Infernal Games by Jenna Wolfhart

13

The moment I stepped inside Infernal, I half-expected Lucifer to look into my eyes and read everything that had happened between me and Az. We’d done our best to wash the scent off our bodies, but I felt as though the connection between us had been imprinted on my soul.

A bit melodramatic, really, but hey. Sometimes girls get crushes on demons and all logic flies right out the window. It didn’t help that it had taken us a full two hours to get out of his penthouse. Every time we tried to leave, one of us got frisky. It had been one of the best days I’d had in the past few years. Too bad it came with the threat of a Hell.

Much to my relief, Lucifer was nowhere to be seen. Az left me in the Legion’s meeting room while he made his rounds through the building before the doors opened. He was a perfectionist a lot of the time, at least when it came to his club. He liked to make sure everything was spic and span before his patrons arrived. Every chair in place. Every stain on the floor scrubbed. It needed to glisten and gleam for the night’s party.

This place might be a front for some secret soul saving, but Infernal was still his baby.

“Mia!” Caim beamed and leaned back in his chair. “Come join us.”

He sat with Stolas and Bael around the metal folding table. Playing cards were spread out before them. There was no sign of their map or detailed files tracking dangerous supernaturals working for Lucifer. Right now, they couldn’t focus on any of that. Lucifer’s presence in the club shut all that down.

“You should probably call me Sansa,” I said as I dropped into the chair. “You never know when you know who could be lurking around. I’m not going to let him win that easily, especially after what happened today...”

I cut myself off, cheeks flushing. Might be best if I kept that information to myself.

“Lucifer is currently preoccupied.” Caim snickered and flipped over one of the cards. A red king stared up at us. Bael whooped. Stolas scowled.

“Preoccupied how exactly?”

Stolas shot Bael and Caim a stern look. “These two talked Phenex into setting a little trap for him. The idiots. It’s going to blow up in all of our faces.”

My heart flipped. Uh oh. “Do I even want to know?”

Caim’s eyes flickered with a wicked glint. He was always the more lighthearted, easygoing one of the bunch, but I couldn’t forget he was a demon at heart. He had a wicked streak, just like the rest of them. He just never aimed that darkness at me.

“Phenex went to your old apartment and grabbed some clothes from your hamper.” Stolas’s expression darkened. “He brought them back here, waved them all around, and then took off toward the Brooklyn Bridge.”

I sat up a little straighter. “You mean he stole my dirty laundry?”

Stolas held up his hands. “Sorry, Mia. It wasn’t my idea.”

Wrinkling my nose, I shook my head. “Okay, it’s a little weird, but it’s also not a bad plan. If he catches my old scent, maybe he’ll stop suspecting I’m, well, me.”

“Might be okay if they left it at that,” Stolas grumbled.

Caim grinned. “Lucifer refuses to cross the East River. No one knows why, but I’ve got a hunch it’s because it dims his powers somehow. So, we’re dangling some bait in front of him. Some delicious bait. If he wants to get to you, he has to go on that bridge.”

“And when he does, Phenex and Valac will destroy him,” Bael said with a satisfied smile.

Dread dropped like a stone in my gut. “Wait. They’re going to try to destroy him? Now? Az doesn’t know about this, does he?”

“Ah.” Caim winced. “Not yet. We were afraid he’d rush in there and try to do it himself. I’ve seen the expression on his face for the past couple of days. He’s two seconds away from completely losing his shit.”

“But you’re his family. His Legion. He trusts you more than anyone.”

“Exactly.” Bael palmed the table and stood. The table groaned beneath him when he leaned forward to capture my eyes. “We will protect him with our lives.”

I flushed, fear tumbling through me. I knew they were only trying to help, but Az wouldn’t like this. Not one bit. If they were going to take on Lucifer, he’d want to be there. To protect his Legion, if anything. I couldn’t bear to think how much it would hurt him if he lost another member of his family. Morax’s death had almost destroyed him. I hadn’t been there when it had happened, but he carried the remnants of that pain with him even now.

