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“Not in so many words, but we both know it could come to that.Lucifer and the angels have been on shaky ground since the drama with his son a while back.They’re looking for any excuse to start a war.We’ve gotten things relatively under control, at least in a way that keeps the angels somewhat happy.But we need to finish this as quickly and as quietly as possible.If humans are getting hurt, there will be no more negotiating.Right now, Sutton is our only way to do that without starting a whole lot of shit, both here on earth and in Hell.Shit is precarious, and your female is the only way we get out of this mess.”

I stepped away from Jagger, or tried to.He grabbed my hips and kind of snorted like a deranged bull.I was pretty sure he couldn’t release me even if he wanted to by the way his fingers were flexing and the veins were bulging in his forearms, so I stopped trying to step away and placed my hands on his chest.“I can see that you’re worried.”Massive understatement.He looked seriously feral.“But I am doing this—for Luke, and for everyone else Tarrant has hurt.I’ll do whatever I have to, to keep him from hurting anyone else, and if I stop a war between Heaven and Hell while I’m doing it, that’s a seriously major bonus.”

“Sutton,” he rumbled.

“You know I’m right.I have to do this.”

“Warrior,” he said roughly and slid his fingers through my hair.

My breath caught.“I’m not, I’m just?—”

“Yeah, you are.”

The silence stretched out and his gaze dipped to my mouth.

I cleared my throat.

“I want to see this place he took you to,” he said, thankfully changing the subject.

“The doors are locked with codes and there are cameras.”I chewed my lips.“I know a way around the cameras, there’s a spell.”

“I can get around a lock,” Jagger said.“Doesn’t matter what kind.”

“It’s a risk,” Rune said.

“No one else was down there when we were.I’m sure of that.If we’re going to check it out, now would be the best time.”

ChapterTwenty-Two

Jagger

I bit backa growl as Sutton sliced anXinto her palm with a small blade and recited a spell, one that would disrupt the cameras and whatever alarm system they had down there.

I’d stopped by her place before we came here, and she’d changed into dark jeans and a hooded sweatshirt.She wore darker colors more often now.Before I fucked everything up, she’d always worn bright colors that matched all that sunshine that radiated from her.

She curled her fingers into her bleeding palm, and I followed her down multiple flights of stairs until we reached another door.

I lifted my hand and let my power pulse from me, aiming it at the lock and disengaging it.

“This seems too easy,” Sutton said as we walked into the tunnels.She’d described them after we left Rune, but they still surprised me.She was right, they were impressive and, from what Poe had told her, vast.“They have to know there are some in this city who could get past these security measures.”

“Maybe, or maybe they’re that fucking brainless.”I scented the air and froze.

“What is it?”

I reached for her.“Fear.So much of it, and pain.I can smell human, Sutton.A fucking lot of it, and something else.”I couldn’t quite get it yet.

“The cages are this way,” she said and tried to lead me.

I pulled her back, holding her tightly to my side.

She looked up at me.“Is someone else down here?”

I scanned the tunnels ahead.“It’s the fear.I’m an animal, sunshine, I may be walking and talking like a man, but at the heart of me, I’m all beast.You’re my female.Protecting you is a driving need inside me that controls my every thought and action.”

She blinked up at me with those stunning fucking big eyes that turned me inside out when I looked into them, that made me want to fall to my knees and beg her to forgive me.I wanted to claim her with a fierceness that was terrifying, and that knowledge caused a pain in the center of my chest for my son.I could stand beside Sutton, I could reach out and touch her, scent her.He would have to suffer with that unfulfilled longing calling to him like a siren, like an addiction, like the sweetest hunger, but for him that hunger could never be sated.

“It’s that bad down here?”she asked, no idea where my thoughts had taken me.