Page 31 of Anarchy
“Snitches get stitches. I’m quite attached to a Hellhound, and I hope to keep him as my lover when this is over. Maybe if they see Bram, everyone but Oscar will back down.”
May gasped and looked scandalized.
“Hellhounds are only allowed to mate when the female is fertile, and there will be pups.No onein Hell wants to take one of us for a lover just because.”
I laughed because it totally wasn’t just me that wanted to keep Bram.
“There’s an entire group of us back at my library. Bram is family now. We all want him back with us, and I’m not the only one interested in having him as a lover.”
May gave me a sad smile.
“It seems nice where you live. I’ll get you something to eat. But be careful if Oscar comes in here. He’s deranged and enjoys hurting people.”
I tried to even the score when my rescue party got here and save a few Hellhounds. I gathered a ton of intel, but Dorian took my phone. I couldn’t get it to my guys unless we had another private phone call. I was sure Dorian intended to read all the text messages he wanted me to send.
I got speaking in code, but we didn’t have time to establish that. Fuck, I hadn’t even given all the guys my safe word yet. I was pretty sure if I could name drop Akul, Talvath would know where I was. I could let them know Akul had allies that would protect him.
I was in a cage being guarded by a Hellhound, but I still had a few cards to play. I was going to get another private phone call whether Dorian liked it or not.
23
Reyson
IknewofLilith, but I’d never met her before. We all felt it when the Cosmos spat out another god. There used to be just a few of us, but as our creations multiplied, so did the gods. Some of the younger gods, I counted as friends, but some of them, I didn’t know at all.
Lilith was pretty famous and a mystery to a lot of us. I had a million questions for her I’d love to ask once I had my witch back. But, I knew she didn’thaveto come to the library and bring us back with her. She certainly didn’t ask for help before. Lilith was probably perfectly capable of finding Ripley and dealing with her traitor without us.
Lilith had every reason to distrust the other gods after what happened to her, but here we were in her lush manor. Bram and Talvath were sitting on a chaise waiting for us. I was just so happy to see that Hellhound. I yanked him to his feet and kissed him.
I wasn’t stupid. I knew the entire reason we were here was that Bram risked everything to stand up to Lilith. She could have felt the way demons felt about Hellhounds and killed him on the spot.
Bram was an excellent kisser, and his tongue had a bar of metal through it. Lilith cleared her throat.
“I see several of you are fond of Bram.”
“Some of us have no desire to kiss him, but he’s still family,” Felix said.
“Yes, well, Hell has use of him right now, and so do I. We have people here in Hell who are proficient at getting into electronics, but at this point, we don’t know who we can trust. I hate it, but it is what it is. So what does your hacker need to locate the librarian?”
Balthazar just shrugged. I couldn’t begin to understand how he did the things he did from those devices. I hadn’t gotten one yet, and I hadn’t been sure I wanted one before. If I had one of those cellphones, Ripley could have called me when she needed me. Felix didn’t have one either. Gabriel and Balthazar were the only people back at the library with one of those devices, and Gabriel usually had his in his back pocket.
“I can do it from my phone, but I’ll need whatever was done to Ripley’s phone to give her service down here.”
“Give me your phone,” Lucifer said. “Samael is pretty, but he’s hopeless with electronics.”
“Shut up, Lucifer. I’m an angel married to a god. We don’tneedcell phones to communicate. You just like the camera feature.”
“Hey, I’mfamouson Earth now. Humans are terrified of me. They think all their fuck ups are my fault. They think I’m running Hell. They created angels to be beautiful. I’m allowed to be vain, Samael.”
“Not totally. You abandoned your family to live with your name,” Gabriel snapped.
Lucifer looked up from Balthazar’s phone. Gabriel had a lot of anger towards his ancestors, and I couldn’t say I blamed him. However, I think most of his anger was towards the one that made a mess after he made that deal and not Lucifer, but only one of them was currently in the room.
Lucifer looked like he understood why this conversation had to happen, but the entire thing was painful.
“You don’t understand what it was like for us. Most all the other gods wanted their creations to go out and populate the world. It’s not like that for angels. We’re all male, and total obedience is required. We aren’t allowed to question anything, just blindly follow orders. When we were sent for Lilith and her creations, we were told to be as cruel as possible. Some of us were.
“Samael didn’t think it was right. He was the first to question our orders, and they punished him for it. It drove him straight to Lilith, and he wanted to help her. We have ranks. Samael was underneath me, so I was sent to bring him back.
