless bone structure, she was beautiful in the way Lucifer insisted all his household demons be. She stopped in front of him and inclined her head politely. “The master is not here. He warned us that you would not believe the sentry and would enter anyway.”

Her calm composure took the edge off his rising anger. “I’m looking for my daughter.”

“I understand.” She folded her long, elegant hands in front of her. “The master said you would be. He also said to tell you she is not here.” She motioned the palace with a graceful sweep of her arm. “You are, of course, welcome to search without challenge.”

Like he was going to take her word for it. Search, Wrath did, every inch of the place, and taking savage delight in leaving destruction behind him. He was looking for any clue to where Lucifer might be, or where he’d taken Eddie. It took him late into the night to finally admit the palace was clean of any trace of Lucifer or Eddie, or any hint of where they might be now. There was also no glimmer of Lucifer’s energy signature that was more recent than a week.

He took one of Lucifer’s chariots, again without opposition from the palace staff, and used it to search Lucifer’s demesne. Passing time pressed at him, but he didn’t trust anything where Lucifer was concerned. His brother was tricky and smart, and just because Wrath couldn’t sense the fucker, didn’t mean he wasn’t hiding somewhere. Finally, days longer than he would have liked, he had to admit defeat and turned the chariot back to Shade’s hell gate.

A week after he’d left Haziel with Ava, he was spat out into the basement of the Paradise Theatre, more pissed off than ever and thoroughly frustrated. He half expected Haziel to be waiting for him. Instead, Daniel appeared at the door moments after Wrath’s arrival. “Did you find Eddie?”

“No.” Failure made Wrath grind his teeth. His search had taken too long, and he’d returned here, hoping that Shade had found her while he’d been gone. Time they didn’t have, and Eddie didn’t have, was ticking by while Lucifer led the dance. “And I didn’t find any trace of Lucifer either.”

Daniel nodded his understanding and led the way out of the basement of the theatre. “Shade is not back yet.”

“Have you heard from him?”

Daniel nodded. “He checks in daily. The hounds picked up a trace of her a few days ago, and he’s following.” Daniel’s expression gentled. “But they haven’t found her yet.”

Worry whipped his simmering anger into rage. He pressed the agonizing possibilities of what was being done to his daughter into a mind box. “Is Haziel here?”

“No.” Daniel stopped and looked at him. “Isn’t she with you?”