“He’s quoting the bible,” Bianca snapped and uncoiled from her seat. “And he’s doing it to freak you out.”
Lucifer grinned at her. They both knew it was working.
Leaning closer to him, her scent fresh and floral when he’d been expecting patchouli or sage, Bianca went eye to eye with him. “Behave or it’s blob time.”
Oh, she’d pay for every threat and every indignity, but he let his glare do the talking for him.
“Whelp!” Patty flung open the van’s sliding door. “We knew he’d be pissed. And to be fair, the whole abducting and binding thing would put anyone in a cranky mood.”
“Let’s get him inside.” Bianca clambered over and out of the van. “Maybe if we get him more comfortable and feed him, he’ll be in a better frame of mind to hear us out.”
Lucifer wouldn’t bet on that if he were them.
An unpleasant tingling started in his extremities as they manhandled him and his chair out of the van and up three wooden steps onto the porch of a log cabin.
Towering maple trees almost blocked out the night sky around them and stretched their leafy fingers over the fat, yellow disc of a full moon.
Ah, yes! How naive of him. The old full moon and witches symbiosis. A pairing as sublime as chocolate and chili or wine and cheese. It also told him his unfortunate haglette was now at the apex of her powers. It was all downhill from here, Bianca baby.
The cabin door creaked open on a rush of pine scented air mixed with traces of lavender and the tangy woodiness of dragon’s blood incense.
Bianca went ahead, switching on lights.
A juddering push over the door lip, and he was inside.
“Sorry,” Lynn whispered beside his ear.
The inside of the cabin was homey with old-fashioned kitchen cabinets painted cheery blue and yellow. A large wooden kitchen table held a chipped jug of wildflowers, and beyond that, a sofa and two armchairs snuggled up to the stone fireplace.
Patty dropped a capacious bag on the kitchen table with a thump. “If he needs the bathroom, I volunteer to take him.”
“Patty.” Lynn groaned. “You can’t say things like that. You shouldn’t even be thinking them.”
Bianca giggled and turned a mischievous grin on Patty. “Caught that too, did you?”
“Hard to miss.” Patty chuckled. “I’m old, not dead.”
Now they were objectifying him? Granted, he was well endowed, but this was too much. He revised his opinion of Patty. No way that crone was coming near the family jewels.
Weaz-adj huffed and went pink. “You are both disgusting.”
“We were joking.” Bianca drew a careful breath, and he could hear the eye roll in her voice. “He’s not that special.”
Yes, he fucking was. Especially if Weaz-adj was her point of comparison.
A shadow fell over him as Carmen leaned over him. She shared Bianca’s dark hair and blue eyes, but her features were softer and prettier. Where Bianca’s eyes were so deep blue they were purple, Carmen’s were more sapphire. Carmen’s frame was fuller too and didn’t exude the nervous energy, of who he presumed, was her older sister.
“Let’s get him more comfortable.” Bianca joined her sister in peering down at him.
“Now,” Weaz-adj thundered like a televangelist. “We shall attempt to reason with it.”
Murderous intent flashed through Bianca’s eyes before she schooled her expression into something more neutral. “He’s not an it,” she said. “And we’re not going to get anywhere with him if you continue to call him an it.”
“Bianca.” Weaz-adj shook his head. “I can see you have fallen beneath the beast’s spell. He is the great deceiver. Satan.”
Lucifer.
“Beelzebub.”
Lucifer.
“Belial.”
Lucifer.
“Asmodeus.”
“Lucifer,” Bianca yelled. “We’ve been over this and over this.” She counted her points on her fingers. “Asmodeus is lust. Satan is wrath. I don’t know who the fuck Belial is, but this is Lucifer, and he’s Pride.”
Belial had been a high order demon who got above himself and who Wrath had ended a few centuries back. Messy business, best forgotten.
Weaz-adj squinted at her. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.” Bianca bent down to Lucifer’s eye level. “I’m going to release the bind on you so you can move your arms, but if you try anything, I’ll snap you back to blob, and you’ll stay that way until I decide to release you. Understood?”
Doing his best to appear nonthreatening, he nodded. “Blob. I understand.”
She should have listened to Weaz-adj—and he couldn’t believe he’d entertained a thought that ludicrous—because he was the great deceiver and bind or not, the unpleasant tingling in his extremities had become definite signs of life in his limbs.
Bianca touched the pendant and feeling flooded into his arms.
He flexed his fingers and rolled his wrists, keeping his feet very still. Looking around the room, he said, “I believe someone was going to explain.”
Everyone but Bianca leapt back and out of his firing line.
Swallowing, Bianca squared her shoulders. “We owe you that much.”
And a whole hell of a lot more, but they’d get to that. Oh sweet hell, they’d get to that.
“As coven leader, I nominate Bianca to brief the prisoner,” Weaz-adj said from the far side of the kitchen table.
Bianca squeezed her eyes shut like she was in pain before looking at him. “Are you hungry? Thirsty?”
“No.” Not unless you counted thirsty for his revenge and starving to have her at his mercy. “And I would like out of this infernal contraption.”
“You’re fine there.” Bianca folded her arms and stuck her chin out. Ready to do battle.
He kind of admired that. Not enough to defer his retribution, but she had guts.
