“Did you go?” Kai asks him on a sigh.
Lamar’s jaw trembles and he clears his throat while blinking and looking away. “It didn’t seem right to go without her.”
Deflated, I sit back.
“I believe him,” I say quietly. “I’m the Devil’s daughter with a horribly non-badass name like Paca. Who names hell spawn something that bubbly? I’m not bubbly at all.”
“What’s she saying that has all of you looking at me like you want to do harm?” Lamar asks, frowning.
“We’re trying to decide if you’re lying or not. She believes you. It’s not going to be good if you’re fucking with us,” Ezekiel drawls, looking at his nails as though he’s bored.
“Touching her seems to amplify our powers,” Jude goes on, his hand slipping through mine. “Supposedly I’m Death.”
Lamar slides off the desk slowly, so as not to make any sudden movements.
“Paca, I know you’re probably overwhelmed if you prevented yourself from remembering all this for whatever reason. But trust me when I say we’ll figure all this out together. You sought me out in hell’s throat. I spent five years convincing myself it was not you I kept feeling, because it was impossible. Then I felt you. Then they said she, and I finally knew we’d been right. They were yours and you were back.”
Just feeling their tingles start to surround me helps. Kai and Gage are also touching me. It’s Ezekiel I’m worried about. He’s not touching me, and he looks much too calm for the embodiment of war who got used to peaceful sleep, only to have it ripped away from him for over a month.
He’s the one who might actually kill Lamar before I can decide how I feel about him.
“Lucifer knows. He knew even before I did. I told you that. The trials were just him throwing it in your face that he knew so you’d stop pretending you all weren’t back. He figured it out months ago as his madness continued to lift the closer to hell she got. Manella told me this just after the night Lucifer exonerated me—the night his lucidity completely returned. You know the Devil’s games…I would have told you sooner, but I thought I was playing your game, even as it hurt my feelings to be left out.”
Looking betrayed makes a little sense, if we really were besties.
“Is that why he tried killing us?” Jude asks, a lethal, hard edge to his tone as he takes a step away. “Because of him, she was killed a month ago.”
Never mind about Ezekiel. Jude’s the one to worry about now. He’s the one who watched me die, and then kissed me for the first time when I came back because I wasn’t dead.
Very hard man to impress, that one.
“And all along he could have healed her? Did he know she wouldn’t really die?” Gage asks with an eerily calm tone.
Shit. Now he’s the one who might kill him.
“Kai, please just stay behind me. I need some tingles, and Lamar has enough of—”
Before I can finish the sentence, Kai is holding a sword under Lamar’s chin, appearing there in less than an instant. Now he really might kill Lamar too. Damn it.
“Move and I’ll do worse than cut you. Answer the questions,” he growls. “Did he kill her just to punish us for not properly playing a game we had no idea we were even playing? A royal fucking escort killed her.”
Lamar glances at him, not moving anything other than his eyes.
“No. There are always rebels in hell. It’s hell, after all. Rebellions spring up like weeds. We’re stifled by the volume in this particular rebellion, since Lucifer has been decommissioned for so long with your dead girlfriend’s father in his ear. At least we assume it’s him, due to her involvement in the botched assassination attempt on your lives. You were just caught in the crosshairs. Apparently we’re not the only ones who’ve noticed Paca back. And the Devil’s youngest daughter back from a true death and back to reign with her four unstoppable horsemen? I thought the five of you were playing a very dangerous game.”
“Rebels. Really? Rebels are trying to kill us and not Lucifer? I don’t know what to believe,” I grumble. “His timing is just terribly suspicious.”
They all give me a look, as though they’re exasperated with me for saying that, considering I heard that from them quite a lot when I first popped up, and I held it against them.
“I do believe I’m the Devil’s daughter, though. Oh, and in case this was the only thing still holding you back, it’s become abundantly clear I’m most definitely, without a doubt, unquestionably not a virgin.”
Kai turns and tosses the sword down like he’s frustrated, while Jude just huffs.
“On a related note, my vagina is most decidedly evil, so you win that argument after all,” I add.
“For fuck’s sake, Paca!” Kai gripes, saying the new name with ease like it’s perfectly natural. “Just take this seriously for a damn second. Do you have any idea what he’s saying?!”
I just stare at him, feeling my heart beat a little in my intangible chest. Something about him saying this apparent un-badass name of mine feels like a memory, even though there’s no real memory accompanying it.
He’s breathing heavily, his eyes hooded a little as he stares at me like he’s thinking the same thing. His eyes flick to my lips, and Lamar sighs loudly.
“The more things change, the more they stay the same. The air in here just got considerably warmer. You four were always pissed or serious when you used her nickname. And she always loved it when you did. She loved angry sex,” Lamar says, smirking.
“I’m really curious about seeing if that’s a real thing,” I tell Kai, gesturing toward the door like it’s an invitation.
He groans before turning his back on me and cursing.
“Wait, Paca is a nickname?” I ask, snapping out of my trance as I look back over.
Jude repeats the question aloud to Lamar, and Lamar nods, eyebrows furrowing.
“Yes. And not your nickname for her. Everyone called her Paca. But the rest of the time you all called her various things. Mostly, however, the four of you seemed to call her one phrase over and over in each life. You used it as a caution in every language you ever learned as mortals. Then you used it when you returned home to hell as a term of endearment.”
“What was it?” I ask immediately, curious what they called me back when they apparently loved me.
Me. The daughter of the Devil.
Ezekiel repeats my question so Lamar can hear it.
“The last language was Romanian, I think, because you’d just come back from mortal lives there before…” Lamar lets his words trail off.
“Before we were killed,” Kai supplies.
Lamar nods, the life drifting from his eyes a little as he gets distant. With a more informed eye, I almost see a reluctance in his gaze to revisit this memory. As though it’s painful for him. My death was painful for him.
“Romanian?” Jude asks, stepping closer as he visibly tenses.