“Who are you?” The way he’d just changed his hair...realization struck. He’d pretended to be Baden, hadn’t he? He’d led her back here on purpose. But to what aim?

“I’m the man who wants to help you.”

“Why would you want to help me?”

“Perhaps I misspoke. We can help each other.” He eased into the chair behind the desk and kicked up his legs, revealing Italian loafers. “You might know me as Lucifer.”

Hades’s enemy. Baden’s enemy. Basically: the devil she’d heard about in church.

“Please, have a seat.” He waved a graceful hand. “I’m here to bargain with you, not hurt you.”

Any bargain this male offered would profit him alone, no matter how amazing it seemed to her.

Deception was his specialty.

“No way, no how.” She shook her head in negation. “I’m not interested in anything you have to offer.”

He smirked at her, as if he knew a secret she did not. “The stories about me are exaggerated, I assure you.”

Would say anything...

“You have no interest in saving your man from death?” he asked.

In lieu of an answer, she grabbed the door handle and twisted. Of course, now it was locked.

“Maybe this will change your mind.” He waved his hand a second time, and between one second and another, a dead body appeared on the desktop.

She gasped, horrified. This was a fresh kill, blood still wet and dripping.

Lucifer held up his pinky, a long nail growing from the tip. Gaze on her, he dug the sharpened end into the dead man’s eye socket. As her stomach roiled, he popped the eyeball into his mouth and chewed.

She barely stopped herself from gagging, knowing instinctively he would enjoy such a reaction.

He smiled. “The gooey center is always my favorite. Would you like a taste?”

She ignored the offer, saying, “If only you could see the world through your victim’s point of view.”

“Oh, I can. I do. And I savor every second.”

He’s worse than I expected.

“I’ll never bargain with you.” How did one fight a liar? With truth. Time to hit him where it hurt. “Why would I? You’re weak.” She, better than anyone, knew just how sharply that particular taunt could land. “You failed to defeat the king of angels and got yourself thrown out of the heavens. You can’t even defeat Hades, or you’d have done so already.”

Smoke wafted from his nostrils as he jackknifed to his feet. “You would do well to fear me, little girl.”

“Fear is your way in. The door you sneak through. I choose to remain at peace.”

He stepped around the desk, his body nothing but a husk for murderous rage. “I want to help your man. He and his friends fight their darkness when they should embrace it. Only then will they know true freedom and strength.”

True strength. The way to Baden’s heart.

The burn returned to her gums and fingertips, reminding her she wasn’t helpless. She was armed. “What do you know of freedom? You, who are bound to your pride, want only to enslave others.”

Biscuit, Gravy. Come!

“I will bring Baden to heel. I owe him,” he said. “Perhaps I’ll start by giving you to my army, allowing them to sate their baser needs with you. The warrior will be distraught, I’m sure, and—”

The dogs burst through the door, wood shards raining in every direction. They stopped to flank her sides, strange buzzing sounds accompanying their growls. She looked down, praying the pups were okay.

Flabbergasted, she reeled back. Their teeth...their teeth moved. They had two rows up top and two rows on bottom, and both rows spun round and round like the blades on a chain saw.

Lucifer looked at the pups, then at Katarina. His eyes narrowed with calculation. “I collect information, and I’ve heard things. If you want Baden to bend to your will, I can arrange it. I can also make you immortal.”

The bend to her will thing? Not just no, but never. What a hypocrite she would be, superseding his right to choose. But the immortality thing... Was only fooling myself when I said no, letting fear lead me.

Fear this male must have sensed.

Because, if she’d agreed to try, but Baden couldn’t find a way, she would have to live with disappointment and he would have to live with failure.

“What do you say, Miss Joelle?” A slow smile bloomed. “Shall we bargain?”

26

“There is no theory of evolution. Only a list of creatures I’ve allowed to live.”

—Xerxes, Sent One

CAN’T PURGE THIS RAGE.

Destruction’s roar was an endless scrape against Baden’s mind. The beast craved blood, pain and death as never before—or barring that, he craved satisfaction with Katarina. He needed one or the other, and nothing else would do.

“I’ll ask again.” Baden lifted Galen off his feet, pinning him to the wall. “Where is she?”

Galen’s mouth opened and closed, but he could only gasp for breath.

“Where. Is. Katarina?” William had flashed away seconds after referring to Baden as his brother, without telling him anything more about the wreaths. Soon after that, Taliyah had arrived at the safe house with pictures of Katarina. She’d smirked as he’d viewed the images of his woman smiling at Bjorn and Xerxes, as if the two were her favorite heroes.

When she left me, she looked at me as if I was a monster.

Taliyah had said, “Don’t bother going to the club. She’ll be gone before you arrive. I’ll make sure of it.”

He had tried to flash to the club, thinking of the place as his home—will murder the Sent Ones for touching what’s mine!—but it had been futile. Now he wondered if Hades had somehow fixed the loophole.

Next, he’d tried flashing to Aleksander, but it had proved futile, too. He’d tried flashing to Dominik with the same abysmal result.

Had he somehow lost the ability to flash entirely?

“We need her,” he shouted. “She’s our calm.” Their sanity.

“We? Our?” Galen finally managed to push out. “You want me to betray your girl?” He wedged his feet between their bodies and kicked. “We both know you’d kill me for that.”

Baden stumbled backward, losing his grip. “You don’t care about her, and you don’t care about me. Stop pretending.”