Page 137 of Lourdes & the Mafia
My breathing grows labored and I transport again, this time in front of Ramiel.
My brother looks tortured, but I don’t give a fuck at the moment.
“Where is she?” I growl, my palms meeting his chest, talons ejecting to curl into his body.
He cries out at the display of violence, more of surprise than pain, I’m sure. His hands clamp down on my wrists, nearly cracking my bones with the force of his grip before he shoves me away, his eyes flashing.
“What the fuck are you on about, Kane?” he growls.
“Where is she? Did you betray her, too? Send her off? I swear to fuck, Ramiel, angel of fucking death or not, I will—” My wings snap from my back, my horns rising from my head.
I know I look a feral King of the Pit, ready to punish and extract information.
His eyes widen. “What are you talking about? La vidente? She—” He steps back, his magic crackling through the air between us as he reaches out to scent for her.
I know he will come up empty just like I did.
His magic flares in anger. “Where the fuck is she?” he demands.
“That is what I’m asking you, you angelic bastard.”
His eyes widen. “You think… you think I betrayed her?”
“Lorenzo!” I yank down our brotherly bond, pulling him into the conversation.
Immediately, he appears, dusting off specks of water from his clothes, the glowing liquid clinging to him in sticky residue.
“What is all the yelling about?” He rolls his eyes.
“Ask him what he did to Lourdes. Ask him if he gave her up to his precious brother.”
Lorenzo’s entire body stiffens at my declaration. His own magic rises, intermingling with ours only to realize what we all have.
Lourdes is not here.
She is not anywhere in the Underworld.
“You really think so little of me?” Ramiel growls, his voice low and deadly. “You really think I would sell our mate to a fallen angel?”
I start forward but jerk back as the words register.
Mate.
Mate.
Mate.
My nostrils flare and a yawning pit opens at the bottom of my belly, through which my heart freefalls.
“Mate.”
“You fucking fool,” Ramiel snarls. “Lourdes is ourmate.Tell me you felt it?”
Is that what this is? This feeling of being incomplete? Of needing her. This animalistic need to claim, to keep, to kill anyone and everyone around her who might do her harm?
“Oh, fuck,” Lorenzo curses.
He looks stricken stupid, standing there frozen in a stupor.
