Chapter 28

CHAPTER

TWENTY-EIGHT

ACAROS

"State your business," an icy-eyed demon guard said when I stepped out of the portal. He crossed his pale arms over his chest, his horns small and constructed of blue ice.

Through the window in the portal room, I watched snow drift from the sky outside.

Fucking hell, I hate the cold.

"I'm here to bring a prisoner to The Chains."

"I'm not a prisoner!" Qina screamed. "Let me go!"

She yanked her arms, tried biting and hitting me, even kicked me, but I didn't release my grip on her. Nobody enjoyed the Chains, and even I hated going there. But I was finished with this shit. She wasn't going to bother us again.

After a couple of moments, the guards stepped to the side and allowed us to pass through the door. As soon as I stepped outside, I winced at the chilling cold. The Kingdom of Pride wasn't hot, like everyone thought Hell to be.

It was ice.

Icicles dangled from white pine trees. Layers of snow lay atop a stone fence that stretched on for ten thousand miles. Two blue suns floated above the Pride ice castle, surrounded by glacier-like mountains on three sides.

"It's so fucking cold here," Qina hissed. "Let's go home."

"We don't have a home together," I growled, dragging her through the snow because I refused to take the cleared pathway. It took so much longer than cutting through the snow fields. And I didn't want to be with her another second.

Once we made it to a heavily guarded stone building, the guards opened the doors for us to enter. When the lights turned on, hundreds of demons rattled the iron cages that were stacked in the air and stuck their arms through the bars.

After I found an empty cage, I shoved Qina into it and clasped a silver chain around her flailing body, her neck, and her wrists. She screamed at the top of her lungs, body jerking everywhere and all at once.

"Stop!" she screamed. "It hurts."

"Tell me who fucking paid you off."

"Nobody!"

Instead of letting up like she begged me to do, I tightened my grip on the silver chain and let her skin melt off her body. Lust demons prided themselves on being pretty, but once silver burned her body, she'd never grow back as attractive as she was.

And she'd never been that attractive to begin with.

"Okay! Okay!" she shouted, snot rolling down her upper lip. "I'll tell you!"

As soon as the words left her mouth, I dropped one of the chains. It clattered against the floor and against her toes, burning off her toenail paint. She jumped back and hit the brick wall behind her, banging her head.

She's a fucking mess.

"Who the fuck sent you and Clayton?" I growled. "You get one more chance."

"I sent Clayton," she said.

I gritted my teeth, wanting nothing more than to strangle this woman to death with my own two hands and then suck out her soul so she would never be able to return to Earth or Hell.

"And who sent you?" I asked between my teeth.

"Isn't it obvious?"

My hand snapped around her throat, claws sinking into her flesh and tearing it apart. "If it was fucking obvious, then I wouldn't be in The Chains, wasting my time torturing you. I'd be back at my place, pounding Iza into the mattress with the problem already taken care of."

"You like her that much, huh?" Qina asked, clawing at my wrist.

I slammed her body as hard as I could into the wall, her head bouncing off the brick with a thud. When I pulled her away from it to do it again, blood stained the brown brick. Qina was nothing down here; not even royal blood could save her from what I would do to her.

When I slammed her again, she screamed out, "It's Dani!"

"What?" I asked.

"Dani sent me!" she exclaimed, arms and legs flailing. "Dani paid me to mess with Iza."

Hand slipping from around Qina's throat, I stepped back and shook my head. "Why?"

Qina landed on the ground, the skin on her knees tearing. "I don't know."

"Then, I don't believe you."

Dani was the queen of Lust and had been a human herself. She had absolutely no reason at all to mess with Iza, and I suspected that Qina just wanted me to kill Dani so it would be easier for her to steal her crown.

Not that Eros would ever let that happen.

"I'm not lying," she said, crawling toward me. "Believe me."

"No."

"I'm telling you the truth. She paid me to mess with her." Qina shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know the exact reasons, but she mentioned something about the war with the angels that's approaching. That she could use Iza."

"Why would she need to use Iza?" I asked.

The mischief faded from Qina's eyes, and suddenly, they were a crystal-clear green color, that of Envy. Qina wasn't acting off any feelings of desire or lust for me. Her jealousy over Iza was shining through, and it wasn't because Iza had me.

No, it was because Iza had power. And Envy demons always sought power.

"She's special," Qina whispered. "And you practically gave her right to Dani."