They had left Clayton and were now traveling down a rural road that cut through dense forest on either side. His sense of direction told him they were traveling west of the town. He’d bet his best pair of bespoke loafers she had no idea all flying beings had an innate sense of direction—particularly useful when you were winging above a landscape.
The pretty hag thought him weak and overpowered because she’d slapped a trashy bauble around his neck.
Humans! He barely suppressed a snort. Arrogance and willful stupidity had long been their downfall. You would think with all the thousands of years of evolution that they’d learn a thing or two. But no. They kept tumbling headfirst toward their own destruction. As hell prince for pride, he knew all about arrogance, and it was only justified when you could back it up.
Sweet little hag should have done her research before she’d tangled with him. Or as one rare and more enlightened human had said, “Know thy enemy and know thyself; in a hundred battles, you will never be defeated.”
Of course, terms like always and never were tossed about by humans as if they had even a glimmering of understanding of either of those concepts.
The van turned right onto an overgrown driveway, bumping them along like pennies in a pocket, until they came to a stop.
Lynn turned in the driver’s seat and looked at him. “Is he all right?”
“He is fine,” Lucifer said.
Bianca jumped and stared at him.
“Oh.” Lynn blinked. “Yes, of course, you can still hear.”
“And speak, apparently.” Bianca narrowed her eyes at him.
“Don’t.” He flicked a glance at the amulet. “You don’t have to render me mute and helpless. I can’t move much more than my head and neck.”
“See.” Lynn gave Bianca a look loaded with reproach. “He won’t give us any trouble.”
Bianca stared at him as she tried to make up her mind. “You planning on giving us any trouble, or do I make you a blob?”
So much trouble, sooo much fucking trouble, haglette, but not at this moment.
“Speak not to the prince of darkness,” Weaz-adj intoned from behind him.
“Jesus!” Bianca’s head snapped around. “Would you stop speaking like a B-grade fantasy movie?”
Lucifer was with her on that one.
“Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” Lucifer thought he might add his two cents while they were tossing around the quotes.
Weaz-adj gasped and ducked behind Carmen. “He threatened me.” He pointed a shaky finger at him. “You all heard him threaten me.”
“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.
