Page 88 of Demon's Heart

Dante would never get sick of Ollie caring about his birds. “Potentially, but I have Ash and Onyx. I’m going to let some of my birds break away from the main flock into a smaller group and stick with them, hidden by an illusion, until the demon comes sniffing around.”

The birds would be safe with Dante there. Otherwise he wouldn’t use them as bait.

Ollie’s face creased with concern. “What if no one comes?”

“That could mean the demon left the city. But I don’t think that’s likely. Why make a move against me and then flee? I have a feeling they’re still here. They can’t have gotten what they were after. When they take the bait, Ash, Onyx, and I will capture them.”

Ollie’s brow furrowed. “To do what? Keep them prisoner?”

Dante needed answers and couldn’t let an attack go unpunished, but he disliked the idea of having to imprison anyone. Other than Luc. “That’s not our aim. We have to find out if the demon is working with Luc, and if not, why they targeted my flock. What we do depends on the answer.”

Ollie caressed one of Dante’s horns, serious lines around his eyes. “Be careful.”

“I will,” Dante promised.

Ollie had questions about the other demons being trapped in the Realm of the Damned, so Dante explained, filling in the gaps he’d left when first introducing Ollie to demonkind’s long history.

As he finished the tale, a nagging thought returned. “There’s another demon here, Ren. She escaped when Luc first returned, like the demon we’re trying to track down. I don’t think she means any harm, but something she said has been bothering me.”

“What’s that?” Ollie sat up like the problem needed his full attention.

Dante grabbed his phone from the side table. “Ren said they have technology mimicking ours in the Realm of the Damned. It runs on magic, but still, she could use a smartphone easily even though she hasn’t been on Earth for over a thousand years. When I escaped after nine hundred years, I struggled. And that was two centuries ago.”

Ollie’s eyes widened. “I see. Is technology in Hell bad?”

“On the surface, no. But I can’t figure out why Luc would modernize in the exact way humans have. It’s never something that’s been done in the afterlife. The Eternal Realm didn’t mimic Earth. They’re supposed to be separate worlds.” He set the phone aside.

Ollie considered for a few moments. “Maybe Lucifer wanted to know what the world was like before he hunted you down. If he hadn’t been here in a thousand years, he’d have trouble when he arrived and probably didn’t want it getting in the way of his plans.”

“Maybe. But he could have kept knowledge of human technology to himself rather than share it.” It’s what Dante expected Luc to do. He’d keep any advantage he could.

“You said things are tense down there,” Ollie reminded him. “Maybe he was trying to soothe the masses. Give them a little something to make not getting what they really need seem more tolerable.”

“I hadn’t considered that. It fits though.” That sounded much more like Luc.

“Yeah?” Ollie sounded pleased, his dimples appearing.

“You have good insight.” Dante smiled as Ollie blushed. “Luc wouldn’t go through the effort to make demons happy, but to placate or distract them, definitely.”

Ollie snuggled back into Dante. “There’s been no word of him, right?”

Dante’s arms tightened around his mate. “No. But once wefigure out if the demon lurking here is on Luc’s side or not, we’re going to hunt him down in the Realm of the Damned.”

“For what he did to me?” Ollie whispered.

“Yes.” Dante’s whole body tightened at the hint of fear in Ollie’s words. “Unless you don’t want me to. I want him to pay, but it’s ultimately up to you.”

“Pay how?”

Dante’s sated demon fire flared to life. “At first, I wanted to kill him. Wipe him from the universe. Permanent death is the punishment for killing a mate or Eternal being, but he didn’t kill you. I’d have been the one wiped from the realms if I’d followed my impulse.”

Ollie clutched him around the middle. “I’m glad you didn’t. Don’t risk yourself to make him pay. I want to be safe, but I need you with me.”

Dante kissed Ollie’s forehead. “I know. We aren’t killing Luc. We’ve always planned to imprison him, so I’ll stick with that. But I can’t sit around waiting for him to attack again.”

“You won’t get trapped down there, right?” Even more fear laced Ollie’s words than before.

“No. We can always break out like we did before.” If Onyx got on board.