Page 30 of Hell Bound

That I was the one who had mourned her every time she’d died.

That I had been powerless to stop her pain.

Even after twenty years, seeing her again had uncovered the rough surface of those scars. For a while, I even believed they’d healed completely.

They clearly hadn’t.I’m so tired of watching you hurt. I’m so tired of burying you. I can't take seeing your pain and exhaustion when you rise again.

None of that pain or exhaustion was written in her face. She was blissfully unaware of her past misery.

I didn’t want to see it there ever again.

I realized she was watching me sidelong, occasionally testing my grip on her bicep.

“Oh, yeah?” she challenged, her voice rising steadily. “Maybe I don’t remember becauseI don’t belong here, you psychopath!”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said gruffly. “You’re going back to the castle. Fight me and I’ll carry you there if I have to.”

Lilith gave me the filthiest look I’d ever seen, her hands fisted at her sides. “Of course you want to return me to him. The two of you are the same fucking person!”

Chapter7

Lilith

The instant the words left my lips, regret roared inside my chest. An apology was on the tip of my tongue, but I bit it back.

What did I have to be sorry for? He was dragging me back to a man—ademon—who’d already put his hands on me, and obviously intended to do worse at the earliest opportunity.

Not a chance was I going to let some weird feeling of guilt convince me I was the bad guy here.

I wasn’t going to examine why that ache in my chest hurt a little deeper when his face turned glacially cold. The warmth of anger in his blue eyes turned into frozen shards of fury in an instant.

“Maybe you’re right,my Queen. But at least whenIinteract with you, you’ll survive the encounter.” He released my arm with a venomous glare.

So he was every bit as aware as me that Asmodeus would eventually kill me. And yet he and his pack of beasts pressed onward back to the palace.

Where the devil awaited his queen.

Any regret for hurting him evaporated in the space of a single inhale. I was coming up with a biting retort when his pace quickened and he moved further ahead of our party.

It only made me angrier that his naked ass was about to make me drool. Where the hell were his clothes?

Dammit.

I just knew I was going to come up with the best comeback ever the moment he was out of earshot.

Whatever. Let him think he won this round.

As if he hadn’t.

I was coming up the loser in every confrontation I’d had since arriving, and I was tired of it. From the look of things, the Infernal Court was going to be impossible to survive if I didn’t make some friends.

Not to mention it would give me something to focus on to ignore the growing aches in my battered body. Adrenaline was fading from my system and every pain neuron seemed to be firing at once.

So I hid the limp as best I could and glanced at the three demons around me; there was one on either side and a third bringing up the rear.

Only the giant blond with dreads appeared outright intimidating, so I decided to start with him.

Take out the biggest, baddest guy, and the rest will follow.

---