Page 192 of Boy of Ruin
“Jeremiah,” I whisper, seeing his green eyes flick from Lucifer—whose hands are still on my hips —to me.
He’s dressed in a black shirt that hugs his broad shoulders, tailored gray pants, black boots. His hands are in his pockets, and he cocks his head, staring at me.
There’s a black bandana around his neck.
One I left at his house.
“You fucked him already, baby?” he asks me, his words deceptively sweet.
“She’s not your fucking baby.” Lucifer’s tone is venomous behind me.
I keep my hands by my sides, try to breathe. Try to digest everything Lucifer just told me. Why he left J in that fucking cage.
And he heard.
Jeremiah heard too.
“Didn’t you see?” Jeremiah taunts him. “Didn’t you see how I fucking owned her? Or have you not gotten to fuck her yet? Because I think she really, really likes how I do it. My hand against her face, a knife in her skin? I think she likes that a lot more than whatever bullshit you do, Lucifer.”
Lucifer’s grip is painful, hard enough to bruise, but I speak first, feel the anger radiating off of him at my back.
“Jeremiah,” I whisper, “where have you been—”
He laughs coldly, cutting off my words as he steps into the room, glancing at the unmade bed, coming closer to me. To Lucifer. “Where have I been, baby?” he purrs, locking eyes with me. “Where the fuck have you been? They put me in that goddamn crate, and you didn’t even try to run? Isn’t that one of the only things you’re fucking good at?”
I don’t have time to think before Lucifer moves. He pushes me to the side, closes the space between him and Jeremiah and grabs his throat, shoving him against the wall opposite the bed.
His head cracks against it and for a moment, J doesn’t fight back. He just laughs. Him and Lucifer are roughly the same height, but where my husband is long, lean muscle, J is bulkier. Fucking ripped.
As he laughs, my stomach drops, and I take a step toward them as Lucifer cocks back his fist.
“Don’t you dare talk about my wife like—”
But Jeremiah grabs Lucifer’s throat, knocks his fist down, and spins them, so Lucifer is shoved against the wall.
I realize in a moment of startling clarity that Jeremiah has never fought Lucifer back before. I realize that was for me.
J has one hand still on his throat, and with the other he pulls a knife from his hip and thumbs the blade free, holding it just over those scars on Lucifer’s bare torso.
Fear has me frozen to the spot, staring as Lucifer’s hands still by his side.
“Don’t call her that,” J says, his voice quiet, sending chills down my spine as my hands come to my mouth. “She’s not yours at all. She’s nothing to you. You’re nothing to her.” He trails the flat side of the blade against Lucifer’s stomach, and I see my husband’s nostrils flare, his hands balled into fists. “But you know what she is to me?”
“Jeremiah—” I try to speak.
“She’s fucking everything to me.”
Lucifer’s eyes dart to me, then back to J.
The silence blanketing the room is chilling.
No one moves.
It seems like no one fucking breathes.
“She’s everything to me, and you don’t fucking deserve her. You were going to kill her—”
Lucifer steps closer to Jeremiah, choking himself, the flat side of the knife digging into his abs. “You raped her.” He spits those words out, like they make him feel physically sick. “You fucking raped her. You hurt her.” His voice almost breaks.