“This is a bad idea.” As much as I loved these guys, I had to tell Az. “How long ago did they leave for the bridge?”

Caim cocked his head and smiled. “You actually care what happens to us, don’t you?”

I threw up my hands and stood. “Of course I do, you idiot. You six demons are my family now, too, whether you like it or not.”

The words popped out of my mouth before I’d even had a chance to think them through. Family? These guys? The demons of Hell’s Kitchen? But the truth of it hung heavily on my tongue. Sure, it had been an impulsive thing to say in the heat of the moment, but I’d meant every word. When I looked at these guys, they felt like home.

Maybe that was the real reason I was so desperate to stay in New York. It wasn’t the city calling my name. It was the Legion.

No time to think about that now. Phenex and Valac had gone rogue, and I had to tell Az before they got themselves destroyed.

“Sorry,” I told Caim. “But you know I have to tell him.”

“Tell him what?” an eerie voice rang out from the open door.

Everything within me tensed. Bael sat hard on his chair and Caim winced. I did my level best to keep the panic off my face, but I knew my scent would be thick with it. My hands moved as if they had a mind of their own. Pulse tripping through my fingers, I flipped over the next card on the pile.

It was a ten of spades.

I let out a low whistle. “See, Stolas? Caim is cheating. That’s the third time in a row he’s had the perfect hand. Somehow, he’s rigged the deck. I thought you’d want to know.”

For a moment, no one said anything. Hopefully, no one took a close look at their hands. I had no idea how my brain had conjured that little story, but I hoped to hell the others would go along with it. Lucifer knew I hadn’t been talking about cards when he’d walked through that door, but it didn’t matter. This was all part of the game, I realized. He wanted to see how long it took before I cracked.

Well, he’d have to do a hell of a lot better than this.

“Hmm.” Stolas tossed his cards onto the folding table. “Bit of a cheap trick, isn’t it, Caim? Too scared to try and win on your own?”

Caim rolled his eyes and gave us with a lazy smile, folding his arms as he leaned back in his chair. “Thought I’d see how long it took you two to figure it out. Turns out, I could have tricked you for weeks. Or maybe even longer. If it wasn’t for Sansa here, you’d never have known.”

“Sansa is very clever,” Lucifer said in a purr. He strode toward me and twisted a strand of my hair around his finger. Jerking back my head, I fought the urge to spit in his face.

“Yeah, sure,” Bael said, clearly uncomfortable. “Listen, Lucifer, mate. Want to join us for a game? We suddenly need another player since Caim here can’t play straight.”

“A little game sounds delicious.” Lucifer leaned closer and sniffed my neck. My teeth ground together and my fingers formed claws. An overwhelming urge to punch him in the gut rushed through me.

Get the hell away from me!

Caim stood, and the chair toppled violently behind him. “Take my place then, Luc.”

Lucifer’s eyes slanted toward Caim, and his voice came out a hiss. “Is there some kind of problem? You all seem so very tense. Where are the rest of you, anyway? Shouldn’t Phenex and Valac be here by now?”

He knew. Something had tipped him off. Or maybe he’d just been clever enough to put two and two together. Clearly, he couldn’t prove it, or this whole place would be in flames by now. The Legion would be gone from earth, sent straight back to Hell.

And I’d be sitting beside him as his bride.

He didn’t have proof, but he knew.

Caim shrugged. “Haven’t seen them all day, but that’s nothing to worry about. They’ll be here by the time the doors open.”

“Who cares where the others are?” Stolas growled. “Caim here has been cheating us for weeks. Do you know how much money I’ve lost to this asshole?”

Bael caught my eyes across the table, and he gave me an almost imperceptible nod. Somehow, I knew exactly what he was trying to tell me. Get the hell out while you can.

I cleared my throat and drifted toward the door. “Speaking of the club opening soon, I better head to the dressing room to get ready.” A hollow, tense laugh popped from my throat. “You know how us girls are. It takes a long time, but you I’m pretty sure you knew that. All that primping and curling and…”

I was rambling now.

