He pulled back, his gaze meeting hers, asking her permission.
She wanted him to kiss her. Wanted it probably more than she’d ever wanted a kiss. And that terrified her. With Christen, it had been a mistake fueled by her need to be loved and desired. With Lucifer, it would be an epic disaster if she got it wrong again. And she always got it wrong.
“And there it is.” His eyes cooled, and he straightened. “All that fear.”
She couldn’t verbalize any of what she was feeling, but she tried. “It’s not that I don’t want…it’s all too much.”
If she hadn’t known better, she would have sworn hurt flit across his expression. But this was Lucifer—beautiful, powerful, impenetrable. She couldn’t hurt him.
“You can stop lurking now, Raphael.” Lucifer’s gaze never left hers. “Bianca and I are done.”
Lucifer wouldn’t recommend the tight, uncomfortable feeling in his chest to anyone, not even Wrath, as he walked away from Bianca. It felt a lot like the sensation he got around Wrath when his brother let it show how much he despised him.
Wrath constantly judged him and found him wanting—criticized him, misjudged him. Wrath could never give him the benefit of the doubt. When Eddie had been kidnapped, Lucifer had known Wrath would blame him. However, some idiotic part of him had hoped his brother would hear him out before jumping to conclusions.
Only Raphael had been prepared to ask before condemning him.
The tightness in his chest felt like an axe in the breastbone. He had wanted that understanding from his brother first, and then from his fellow hell princes.
They all jeered at him for his arrogance and presumption. He hadn’t so much styled himself king of hell as allowed humans to believe as much. Yet, the other hell princes never missed an opportunity to challenge him about it.
He took the stairs to the basement at a run. Being on the earth plane had diluted his purpose. Before he’d been summoned, he’d been searching for Ashe. He had allowed himself to be distracted by a beautiful haglette with the soul of a warrior.
No more.
He needed to continue his hunt for Ashe. Their blood oath was null and void. He had his powers back. The contract between him and Bianca was over.
The ache in his chest throbbed.
If Bianca felt incapable of making a decision about them, he would spare her the trouble. He was Lucifer, hell prince of pride, not some drooling human, groveling at her pretty feet and waiting for her to bestow scraps of her affection on him.
He didn’t need her. Didn’t need any of them. If they couldn’t appreciate him, they didn’t deserve him.
Emerging through the hell gate into Shade’s demesne, he summoned his chariot. Warm, humid air wrapped around him, and he quested for demon sign.
The demesne felt abandoned, which pissed him off even more. The ingratitude of demons made him want to rip them all apart. Starting with Ashe.
Ashe had been his right hand, his trusted advisor and confidant. He had been the brother Wrath had refused to be.
Like with Bianca, Lucifer had opened his heart to Ashe, only to have his generosity hurled back at him. He didn’t need any of them. He was pride.
Bianca sat at the kitchen table with the grimoire open in front of her. The ancient tome hummed with comforting, familiar magic. The magic of her coven. The magic she had grown up with and learned to wield.
“If you bind my magic, I won’t feel it?” Emma peered at her across the table.
“It will still be there.” Bianca had refused to do the binding spell without consulting Emma first. Being a child didn’t mean Emma had no say in what happened to her or her magic. “It’ll be like if we lock it away in a box until it’s safe to use again.”
“Is that what Mom did? Why I couldn’t feel it before?”
Emma was a smart girl. Bianca nodded.
Frowning, Emma chewed on her bottom lip. “But then I won’t feel the people who need me.”
Raphael glanced at Bianca. He had not been happy about Bianca wanting to give Emma a choice.
“No, you won’t.” As much as Bianca didn’t want to scare Emma even more, Lucifer had been right about children deserving not to be lied to. “But it also means the people who want your magic won’t be able to find you.”
“The people who took Mom?” Emma’s gaze was disconcertingly direct.
Bianca kept with the truth. “Yes.”
“Lucifer said he would find my mom.” Emma glanced around the kitchen. “He said you would both find her.”
Bianca put Leona’s crystal on the table. “We are using this to track her. We had to find the grimoire to see if it had a stronger tracking spell.”
“Does it?” Emma touched her finger to the crystal.
“It does.” Bianca had asked Rafael to lend his power to the spell, but it should work. They would get to Leona before that crystal went dark.
Emma nodded and frowned. “Where is Lucifer?”
“I don’t know.” Bianca hadn’t seen him since their conversation in the corridor. It had felt like a fight, but the politest one she’d ever had.
“Lucifer is back in hell,” Raphael said.
That was news to her, and Bianca gaped at him. “He is?”
“Yep.” Raphael’s look was loaded before he turned back to Emma. “Binding your powers is the best way to keep you safe.”
Emma scowled. “Lucifer promised me he would find my mother.”
“If he promised to find her, then he’ll find her,” Raphael said. “But I know he’d want you to be safe while he did.”
The blatant attempt at manipulation made Bianca want to smack him. She wanted Emma to agree without being maneuvered into it. “The decision is still yours,” she said to Emma. Then tossed Raphael a quick stink eye.
“Will it hurt?” Emma swallowed.
“No.” Bianca took her hand, so small and vulnerable in hers. “But it will feel weird.” She tapped her chest. “In here where you can feel your magic.”
Emma touched her own chest. “And those things won’t come and try to take me and Ethan?”
“It will be a lot harder to find you,” Raphael said. “But you will still have Bianca, Shade, Eddie, Daniel, and Dee here with you to protect you. Lucifer, Wrath, me, and Ramiel can be here in a heartbeat.”
“Lucifer?” His name was the only one that registered with Emma.
