“We drove.” He poured a couple of fingers into the glasses and approached her with one. “In your car, which I have to say I had severe reservations about at first. I’ve had to conclude, however, that it is a commendable vehicle. Very smooth ride. Good fuel consumption.”
Bianca took the glass and downed it. Peat and roasted grains seared her windpipe down to her stomach, and she coughed. “No, we didn’t.”
“How else would we get here then?” Lucifer raised a brow at her now empty glass and strolled back to the bar for the bottle. “Because I can assure you, we didn’t fly here.”
She tried to piece their day together. The hidden bunker where they’d found—
She yanked her mind away. Strip mall. Shopping. Raphael being there and then leaving. Countryside. No major highways or driving through a crowded urban area. Her voice came out more like a whisper, “I don’t understand.”
“Don’t down that.” Lucifer had replenished her glass. “A single malt like this should be savored, not shot like a cheap bar whisky.” He handed the glass to her. “And it’ll hit you hard on an empty stomach.”
A doorbell chimed, and Lucifer went to answer it.
Bianca tottered over to a large, plush sofa and dropped into the enveloping cushions. It was as comfortable as a bed, and her weary muscles unwound and cleaved to its shape.
A bellhop nodded politely as he pushed a loaded cart through another door at the far end of the suite.
Bianca waited impatiently to continue their discussion as the man finished unloading his cart and Lucifer tipped him.
“Lucifer.” She fixed him with her best no-bullshit stare. “How did we get to Toronto without me noticing?”
He smiled and sipped his drink. “Humans are notoriously unobservant.”
“I’d have to be fucking clueless.” And how dare he have such a lovely smile.
He looked infuriatingly smug as he said, “Yes, you would, wouldn’t you?”
And while they were on the topic of the impossible, she had to know. “How did you destroy that rage demon?”
“Hmm.” He sauntered over to the windows and examined the view. His new trousers cupped his firm, muscular ass and accentuated the length of his legs. His shirt clung to the taut muscles of his back. “Onyx blade.”
“But how?” She considered unwinding from the sofa and stomping over to him, but the loving embrace of the furniture persuaded her not to. “Wouldn’t you need your powers to do that?”
“Not necessarily.” He stretched his arms over his head in a distracting play of muscle beneath his shirt. “I am still a hell prince, and an onyx blade is still deadly in my hands.”
She tried to remember how it had affected Wrath when the amulet had drained his powers, but the details had been sketchy, and nobody had been volunteering information to her. “Lucifer?”
“Hmm?” He took a slow, savoring sip of scotch. No male should have lips that sensual and pillowy.
She needed to stay on topic. and her pulse pounded uncomfortably as she asked, “Have you got your powers back?”
They’d gone searching for a reason the removal of the amulet hadn’t given him his powers back. He would have told her if they were back. Wouldn’t he? His blood oath prevented him from harming her, but it seemed flimsy when confronted by a pissed off, powered up hell prince.
Turning, he stared at her with those glittering dark eyes. “Frightened, my sweet haglette?”
“No.” Her voice wobbled, and she cleared her throat. “I still have your blood oath.”
“Indeed,” he murmured. “And you’re certain that oath is binding?”
“Yes?” It came out sounding too much like a question. “Of course I am.”
His smile made her shiver. “Then you have nothing to worry about.”
No, she didn’t. “Don’t call me haglette.”
He chuckled. “What a pity you didn’t add that proviso to your blood oath.”
Lucifer studied the play of emotion across her pretty face as Bianca mentally tussled with all the input she was attempting to place into a digestible order. It was almost amusing. It would have been more amusing if he could dismiss the impact of her awful day.
Raphael had expressed his concern for her, but that was like the archangel. A soft touch and a bleeding heart. Raphael was worried about the emotional toll of seeing the dead witches on Bianca. Humans didn’t do well with death, and judging by the way Bianca had clutched the remaining active crystal since their grisly discovery, Raphael might have good cause. If he hadn’t been so furious with her for summoning him and her subsequent treatment, Lucifer might have felt the same. At times like this, it was a relief not to concern himself with the well-being of humans.
He ushered room service in and motioned them to set up their meal in the adjoining dining room. His haglette was not eating enough, and she needed to keep her strength up. She’d barely eaten the sandwich he bought her at the mall after shopping, and the dark shadows underscoring her eyes meant she had not slept sufficiently. She needed nourishment and rest, and he would see that she got them. Not because he was like Raphael, but because it would be deeply unsatisfying to wreak his revenge when she was but a shadow of herself.
“Come.” He motioned Bianca to the table. “Eat.”
“I’m not hungry.” Her huge hyacinth eyes were fixed on him with a combination of fear and fury.
He should have guessed she would refuse food. Lucifer ground his teeth. Why did humans do that? They were fragile beings. Their bodies needed care and sustenance. If infuriated him that she refused to care for herself adequately.
“Come.” He stalked closer to her. If she refused to care for herself, he would make her. There was a large bathtub in the en suite, and he’d heard women liked that sort of thing. She would eat, have a soothing soak, and then sleep. If he had to wrestle her into submission, he would.
Further argument was pointless, so he scooped her out of the sofa and carried her to the table.
Predictably, she sputtered and wriggled.
He placed her in a chair and poured her a glass of the excellent Chilean Malbec. “You will eat now.” He’d made certain to select a tempting variety of dishes for her, and he spooned small quantities of the truffle risotto and wagyu beef on her plate. “You pretended to eat your sandwich earlier.”
She opened her mouth to argue, but he silenced her with a gesture and put a fork in her hand. “I saw you give your sandwich to that homeless person.”
He selected a dish of thinly shaved zucchini in pesto, lemon, yoghurt, mint, and pine nut gremolata and added it to her plate. Vegetables were important to the human constitution.
She glared at him.
He held her stare.
“Fine.” She jabbed her fork at her plate and crammed a forkful into her mouth. Chewing, she scowled at him and swallowed. “Happy now?”
“I will be.” He tapped her plate with his fork. Then made his own selections. Perhaps he should consider a human chef for his palace when this bad business of demon rebels and whatnot was dealt with. He refused to consider the possibility that this would not end. Thinking about his palace made his throat tighten, and he forced himself to chew and swallow so that she would keep eating.
His entire horde was gone, save for one house demon. He’d warded the palace against looting, but the air of abandonment clinging to his home made him want to set off and find Ashe this minute. The empty villages and homes nagged at him. He’d been unable to protect and preserve his demesne. He drew no comfort from the fact that Shade had been similarly affected.
Lucifer’s demesne had been a labor of love to craft as he wanted it. Everything in its rightful place, and a rightful place for everything. No detail had been too small for his personal oversight, and now it all teetered on the edge of destruction.
Ashe had taken that from him, and now his hunt for Ashe was tied up with, and perhaps postponed by, discovering the lost witches. Or witch as the lone crystal would suggest.
Bianca chomped her way resentfully through everything on her plate before pushing it away. “I’m full.”
