Reign of Night (Thorne Hill 7)

“Are you all right?”

“I think so. There are so many of them!”

“We should go.” He takes my hand, ready to fly me out of here. We didn’t close the gates. We failed. The demons are going to keep coming to earth, taking and taking until there’s nothing left.

“Enough,” someone booms, voice echoing off the chambers and rattling the walls. I turn and see Lucifer standing in the threshold, wings spread behind him and eyes glowing red. He looks absolutely terrifying and it’s such a welcome sight. “I am your king, and you will bow down to me!”

A red crown of hellfire burns around his head, and he extends his hand, burning the demons nearest us to ash. I need to learn that trick. Three more demons rush at us, leaving the pentagram exposed.

It’s all the time I need. Using Julian’s dagger, I slice it across my palm and dive forward, knees hitting the ground hard. I slam my hand on the center of the pentagram and feel something pulse through me. The sound of a great iron door slamming shut echoes around us, so loud it makes my ears ring.

Holy shit, it worked. I closed the gates of Hell.

Julian jumps in front of me, brandishing his dagger. He’s been injured already. I’m not sure how he’s going to take on more demons like this.

“Not so fast,” Lucifer tells the demons, who come to a sudden halt. “I created you. I gave you life.” He snaps his fingers. “And I can take it away.”

The demons fall to the ground in a pile of ash, and the other demons in the hall slowly slink away. The fires start to recede, and everything is silent once again.

“Lucifer,” I start and run toward him, dress flowing behind me. “You…you saved us.”

He shrugs it off. “It’s fun being the hero every now and then, even though coming down here did damn us all.”

“What do you mean?” I put my non-bleeding hand on my lower abdomen, feeling almost as if I need to lift Elena up because she weights too much and is too heavy.

“You shut the gates.”

I look at Julian, not sure why that’s a bad thing. “That’s we wanted to do.”

“You shut the gates,” he repeats. “And you locked us in.”Chapter 38“Wait, what?” I ask though I heard Lucifer clearly.

“The gates are shut, kiddo. You prevented a lot of demons from escaping, but it’s also put us in quite the pickle.”

“You got out before,” Julian says slowly.

“And it took me years to break out, though this time I’m not in chains,” he tells us and walks through the hall. I hurry after him, heels clicking on the brimstone pathway. “I’ll get us out, one way or another, though. Taking a pregnant half-human…that might be tricky without opening a gate again. We don’t want anyone else escaping, now do we?”

“Anyone else?” I question, looking at Julian again. “I don’t like the way you said that. We closed the gates. That’s a good thing, isn’t it?”

Lucifer waves his hand over a stone wall and another passage appears. He steps into it, looks around, and then turns to me again.

“Oh, it is. The demons can’t bring Hell to earth like they planned, but the world is still doomed.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Four demons escaped.”

“Just four? That’s not too bad.”

“These four are.”

“Four…you say that like it has significance.”

“It does. Because these four demons work together, and I think you’re familiar with them.”

A shiver runs down my spine and the same cramping feeling tightens my abdomen, way more intense than anything I felt before. I have too much time left to go into preterm labor. These are Braxton Hicks contractions, not the real thing. But when the pain doesn’t subside in a few seconds, I start getting worried.

“Are you all right, Callie?” Julian asks, reaching for my hand. I open my mouth to say yes, I’m fine, because I have to be fine. Because I’m not going into fucking preterm labor while I’m trapped in Hell. I can’t get the words out, and it takes everything I have not to double over.

“Yes,” I pant, after a full thirty seconds have gone by and the contraction is over. “I’m peachy,” I say through gritted teeth, and even Lucifer is looking concerned. “Now, these demons…who are they?”

“Maybe you should sit down,” Lucifer tells me and extends his hand. He leads me up the stairs to the throne, and waves his hand, slamming the large iron doors to the throne room shut. He heals the slice on my palm and I heft down on the throne. It feels good to get off my feet.

“Renniken,” Lucifer calls, snapping his fingers. The demon appears, brought forth from a circle of hellfire. “Be a footstool for the princess.” He smiles at me. “Which is what you are. While I am the king, you are next in line, which makes you the Princess of Hell.”