Oh, he was definitely mad. “Take. It. Off.”
“Should we knock him out?” Christen peered over Carmen’s shoulder.
If Christen thought that, he was welcome to step right up and give it a go.
Lucifer’s head snapped Christen’s way, and Christen ducked out of sight behind Carmen.
“I’m sure that won’t be necessary.” Bianca was amazed that her voice didn’t shake. Somebody needed to take control. Her money would have been on Patty as their most senior coven member. Patty, however, was still locked in an ass thrall while simultaneously trying to peer past Lucifer’s hip for a full-frontal view.
As the one standing directly in front of him, Bianca commanded her eyeballs not to drop south. Anymore. “We need your help.” Her voice wobbled, and she cleared her throat to steady it. Those eyes of his were extremely intimidating. “We summoned you because we need your help.”
Lucifer glowered. “And you thought a forced summoning, followed by whatever this is—” he flicked his long, elegant fingers over the amulet “—would persuade me to help you?”
It was a fair question. “Would you have agreed to help us if we’d asked?”
Lucifer scoffed.
And there was her answer. As she hunted for a compelling case for him to help them, her gaze made a break for it and landed on his navel. She toed the track pants she’d brought with her closer to him. “Here. You might want to put these on.”
“How kind,” he drawled, gaze barely flitting over her offering before returning to her. He stilled and then looked down. A look of unmitigated distaste tightened his features and he shuddered. “Are those track pants?”
“We weren’t sure of your size,” Bianca said. They should have brought jeans instead. She’d told the others as much, but Patty had been immovably pigheaded about the light gray sweatpants. The woman spent far too much time on TikTok.
Lynn edged closer to Lucifer with a timid smile. “They’re new. We bought them especially for you.”
Lucifer didn’t seem impressed—which, given the circumstances didn’t seem entirely unreasonable.
Shrinking back, Lynn dropped her smile, and she looked like she might burst into tears.
“Mine wouldn’t fit you.” Christen puffed up his chest and flicked a lock of hair out of his eyes.
Nope, Christen’s would definitely not have fit.
“Enough!” Lucifer’s voice rang through the small room. “Release me and do it now.”
“This is not going well.” Lynn sniffed and dug a Kleenex from out of her sleeve.
Patty grinned at him. “You don’t have to wear the pants if you don’t want to.”
Lucifer moved.
Iron fingers fastened around Bianca’s throat as he yanked her closer to him. “I am not going to tell you again, hag.”
Hag? Hag! Her sympathy vanished. “I really didn’t want to do this.” She forced the words past his constricting grip.
His voice dropped to threatening bass rasp as his hold forced her to her tiptoes. “Do what?”
Bianca shoved her magic at the amulet.
The crystal deepened to burgundy, and Lucifer crumpled at her feet.
“Oh shit.” Christen shook his head. “Now you’ve done it, Bianca.”
Chapter Three
Lucifer’s mind remained aware as his traitorous fucking body crumpled like a used tissue to the floor. Dim but still functioning pain receptors warned him that muscle and bone versus concrete was going to leave a mark. He didn’t give a fuck. Fury pounded through every cell of his corporeal form. He was Lucifer. Pride. All who crossed him would tremble before his fury.
On the plus side, it seems he had found the witch they’d all been wondering about. Dee’s suspicions about Bianca had proven to be correct. The witch would not live long enough to prove Dee right to her face. When he got this gaudy jewel off, there would be no stopping his retribution.
“Bee!” The brunette who looked enough like his summoning hag to be family, and who was still playing body shield to the whimpering boy, shrieked, “What did you do?”
He’d like to hear the answer to that as well.
Bianca, the hag, stared at her. “He was strangling me.”
“You should have used Krav Maga.” The cowering shit edged to the side of his human shield. “If you’d come to lessons with me when I asked you to, you wouldn’t have had to do that to him.”
Bianca stared at him. “He. Was. Strangling. Me.”
Lucifer had been considering strangling her all the way to death, so her fear was not unfounded.
“Krav Maga.” Weasel shook his head.
He would like to see his hag turn her nasty streak on the floppy-haired fuckwit.
The older woman moved closer to Lucifer and peered down at him. “That took him down.”
