Page 203 of The Bonds of Indigo

However, I can even smell Amarah on him.

Fury, deeper than anything I’ve ever known, weighs down my chest.

“Kayn…” Lucifer’s voice cracks, but I can’t look at him. My eyes hold his father’s. The godsdamn ruler of the Beyond. “You need to go.”

Belial laughs, and the double set of fangs he bares has me flashing my own. “Oh, no. He dies too. Then you’ll have no more distractions.”

He vanishes in a blink, and I shove myself through the tearing, agonizing pull of the dying bond, meeting his punch with the flat of my palm. It drives me back a few steps, but I hold.

“I don’t know how you got the drop on me the first time,” I snarl, pulling on the Crimson Dawn. To my surprise, the power actually bleeds into the room—slowly, but it comes. “But I’ll fucking kill you for touching her.”

My fist connects with his face and, even though it feels like punching solid stone, Belial goes flying. I shake out my hand and lunge after him. While Lucifer and Amarah may be distance fighters, I’m better up close.

Belial recovers quickly, swinging at me, but I’m faster. I slip under his arm and drive my knee into his gut, sending him crashing back again.

His shoulders snap taut as he bellows a roar that shakes the ruined walls.

I’m ready to drag this fight out for eternity when a deep maroon void tears open in the floor beneath him, and he drops straight through.

Then he’s gone.

What the fuck?

“Kayn. Lucifer.” Zuhara’s voice cuts through the air. I keep my eyes on the closing space where Belial vanished, waiting—just for a second—to make sure it isn’t a trick.

After I feel confident he’s not going to sprout like a tree, I turn and sprint to her.

She hasn’t touched Amarah. My girl is still slumped where she fell, vomit and blood pooled in her lap. The sight cleaves something inside me clean in half.

“What happened?” I manage, forcing my voice to stay steady. Moving to my knees in front of her, I reach for her face, but Zuhara hisses so sharply I freeze.

“Head injury. Be careful.”

I move slower, slipping a hand behind her neck and the other beneath her legs, lifting her gently into my arms. Her hair had hidden the worst of it, but now I see the blood streaking down the side of her head. There’s a lot of it.

Lucifer steps in front of me, brushing the white strands away from her face. Her eyes are open, but when the light hits them, her pupils don’t react. They stay fixed, empty, like there’s no one looking back at us.

“He hit her…” The agony in Lucifer’s voice tears at something inside me. I want to drag him into my arms with us, shield him and her both, but I can’t spare even a finger. Not while I’m holding her like this. “He tried to kill her… just like he threatened to do to you.”

“You must take her to Vendra,” Zuhara snarls, hackles raised as she steps in front of us. Shielding us from a woman who looks eerily like Xeraphine, though different enough that I know she isn’t.

“Mom.” Lucifer moves to stand between us and her protectively.

Instinct forces me to pull Amarah tighter to my chest as I rise to my feet.

“I’ve given you a few minutes,” Proserpina says softly, though her tone carries the weight of command. “You must go.” Her deep blue eyes shift to Amarah’s limp body in my arms. “She is no use to me dead. So please. Hurry.”

A growl rips out of me, my voice riding on top of it. “She is not anyone’s to use!” I jerk my head toward Lucifer. “Open the fucking gates. Let’s go.”

He hesitates. And when he looks back at me, just over his shoulder, it’s brief. But in that heartbeat, I see it.

His choice.

His conflict.

I shake my head. “Little deviant…”

His desire to stay here—stay in the Beyond—with the monster who raised him, just to save us. It’s written in the crease in his brow, and in the pain twisting his violet eyes.