Lyra's POV
Zarek gnashed his teeth, his brows furrowed as he fixed me with a stare. He looked as though he still couldn't believe I would say that.
Well, I will. The last thing I cared about was his feelings. I nudged my gaze at him and then into the darkness. "If I am leaving here, then I am leaving with them," I reiterated.
He grunted. "Why are human females always so stubborn?" he muttered under his breath, finally turning away from me. He pushed his sword into the thick leather scabbard on his hip. He peered into the darkness. His eyes moved, perhaps counting the prisoners in the cell.
Noises rose in the small cell, excitement rippling through the small crowd in the darkness. The ones still alive struggled to their feet, sitting up. Their eyes stretched open, gleaming in the darkness with hope.
I squeezed my nose, holding it tight and turning briefly as they raised a stronger wave of pungent odors in the cell. Feces and urine clung to their half-eaten clothes and skins.
Zarek grunted again, louder this time, with a low, dissatisfied growl. "There is no way I can leave here with this many people, Lyra. I am deeply sorry for you being arrested, but this is too much."
I shrugged my shoulders nonchalantly. "I don't care. I promised these people I am going to get them out. You don't want me to appear a liar to them." I lied. But wait… that technically wasn't a lie. Unless it wasn't this me who made the promise, but another version of me.
I stared at the frustration etched into his face in tiny worried lines as he gazed more into the darkness. "You don't have to teleport. You can just take us through the front door or something—"
"Demons don't fight humans, and we don't meddle in their affairs. There is a strict law about it, and Draziel would kill me if I broke it."
"I don't care what you have to do, just do something." I said in a shaky, almost disbelieving voice as I dropped my shoulders again. I have never known Zarek to take orders from Draziel or be afraid of him. Maybe this version of him still does. It was still a surprise to me.
I dropped back down to the stone walls, adjusting myself on it.
Zarek just watched me, eyes wide with disbelief, as he followed my efforts to find comfort amidst the stones. His lips loosened for words, but they closed just as fast as he opened them.
He finally got his voice back. "Come on, Lyra. I know I was wrong to leave you alone in the street. But can you please stop being so dramatic?"
Dramatic. I scoffed. He had no idea what dramatic meant. "Do you know that because of that, I was slapped and almost raped?"
"At least I stopped the rape—" he paused. Then he sighed, a long, hard sigh that must have involved every inch of his demonic lungs. "Okay. Lyra. I will take them. But you have to promise you won't tell Draziel about anything that happened. He'll kill me if he knows I allowed you to get arrested, slapped, and almost raped. He'll kill me if he knows I meddled in human affairs."
"I think you are asking the wrong person for that promise. Because there is nothing I'd like to see more than you bleeding your guts out on the floor."
"That's kind of pretty graphic. I know you hate me, but I can bet you don't mean that," he said.
If that was meant to be a joke. Then it was a bad one. I didn't move even a facial muscle for a laugh. Instead, I glared at him with every ounce of hate in my heart. He thought that was graphic. He definitely had no idea about my more graphic fantasies about his death.
He swallowed uncomfortably as he met the hate in my eyes. He whipped his gaze fast into the darkness once again, his voice strained a bit as he instructed the prisoners to hold themselves.
He grabbed onto the dirty hand of a prisoner nearest him and teleported with a batch of prisoners, lifting a portion of the odor in the cell with him. He came back almost immediately, taking the rest with him.
I released my breath a bit, relaxing my grip on my nose so I could breathe since he'd taken over half the odor in the room with him.
He came back immediately for me. Before I could protest, he'd snatched my hand, pulling me to my feet. And as soon as I stood up, I was in the middle of the hill with him. Breathing in the fresh cold air traipsing noisily over the hill, fast for my assaulted lungs.
I snatched my wrist back, pulling away from him. He snatched it back from me instantly. Before I could wrench my wrist free or even make a word of protest, I was back at the underworld castle. The fields, with their sharp one-foot-tall grasses, sprawled around us, spreading in every direction. "Where did you keep the prisoners?" I demanded, an edge to my voice. I wrenched my wrist free from his grip now and jumped away from him.
He touched his fingers with each other, his face dank as he answered. "I dropped them in the woods behind the city fortress. They are fine."
He started, reflexively reaching for his sword when a familiar voice boomed around us—Draziel.
"What prisoners. And what city fortress?" he demanded.
There was an edge to his voice that sent my soul jumping instantly out of me at his voice. I spun around to him. But his thick fingers had closed around my wrist, and the next moment, I collapsed into the warm, sturdy wall of his broad chest.
I fought the urge not to, fighting back the heat sizzling through my veins, pushing me to demand more of him. I steeled every mental energy against it, but I couldn't control it. Even though he wasn't the version of the man I loved, he was still him. I grabbed tighter to him, pressing my body to his.
I wished he would just hold me tight in his arms as the future Draziel always did. Kiss my forehead and whisper in my ears that he loved me, that I was still and always his. But that was all a pipe dream.
I pulled away from him before I could embarrass myself more. I looked up into the dark crimson pair of his eyes frozen in a mild shock. His arms hung in contemplation in the air, indecisive whether to wrap around me or drop back to his side.
"I am sorry," I muttered, bowing my head to keep back my shame, and I retreated a foot from him.
"You don't need to be sorry, Lyra." He smiled down at me. His handsome features radiating with the smile. Then he snatched my wrist, and once again, he was pulling me back into his arms.
Now that I had his implicit permission, I hugged tight to his body once again. Then I felt his palm on my head, smoothing the loose tendrils of my hair.
I felt his body suddenly grow tense around me. "Why did you take her to the human world? Don't you know it's dangerous?" I heard him snap at Zarek angrily, trembling with fury around me.