Cheeks burning, I made quick steps out the door. Just when I thought I’d made it to relative safety, a firm hand latched onto my elbow. Lucifer spun me toward him, his eyes glittering with barely controlled rage.

Uh oh. This wasn’t good.

“I wasn’t finished speaking with you, Sansa,” he said, his lips curling back to reveal his teeth. “Isn’t there something you’re forgetting?”

“Um…” Panicked, I glanced at Bael and Caim. They wore matching expressions. Thin lips. Downcast eyes. Tension simmered in the room like a boiling pot of water about to spill over and burn everything in its path. “I’ve got to be honest with you. If there’s something I’m supposed to do, I don’t know what it is.”

Not an ideal answer, I knew. Was this part of the game? A test? Would Sansa, the werewolf, have known the answer? Was I supposed to show my claws right now?

His smile widened. “Can’t you tell what it is I want from you?”

I mean, we all knew he wanted Mia McNally to be his Hellish bride, but I couldn’t say that out loud. There was something else I was missing.

He curled a finger against my cheek. “I told you that you’re beautiful. Your body, your hair, those eyes. I would like to take you out on a date.”

My jaw literally dropped.

Wait a minute. What?!

Now this…this I had not been expecting. The shock of it all made me speechless for a few moments. Lucifer was asking me out on an actual date? For...dinner or something?

“This is…unexpected,” I finally said in a choked voice.

That definitely wasn’t the answer he wanted to hear. The smile fell off his lips, replaced by a deep, twisted frown. His eyes went dark, and the grip on my elbow tightened. Ouch.

“Are you telling me that you don’t sense the desire between us?” he asked in a low hiss. “And here I thought werewolves were attuned to that kind of thing.”

I threw a wild, desperate glance at the demons around the table. Save me, I shouted silently at them. But there was nothing they could do. Not without giving up on all of this.

“Yeah, I just…” I forced a smile that definitely resembled a grimace. “Well, I never thought you’d ask. You seem so…busy doing important things.”

I fisted my hands when that smug smile returned. It took all my self-control not to slam said fists into his teeth. “Good. That’s the right answer, darling. It’s a date.”

Darling. Blech.

He slammed his palm against my butt so hard it sent me tumbling down the hallway. After I caught myself, I glared over my shoulder to find he’d closed the meeting room door behind him. For a moment, I stood there, unsure under the fluorescent light. Was he going to confront the Legion about Phenex’s trap? Should I do something?

What the hell could I even do?

Tell Az.

Squaring my shoulders, I roamed through the club until I found Az near the DJ booth, checking all the dials and knobs. He shot me a lazy smile that melted my core. But now was not the time to get distracted by those kinds of thoughts. He needed to know what was happening. Stat.

In a rush of words, I filled him in. His expression grew dark when I told him about the Legion’s plan. And then I mentioned that Lucifer had returned only a short while ago, unruffled and unbothered. Phenex and Valac had yet to show their faces. Not a good sign after what they’d tried to do.

“Oh, and there’s one more thing you need to know.” I braced myself for his reaction. “Lucifer is taking me on a date.”

Shadows pulsed from within him and writhed around both of our bodies. Tendrils of smoke brushed against my skin with an electric intensity. I sucked in a breath as his expression darkened. In a dangerous growl, he whispered, “Absolutely not.”

“What’s the problem, Asmodeus?” Lucifer appeared from the deep shadows along the back wall, his hands laced behind his back.

Az sucked in a sharp gasp and pulled the shadows back into his skin. The sudden vortex left me reeling.

“My problem is,” Az said in a low growl, “I haven’t forgotten what happened the last time you ‘dated’ one of my dancers.”

My brows winged upward. Ooh, this was juicy. I glanced between them, wondering which dancer he could mean. “What happened?”

“Nothing,” Lucifer said with a tense edge to his voice. “Asmodeus, you have no right to interfere. Don’t make me do something both of us will regret.”