Touched by Fire (Demons of New Chicago #1) - Kel Carpenter Page 0,69

got further away from the two demons having a pissing contest over me. I wasn’t sure if it was my own blood in my ears, or them. I sure as shit wasn’t turning to see.

Racing up the concrete platforms as fast as my legs would carry me, I searched for the door I’d noticed when I’d descended the stairs. We had to get out of the Seventh Circle and into the rest of the Underworld to even stand a chance. Once there, we could find one of the doorways out of here and into the rest of New Chicago.

I pushed myself harder, pulling Nathalie behind me. The exit door loomed, already open, which made it that much easier. We burst through it, landing disoriented in the middle of a street in the Underworld. The buildings were dark, the atmosphere gloomy beneath the full moon. Cold nipped at my bare skin and creeped beneath the piece of fabric I’d been dressed in.

I didn’t recognize the location, not that I expected to, given my last trip to the Underworld was over a year ago. “Come on,” Nathalie said, tugging me to the right. I didn’t have the time to question her. I followed, and we ran.

How she was doing it in heels was beyond me.

“We’ll never make it to the doorway in time,” she panted. “We need to find a place to lie low and see if either of them make it out alive.”

“If we don’t get to the doorway, it’s all over. You saw them. They’ll never let me go, and if I’m in the Underworld, they’ll lock it down,” I said, breathing much easier than her.

“That’s if they make it out.”

My stomach turned at her comment. I ignored it.

“That’s a big gamble,” I said. “We need to get back to the car and get the hell out of here. Fuck them both. If I have to run for the rest of my life, I will, but I won’t be captured and held hostage by a demon. You can either come with me, or this ends now.”

She sighed, then threw her head back and groaned.

“We’d better hurry up, then. They’re going to assume we’re going for the doorway.”

She wasn’t wrong, but I didn’t say it.

Maybe it was stubborn. Maybe it was dumb. But I was not letting myself get trapped in the Underworld with two demons that believed I was their atma.

The further we got from the Seventh Circle, the less magic tainted the air. It was quieter in this part of the Underworld. I wasn’t sure if that also meant it was seedier. Nathalie took two lefts before slowing. She bent at the waist, and I was forced to stop, not knowing where we were.

“We have to keep going,” I said.

She nodded, then thrust her chin toward her feet. “Shoes,” she panted. “I need them off.” I knelt at her feet and ripped the tall heels to shreds. My rage was beginning to slip. We didn’t have time for this.

She was just starting to move past me when something in my periphery caught my attention. A rustle. A slight shift in the shadows.

I swallowed down the bile rising in my throat.

The scents of blood and sex drifted over me.

“There’s a doorway just at the end of this street,” Nathalie said. When I didn’t get up, she paused mid-stride and turned. “Piper?”

“It’s too late,” I said softly. “He’s here.”

25

Ronan

Ronan

Luci claimed he was not the same angel after all these years. That he had changed. But from where I stood, ten thousand years passed in the blink of an eye and he was still running.

No, that’s not right. Chasing. Her. My atma.

He ran from Aeshma when she rejected him. Lucifer tore a rift between our world and this one, then jumped through it. He couldn’t handle the sting of her rejection, or that he became a pariah afterward. So he came to this plane and painted himself in a new light.

The Morningstar. The Devil. The Ruler of Hell.

That last one made me chuckle, and the supernaturals surrounding me took notice. Unease swept through the crowd as I began rolling up my sleeves.

This was my favorite suit. It would be a shame to ruin it.

“I realize that you are all blood-bonded to my miserable little brother, but if any of you believe you can fight it, then kneel now, and you will be spared.”

No one moved.

Not one single inch.

I sighed.

This was going to get messy. Lucifer had already taken off, stepping through the