True. Lilliana had never seen anyone so inquisitive and curious about the world around her. When Cat had first arrived, her constant, prying questions had irked Lilliana until she realized that Cat was simply trying to learn and experience.
“I’ve scoured all of Sheoul-gra,” Lilliana sighed. “I suppose she could be hiding, but there’s no reason to do that.”
“Maybe she got tired of working here.”
She shook her head. “She feels safe here. And even if she did decide to leave, she wouldn’t have done it without saying good-bye first.” A bad feeling tightened her chest. “Could someone have hurt her?”
He stiffened a little, just a slight shift of his broad shoulders, but Lilliana knew him well enough to recognize genuine unease. “You think one of the Unfallen living here has done something to her?”
God, she hoped not. It had been Lilliana’s idea to use the old outer buildings to house Unfallen who didn’t want to enter Sheoul, who wanted a chance to make amends for whatever had gotten them booted from Heaven. If one of them had harmed Cat, she’d never forgive herself.
“I don’t know,” she said. “But I’m telling you, she wouldn’t have gone this long without telling one of us. And Sheoul-gra is huge. I searched for her, but there are a lot of places where a person could hide a body or hold someone captive.”
Azagoth’s eyes went stormy, and Lilliana was very glad the tempest of fury wasn’t aimed at her. “If anyone has dared to so much as touch a female under my protection,” he growled, “I will create a 6th Ring in the Inner Sanctum just for them, and I will fill it with every nightmare they’ve ever had. They will spend eternity alone, running from the things that scare them most, and just when they think they can’t take it anymore, I will become the thing they run from.”
She shivered. And how twisted was she that she found his threats sexy? Not long ago she’d have thought him a fiend. Okay, he was still a fiend, but only to those who deserved it...and with them, he showed not a shred of mercy. Not even Lilliana would dare get between him and someone he set his vengeful sights on.
So Heaven help anyone who touched Cat, because Azagoth sure as hell wouldn’t.
Chapter Ten
Cataclysm spent the next few hours rummaging through Hades’s house-crypt. It was probably all kinds of rude to sort through his things, but it was also all kinds of rude to get her worked up and then suddenly back out, tell her to clean his dusty tomb, and then take off. So she didn’t feel too bad about snooping through his stuff.
And what interesting stuff it was. Hell, his entire crypt turned out to be a treasure trove of mystery. In addition to the hidden kitchen and bathroom, there was an office, but instead of it being concealed behind a wall, it had been camouflaged by sorcery. His desk, a blocky monstrosity that appeared to have been carved with a pocket knife, sat just inches away from the rickety chair she’d sat in, but she never would have seen it––or bumped into it––if she hadn’t picked up the hollowed-out book she found on a shelf. The simple act of opening the book had revealed the hidden desk and file cabinets.
Unfortunately, the cabinets were locked, presumably by more sorcery. But the contents of his desk were more than enough to keep her occupied. She found building plans for an expansion of the 1st Ring, an accounting of the prisoners in some fortress called the Rot, and a list of every fallen angel warden employed in the Inner Sanctum. Then there were the knickknacks on his desktop.
She ran her finger over an egg-sized stone carving of a hellhound, laughing every time she touched its tail because the carving would come to life and snap at her before freezing again in its snarly, crouched stance. Then there was a framed photo of a blue lake nestled between snowcapped mountains. It was beautiful, but why did he have it?
As she went to put it back on the desk, she bumped her elbow, and the picture fell to the floor. Glass shattered, sending shards skidding all over the place.
Shit. Hades was going to kill her.
As she scrambled to clean up the mess, the portal Hades had gone through opened. Of course. Apparently, Hades had the same impeccable timing as Azagoth when it came to her breaking stuff.
“I’m sorr––”
“Who are you?” The deep, unfamiliar voice made her yelp in surprise.
She leaped to her feet, and her surprise veered to terror. A huge male strode into the room, his craggy face shadowed by a filthy, hooded cape that flapped over boiled leather armor as he walked. The necklace of teeth around his neck and the string of ears dangling from the belt around his waist said he was pretty damned comfortable with cutting things off, and she hoped the gore-crusted halberd he carried in one gloved fist wasn’t going to be the weapon he used to cut her things off.
“W-who are you?” she asked, her voice trembling as fiercely as her hands.
As he strode toward her, crusty stuff fell off his boots with every step, and wasn’t it crazy that she wanted to yell at him for leaving a mess?