Prologue
**This has not been edited or proofread.**
Death
Beelzebub slid my hood back as he maneuvered his lanky body to straddle my thighs. I hummed and lifted my glass of dark liquor to my lips, waiting to see what move he was planning to make now. It wasn’t often I came to his and Lucifer’s place in the Seventh Circle of Hell. I resided in the First Circle where things were calmer and a bit more peaceful.
Lucifer and Beelzebub craved chaos, and what better place to find that chaos than where the most disgusting souls resided?
“Why do you always hide your pretty face?” he asked, trailing his tanned fingertips down my cheek.
“I’m Death,” I coolly reminded him. “Beauty is just in the eyes of the beholder. To someone else, I could look like a monster. Or the Grim Reaper.”
He wrapped his long fingers beneath my chin and jerked my face forward. A cold smirk twisted his lips. “I don’t like it when you hide your face from me, Death.”
Lucifer loomed over Beelzebub’s back, and he slid his hand across his husband’s chest, his black-tipped nails ripping through the fabric of Beelzebub’s shirt like razor-sharp blades. “You know Death doesn’t it like it when you try to control him,” Lucifer quietly reminded him. He dug his sharpened nails into Beelzebub’s chest, making blood bloom on his skin. I licked my lips, the scent of his blood fucking intoxicating.
“Not trying to control him,” Beelzebub rumbled. He released my chin and leaned back a little, his back pressing to Lucifer’s naked, broad chest.
“Don’t pout,” I told him. I lifted my glass to my lips again. “It doesn’t suit you.”
Beelzebub huffed. “We haven’t seen you indays, Death. Then, you just show up here tonight like you didn’t go MIA. Like we couldn’t fucking reach you. Where the hell did you go?”
I sighed. “There’s a war on Earth. Mass casualties. You know how that shit goes.”
“But you have reapers for that,” Beelzebub said, frowning at me. “Why get yourself involved?”
I shrugged. “I needed the pick-me-up.” Something had been feeling off for days now. Like something was going to happen that would shake up the dynamic of Hell. I just hadn’t been able to figure it out. So, when I heard the news of a huge war breaking out, I took the opportunity to feed on the life-source of human souls for a little while.
“We were worried,” Lucifer said, taking a seat beside me on the plush, black leather couch. “We get needing space. Just don’t go MIA again, yeah? It freaks us out when we can’t reach you. And you know we can’t sense you.”
Because Lucifer and Beelzebub were soul mates, their souls were bound together for eternity. They could be anywhere—even one of them up in Heaven for whatever reason—and they couldalwaysfind the other. It was like having a rope tethering them together—one that was unbreakable. Even death itself would not sever the bond.
“Nothing can happen to me,” I reminded him. I was the true definition of immortal. The man upstairs had made sure of that. Death was something that could never be diminished. Could never go away. Because even if Earth ceased to exist, Heaven and Hell would still remain.
I settled my hands on Beelzebub’s hips and arched a brow at him. “Did I come all the way here just to be worried over?” I asked him. “Or is the king of Hell going to take what he wants from me?”
He licked his lips, a fire blazing in his eyes. His skin heated, turning a light shade of red. And of course, my own body reacted in response to his, my skin turning silver and my body temperature dropping to an arctic temperature. He shivered as he leaned forward, pressing his body to mine.
“Come closer,” I rumbled, my fingertips digging into his bony hips.
His lips brushed mine, and a deep groan rumbled from my chest at the feel. Our tongues expertly met, and I shivered when Lucifer brushed his hand over my abs before working open the clasp on my cloak.
My energy core began to tremble, and I yanked my mouth from Beelzebub’s. My heart began to race. Cracks appeared on my skin as if I were ice about to break.
“Death?” Beelzebub moved off of me, and Lucifer moved to his knees, hovering over me. “Death, talk to me. What the fuck is happening?”
Pain rolled through my body, and my wings ripped from my back. knocking Lucifer off the couch. My fingernails elongated, turning into claws. More cracks appeared on my skin. Beelzebub and Lucifer watched in wide-eyed horror as my true form slowly began to emerge without my permission. Just ripping right out of me like I hadn’t mastered control of itcenturiesago.
“Death?” Beelzebub took a step closer to me, but Lucifer gripped his arm, pulling his husband back to his side.
“I don’t understand—” I rasped.
The ground began to tremble beneath our feet. Lucifer and Beelzebub stumbled. And then, demons began to rage, screeching and roaring in what could only be pure rage.
“What the fuck?!” Beelzebub roared, his blood-red wings ripping from his back at the sound.
Death, one of my reapers called through our link, pushing through despite the barrier I had up,we’ve got a problem.
What kind?I growled. My wings fluttered behind me in agitation, ready to be spread out. My teeth sharpened, cutting into my lower lip. Blood ran down my chin.
Asmodeus is missing.
I snapped my gaze over to Lucifer and Beelzebub. Both were in their true forms just like I was, and Beelzebub looked like something out of a child’s nightmares. His wings fluttered behind him, fire licking at every inch of his skin. A gaping hole sat in his chest revealing a blackened, charred heart. His head almost touched the ceiling, and every time his horns scraped the stone above him, he growled in displeasure.
Lucifer stood only to Beelzebub’s shoulder, the shortest of the three of us. His wings, which were white at his creation, were now as black as his husband’s heart, and some of them were missing, having never grown back after his fall from grace. His eyes had turned red and were outlined in black, but he didn’t look like the monster his husband was.
“What’s going on?” Lucifer asked. “Did one of your reapers reach out to you?”
The demons’ screeching grew louder. I widened my stance to stabilize myself when the shaking of the ground only increased. Something fell and shattered on the ground behind me, echoing loudly in the room.
I curled my hands into fists, my claws slicing through my flesh.
“Asmodeus is missing.”
