She shook her head. “I’ve been with you every second. I haven’t left your side.”

Thank God.

Raksha ran a shaky hand through her hair. “I’ve done some awful things down here, but I’d never, ever allow that.”

She acted as if she had a choice.

“I’d rather die than have his child,” I declared.

Raksha rubbed a hand over my arm soothingly. “I’m going to help you get out of here, but you need to do everything I say. And you can’t take your knife with you.”

Excitement mixed with apprehension tore through me. “What?”

She would really help me get out? But I couldn’t leave Sera down here. I’d done it once before, and never again.

‘You can, and you will,’ Sera interjected.

‘Never,’ I objected.

‘Do you want to carry Satan’s baby!’ she shrieked, sounding half hysterical.

Okay, good point, but—

‘You’ll come for me eventually. I know you will.’ Sera’s voice sounded sad then, and my heart ripped in two. Being without her felt like being without a part of myself.

“The Dark Prince is going to have a doctor come by later today, to check on your fertility, and see where you are in your cycle. It’ll be under the guise that he’s checking on your injuries,” she explained.

My vagina wasn’t injured. It was the one thing that didn’t hurt, but I didn’t argue.

“When he does, I’ll know more about our timing. I need you to get better, so you can go on the morning walks with me to the red door.”

Noah popped into my mind. “I can do some self-healing to speed up the process.”

She smiled. “Good. Then, on the first day we start our walks, you’ll attack me.”

My mouth popped open. “Say what?” Maybe I was dreaming.

Her face went stern and the Raksha I knew was back. “You need to make it look real, make it look like you jumped me. Steal a knife at dinner and stab me, do whatever you have to, so long as it looks like you put me down quickly, before getting to the red door.”

I moved to sit up and flinched as pain coursed through my body. “No way! Come with me.”

Her lips pursed into a thin white line. “I can’t leave. Literally. I’m bound to the Prince of Darkness. He’s the one who bought my slave contract.”

A gasp escaped me, taken aback by her statement.

I mean, I’d assumed she was someone’s slave, but his? I had no idea that was even possible.

“I go where he goes, and that’s how it’s always going to be.” Her voice had a hollowness to it.

“But…” I tried to argue and fell flat.

She reached out, tucking a lock of hair behind my ear. “But there is something you can do to repay me.”

“Anything,” I breathed. If she helped me escape, I’d give her my kidney if she asked for it.

“In order to get through the portal, you’ll need to kill Mathias. Once you go through to Earth, you’ll be in Demon City, Los Angeles. I need you to get my wife and son, and get them across to Angel City. Get them citizenship.”

Raphael would help me. I knew he would.

“Consider it done.” I nodded.

She let out all the breath she’d been holding. “Okay, then you need to do everything I say. I’m getting you out of here.”

I’d wanted her to say that to me since I’d arrived here, but hearing the words right then had no big effect on me. This place had killed some emotional part of me, and now I couldn’t feel properly. Or maybe it was because I knew I’d be leaving Sera, something I had been through before, and couldn’t fathom ever dealing with again.

‘It’s all right, love. I promise,’ Sera assured me.

No, it wasn’t all right. Couldn’t I sneak her out somehow?

‘I think cutting his finger off would alert him to your escape,’ Sera added dryly.

A thought struck me.

“What if I took the box Sera’s in but didn’t open it. Figured out some way to open it once I’m up there.” I pointed to the ceiling, which I also thought of as Earth.

Raksha shrugged. “We might be able to pull that off, but you’d never get it open, and he had me put a tracking spell on it.”

I groaned. “Well can’t you take it off?”

She raised one eyebrow. “If we want him to know I let you out of here, yeah.”

Oh. Good point.

“Won’t he know when he realizes your family’s been moved?”

She shrugged. “He might, but he knows I favor you and that you, in turn, have grown close to me. He’s commented on it. You are good, so I’m hoping he suspects you’ve done it of your own free will, to make things right after stabbing me. To assuage your guilt.”

I shuddered. “I am not stabbing you. I’ll just punch you and knock you out.”

She nodded. “Do that too.”

Oh my God, how real did she want this to be? Did she want me to kill her?

I’m not freaking stabbing her.

Suddenly, there was a knock at the door. I froze, but Raksha stood, and smoothed her shirt before walking over to unlock it.

“Good afternoon, Doctor,” she said to someone I couldn’t see.

Doctor. I clamped my legs shut as my heart thumped wildly in my chest.

Raksha peeled the door back, and in walked the healer demon I’d seen only once before. On the day Lucifer slit my throat.

