Page 6 of Hell Fae Commander

A whimper escaped me, the treacherous reaction one I couldn’t fight. But the invisible enchantment covering my mouth muffled the sound. However, Lucifer caught it, as evidenced by the cruel grin in his gaze.

Asshole,I thought at him as I fought to breathe.You. Are. An. Asshole.

“Stop!” Ajax demanded, his sudden appearance at my side shocking the hell out of me.

Okay. Maybe he wasn’t bound after all.

Or he’d somehow broken free of Az’s hold.

Except the Commander didn’t appear to be trying to stop him. If anything, he looked even more tense than before.

Fire blazed around me in the next blink, the heat nearly singeing my eyebrows and forcing me to focus on Lucifer.

And the ashy wings at his back.

Oh…

They beat once, cascading embers all around us, then disappeared.

I’d seen those fiery feathers when he’d attempted to close the portal in the Marsh Lands. They’d been magnificent in the sky. Witnessing them here in this closed space, however, was more terrifying than magnificent.

“Who areyouto commandme?” His voice boomed, shaking the very walls as I stiffened my spine.

Ajax didn’t budge. He didn’t even flinch. He simply stared the Hell Fae King down, his blue-black gaze as hard as granite.

Melek’s cool energy swirled around me as his palm went to my shoulder, his thumb drawing a line up my neck to trace over the Hell Fae King’s fingertips.

The talisman hanging between my breasts responded to his caress, sending another chilly wave across my skin that chased away Lucifer’s hot touch.

But I still couldn’t breathe.

“I realize you never agreed to specific terms, my king, but I’m imploring you to take a step back,” Melek said, his calm tone underlined with a seriousness I rarely ever heard from him. “Particularly before you do something irrevocable that may result in lasting consequences.”

Lucifer’s jaw flexed, his sapphire eyes narrowing.

However, he didn’t release me.

He simply stared down the man behind me.

“There is more than her life at stake,” Melek added. “She closed a portal, one that likely would have destroyed the Unseelie capital had she not intervened. Now we need to handle the cleanup. We also need to focus our efforts on finding the culprit responsible so this doesn’t happen again.”

“She usedmysource to close that portal,” Lucifer told him, his grasp unyielding.

I tried to swallow but couldn’t. There was no room. No air.And wow, now I’m seeing spots,I thought dizzily.Not good. Not good at all.

“Because you couldn’t close it,” Melek returned, a note of steel underlining his tone now. “Shehelpedyou. And this is how you’re going to repay that assistance? By throttling her?”

Az cleared his throat. “He’s right, Typhos. She didn’t make things worse; she helped. Let go of her.”

Lucifer startled, his gaze flying to his Commander. “You, too?” He shook his head, his long hair waving over his thick shoulders. “Fucking ridiculous. This female has captured you all by the balls.” He released me so suddenly that I would have fallen had Melek not been behind me.

His arm instantly came around my waist, holding my back to his chest as I greedily gulped in air, the world spinning around me through each breath.

Lucifer measured up his prince, bewilderment battling with his fiery rage. “She can access the Hell Fae Source. Not only that, but she canuseit.”

“Yes, and she did so to close a portal that was growing wildly out of control becauseyoucouldn’t close it,” Melek replied.

I froze. Pointing out Lucifer’s failure probably wasn’t the best way to handle this situation. Yet I couldn’t help thinking,He’s not wrong…