In the slipstream, before I reached my destination, I gazed down at the unmoving Demigod of Sky in grief. The devil had opened the insides of my beloved, and I could see his heart still pumping. Soon, it would stop.
Yet I couldn’t allow myself to grieve. I’d failed him. I couldn’t help him, but I must save the rest of my mates.
I wouldn’t lose any more of them.
“Where did the little whore go, Lucifer?” Ares roared. “We had an agreement. She’s supposed to be mine—mine to punish and mine to possess.”
“She figured out how to teleport within my realm,” Lucifer hissed.
“But you bound her!” Ares said. “Or is your chain no longer effective?”
“She’s growing in power,” Lucifer said, irritated. “We must combine our forces again to subdue her. I won’t allow her to roam free in my kingdom.”
Just as I’d expected, the devil and the god followed my trail. They’d never give up their hunt. The duo even landed a nanosecond earlier than me in the Seventh Hell.
I touched down, staggering, and faced Loki, who was pierced and chained in the middle of the cold, dark dungeon.
He stared at me as purple chains recaptured me, then at the god and devil behind me.
“No,” he whispered, then closed his eyes as all hope and light bled out of them. “It should not end this way.”
CHAPTER 21
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Iwas exactly whereI needed to be.
All the fighting had been a smokescreen to lead my foes here. Only I hadn’t expected it to cost me a mate. Seeing my beloved Zak, who’d given me everything, lying there with his chest open and his blood pooling beneath him undid me.
Yet I had to turn off my grief.
I had a job to do—bring down the villains.
And the devil and the god were exactly where I needed them to be.
I regarded Loki in front of me. He’d given up, believing our worst fate was sealed.
And now he couldn’t even bear to look at me.
In the chariot driven by the Hell stallion, I’d stolen into the prince’s memories and seen him brutalized by his father as a young boy. He’d cast me out of his head and cursed at me, but he hadn’t realized that my magic was more powerful and sneaky than he thought. It had lingered and watched the scene of my mother’s first visit to him.
Lilith had opened the temporary portal between the Seventh Hell and the Void. Though she couldn’t cross the threshold, she had talked to him through the doorway.