He glanced over my bruised and battered body, then held up the clipboard in his hands. “Brielle Atwater. Twenty-one years old?”

Had my birthday passed on Earth? That thought alone gutted me.

“Yeah,” I croaked.

“What’s your blood type?” He peered at me with his sickening yellowy eyes.

“No idea,” I replied honestly.

He grumbled before writing down something.

“When was your last period?” he asked then, and Raksha’s eyes widened.

“She’s due any day now,” Raksha intercepted.

Was I? I’d had two periods while down here—I remembered because I’d needed to ask Raksha for tampons.

He raised one eyebrow. “Lift your shirt. I need to scan you for internal injuries, and things of that nature.”

Things of that nature, my ass!

I rolled onto my back, and felt a sharp pain stab between my shoulder blades as I did. It was then that I remembered the acid burn there, and my poor wings.

“Are you going to heal her?” Raksha snipped, stepping up to my side protectively.

He glared at her. “Possibly.”

I peeled my shirt up to expose my stomach, and his hands came out, palms spread wide and fingers splayed. A warm reddish-orange color emanated from his palms as he ran them down my body, stopping to hover over my pelvis area.

My gaze met Raksha’s, and we shared a knowing look. Healer demons could basically see right through you like an X-ray.

After a moment, he gave us a small smirk. “Yes, I can heal her today.” He scribbled something on his clipboard, and Raksha peered at it.

When she read what he wrote, the color fled from her face.

Oh shit.

‘If he touches your hoohah, throat-punch him,’ Sera directed me.

‘Oh, I’ll do more than that.’ I wasn’t sure if this particular demon had balls, but if he did, I was going to find them and detach them from his body.

A rich cinnamon smell filtered through the air when his healing powers flooded my body; it was like being wrapped in a warm blanket. I had no idea how demons could heal, though some said it was because they were created by Lucifer’s hand, and since Lucifer was once an angel, he could bestow that power. The smell of demon healer magic always reminded me of my father, and what we went through trying to save him.

My muscles started to relax, pain ebbing out of them and away from my body. I sighed in contentment, realizing how much pain I’d been in before, now that it was going away.

After I lay there for a long time, letting the healing take place, he was finally done.

“She’ll need bed rest for the remainder of the day, but by tomorrow she’s permitted light exercise,” he told Raksha before leaving.

She nodded, walking him out of the room. Only when she returned and locked the door, did I see the true terror in her gaze.

“What is it?” I squeaked.

Sitting down beside me on the bed, she brushed a strand of hair behind my ear. “In two days, you’ll be ovulating. We have less then forty-eight hours to get you out of here.”

My heart pounded in my chest at the thought of Lucifer trying to have a baby with me. I was guessing there was no artificial insemination down here, and he’d try to force himself on me.

“I’m scared,” I croaked.

She reached around and grasped both sides of my face, forcing me to look into her powerful gaze, her red demon slave mark practically glowed.

“I will do everything in my power to make sure that doesn’t happen to you.”

Something dark crossed her face then, and I wondered if someone had forced themselves on her at one time.

I didn’t know what to say. I felt sick but also hopeful that after all this time in Hell, I might actually be going home.

Chapter Twelve

The very next day I was awoken urgently, Raksha shaking my shoulders. “Brielle!” she whisper-yelled in my face.

Blurry-eyed, and still in a fair amount of pain, I sat up. The healer demon had healed the major things, like my broken wings and my acid-burned back, but my body was still covered in bruises. Every single muscle ached.

“What is it?” I asked quietly.

She was breathing rapidly. “The Dark Prince plans to… with you tonight. He’s asked to have you over for dinner. Alone.”

My eyes grew wide as bile crawled up my throat.

“Tonight?” I was hoping to have one more day. I needed a plan to get Sera out with me.

“You have to leave today. At breakfast you’ll steal a kitchen knife, and then we’ll go on our walk to the red door. You’ll attack me, and when the red door opens, you’ll kill Mathias and leave.”

I’d wanted nothing more than to get out of this place since the moment I’d gotten here, but now that I was presented with the option, I was nervous and unsure if I could do this.

Raksha shook my shoulders again. Hard. “Get your shit together, Brielle! Do you want to have a baby with the Devil?”

Oh God. When she said it like that, I nearly vomited.

‘I like her,’ Sera chimed in my mind.

Sera. I needed to find a way to bring her. I had to do it.

‘You can’t, and it’s okay. I’m okay with that.’

Tears formed in my eyes as I nodded to Raksha. “I can do this.” I toughened my resolve. “And when I get through the portal, I’ll go straight to your family. I’ll fly them over the border wall if I have too.”