Page 98 of The Fate of Black Hearts

“Like who?” Roman taunted. “Maybe God?”

“This isn’t his thing to deal with, but I couldphone him if you’d like.” She held out her hand and wiggled her fingers. “Give me a phone. I know who can take care of this.”

Roman put a smartphone in her hands. “Impress me, squirt.”

“Don’t call me that.” She put the phone to her ear after dialing. “I found what you lost.” There was silence. “He tried to kill my mom. I don’t like him. You will come take it back or you can’t come to tea with us anymore.” Another silence. “Fine. Both of you this week at four, but this time you have to bring the food. It must be good food. Nothing burnt.” She handed the phone back to Roman while the room stared at her. “He said he’d be here as soon as he could.”

“Who was that?” Roman asked.

In strolled a being with wavy, shoulder-length brown hair with streaks of white and teal. His jeans had Spanish stencil designs in spirals of white up and down both legs, which barely showed beneath a flowy brown silk coat tied with a loose belt at the waist. The coat V’d deeply over his naked chest to show a mishmash of tattoos that glowed red and yellow as if backlit. Silver rings adorned most of his fingers.

The newcomer clapped his hands together in a way that showed off his manicured nails that were painted a dark brown. “Ah, the chosen guardians and their communicator.” His gaze shot to the child, to whom he gave a small head nod. Then he stalked toward the demon. “Levi, what am I going to do with you? Disappearing for what? Almost ninety years?”

Leviathan sputtered, “I can explain, my Lord.Please…don’t?—”

“You expect mercy?” He chuckled a low dark sound that resounded in Dom’s gut. He found himself holding his breath to avoid notice from this creature. “If you wanted that, you should have let me in on your little plan to eradicate a bunch of nonhumans. They are not ours to play with. In case you forgot our doctrine, you can do whatever you want with humans, but these creatures are regulated by other forces. For special idiots like you who forget the rules and defy me…” He pushed his long hair away from his face and waved at the pentagram entrapping the demon. He walked into the center of it and grabbed Leviathan by the neck. “For forcing me to come up here where it’s so bloody cold, you will learn the meaning of misery.”

“Let these lycans destroy me. Just…not you. Please, they can do whatever they want to me.”

“You’re returning with me. I’m going to have my dog eat your wings off every day for the next millennia, after which you’ll be cast into the fire pit. We’ll make bets on how loud you’ll scream. When we bore of that, maybe I’ll let them choose different animals to chew you to pieces every day.”

“No,” it choked out. “Please.”

“How we’ve longed for new sport.” He threw his head back and laughed. He snapped his fingers. Leviathan disappeared. As he strolled out of the room, he pointed at Lyra.

Before he spoke, she threw her shoulders back and snapped, “Teacakes. If you forget again, I won’t allow you over anymore.”

“I’ll bring them. Make sure He comes. Weweren’t done with our discussion.” He strolled out the door.

“Who was that?” Roman whispered.

“Lucifer,” Evie announced. “It appears your sister invites genuine deities to tea every week. You better be nice to her. She’ll have God to tea as well this week, it seems.”

Chapter Thirty-Two

“Are you healed?”

Dom blinked up at Evie for an instant, still processing what just happened.

He ignored Evie to fixate on the child who seemed to be on nickname basis with Lucifer.

“Take a breath.” Evie squeezed his hand and whispered, “It’ll be okay. I promise.”

The child pushed through the barrier of her brothers to stride forward with a pluck that reminded him of Evie. As he rose to a stand, she stared up at him with the truest blue eyes he’d ever seen. They were blue beyond normal. The source energy of his kind smoldered in her irises.

Nausea twisted his stomach. He bent at the waist as the pain in his middle tightened. “No, no, no, no.”

He’d avoided this for hundreds of years. What was he supposed to do? The mages would say to kill her. Cora would say to trust in family. The Fates had said something about family.

“Evie…”

“You don’t get toEvieme in a tone like this is my fault when you’re the stubborn one who decided to erase me from your life right when she happened.”

“This is bad.” He covered his face. “She knows Lucifer.”

“Apparently, she’s the chosen communicator between deities. That doesn’t make her evil.” She pointed at the child. “You could have been more specific about your tea parties. I didn’t know you had real gods coming to our house.”

“She’s supposed to…become that…evil.”