Page 2 of The Road
Ever since I shared a dream with the fallenangel who considered himself my father, I’d known it was possible Icould become like Lucifer. It terrified me more with each passingday and every change of my body.
By the time I was done pulling on a freshpair of socks and wiggling my big toes through the holes in thetips of them, Kobal returned.
“I’ll find you some new clothes soon,” hesaid as he handed me a jar of peaches and a couple pieces of beefjerky.
“Not necessary.” The last thing I caredabout was what I wore.
“I did destroy a good number of yourthings,” he replied.
His arrogant grin made me laugh. “You did,”I agreed as I took a bite of my jerky. Kobal had a habit ofsometimes being a little too impatient when undressing me. I’d lostmore clothing to his hands than anything else over the months I’dknown him. “But all the losses were worth it.”
“I’m going to hold you to that.”
I pulled on my hiking boots. The soles hadworn down, but thankfully there were no holes in the bottoms or thetops of the boots. I finished off my odd breakfast before holdingmy hand out to him. His entirely black fingernails flashed in thelight as he easily tugged me to my feet. Those nails could lengtheninto lethal, three-inch-long claws.
Instead of releasing me, he pulled me upagainst his solid chest. I’d never get used to the nearly electricthrill that always went through me when we touched. I tilted myhead back to take in the harsh planes of his magnificent face.
“If you don’t mind me ruining your clothes,I can start again now,” he said.
“If you don’t mind me walking around nakedin front of everyone in the camp and the skelleins, feel free to doso.”
The smile slid from his face.“Unacceptable.”
“Then don’t leave my clothes in pieces,” Iteased before rising on my toes to give him a kiss on thecheek.
He chuckled before setting me away from him.I grabbed my guns and holster from the ground and secured them tomy waist before slipping my katana over my back. I’d come to relyon my natural abilities more than the human weapons, but I stillfelt naked without the weight of them on me. Besides, I’d rather beover prepared than under.
Kobal took my hand and led me through thetrees toward the camp comprised of almost three hundred humans anddemons. I kept expecting something to attack us while we wereencamped here, but Kobal assured me that few of our enemies woulddare come at us right now.
There were too many demons amongst us now,and the skelleins would be enraged if anyone tried to skip overthem in order to gain access to the gateway, or attacked their kingand queen. I still hadn’t wrapped my head around the fact thatKobal and the other demons considered me to be his queen, but asKobal’s Chosen, they had all accepted me as such despite my mortalstatus.
Maybe if we got married it would make adifference in the way I felt about it, but I doubted it. I knew wewere irrevocably joined for the rest of my life, so it wasn’t alack of wedding vows and rings that made me uncertain about thewhole queen thing.
It was the whole queen of Hell thing, ingeneral, that had me more than a little uncertain.
I mean, what did the queen of Hell do allday? Before meeting Kobal and the others, I would have said shepulled the arms off babies, or some such thing, but these demonsweren’t like that. There was no sun in Hell, so no tan to work on,and no lap of luxury on which to sit. I didn’t feed on souls, sothere was no punishing the souls of the damned who entered Hell inmy future.
Right now, Hell was torn apart thanks toLucifer, the angels, and the humans, so I had enough to deal withwithout throwing royalty status into the mix. If Kobal and I bothsurvived this, I would deal with it after. For now, I could onlytake each day one minute at a time.
CHAPTER 2
River
Breaking free of the trees, my gaze slidtoward the large, shingled bar in the center of the lot. Thelaboratory that had once sat here, the one the humans had beenusing when they’d torn open the gateway into Hell, was gone. Theinitial destruction of the gateway opening and the bombs that hadfollowed had ensured little of it survived.
What had remained of the lab had beencleared out by the beer-loving, dancing skelleins to construct thebar, which was more compatible with their personalities. If theskelleins were going to stand watch over the gateway on this sideof the world, they figured they might as well have fun doing it.I’d never met the skelleins at the gateway on the other side of theworld, the one in Europe, but I had a feeling they were a lot liketheir riddle-loving compatriots on this side.
Erin, Hawk, and Vargas looked up at us whenwe stopped beside the bed of the pickup truck they sat in. SergeantErin Choi’s short black hair emphasized her pretty features andstriking, almond-shaped, ocean-blue eyes. Small and lean, she wasfar more lethal than her petite build made her seem.
Beside her, First Sergeant Sue Hawkson saton the hump over one of the back tires. Thanks to his unusual firstname, he much preferred to be called Hawk. Last week, he’dpermanently twisted a man’s nose to the side and blackened both hiseyes when the guy called him Sue. The display of temper had beenout of place for Hawk, but it had made Vargas laugh so loud, I’dworried he might choke.
Hawk had shaken his aching hand out andturned from the guy before strolling away. None of us had mentionedthe incident since, and I doubted anyone would ever call him by hishated first name again.
Hawk’s buzz cut had grown out in the weekswe’d been camping outside of The Last Stop, and his dark brown hairwas now an inch or two long. His indigo eyes lifted to me; he gaveme a brief nod of greeting before returning his attention tocleaning his rifle. Hawk was extremely handsome with his chiseledfeatures, solid jaw, and well-muscled body. The girls in camp hadbeen tripping over themselves to get closer to him since we’d beenhere. He’d even picked up what I could only describe as astalker.
Sergeant Anselmo Vargas sat against the backof the pickup truck with his arms draped over the tailgate. Havingbeen born in Peru, he had a deep olive complexion, broadcheekbones, and eyes so brown they were nearly black. At five footten, he was only an inch taller than me, but he had a good thirtypounds more muscle on his wiry frame than I did. His black hair hadalso grown out since we’d been here, but it was still a littleshorter than Hawk’s.
Kobal bent to kiss my temple. “I’ll be rightback.”
