I suppose they’re ensuring the damage is somewhere no one cares about.

“What if all of the Royals fought Jahl instead of just Paca?” Gage asks, his eyes turning to Lucifer.

Lucifer snorts in derision.

“Envy, Pride, Greed, Gluttony, Sloth, and Lust would only feed Jahl. Wrath is the only thing that won’t feed him, simply because of Paca’s balance and ownership of Wrath. I tried lying to her once, telling her even Wrath would feed it. She was too smart to believe my lies,” Lucifer tells us. “Honestly, though, you should stop pissing her off. As Wrath, you’ll only ever get tit from tat from her when you piss her off. Surely you’re smart enough to have learned that by now. She’s stronger than you, but at the end of the day, she’s still as much a slave to her core as all of my children.”

He cuts his eyes toward us, smirking.

“She may have a personality and the ability to think for herself, but we’re all ruled by something. Emotional outbursts are just par for the course,” he adds, looking back below as Hera comes into view, a smirk on her lips as she stands facing Paca from several yards away.

I lean up as much as I’m physically allowed, just as Ezekiel, Gage, and Kai all do the same. Bouquets of pink roses start getting thrown to Hera’s side, the crowd cheering and applauding for her entrance.

“Why didn’t Paca get a shower of roses when she went out there?” Ezekiel asks with a frown.

Manella snorts from behind us, laughing under his breath. I turn, as Lamar gives him a look.

“I can’t help myself. They’re so fucking clueless that it can’t be anything but laughable,” he tells Lamar.

It’s rare to hear Manella speak, so it pisses me off that much more when he uses his words to insult us.

“Because her harem is the Four Horsemen,” Cain states from behind us, as he sets down an empty jar of liquor next to the other five empty jars he’s apparently gone through during the short time he’s been in attendance.

Gluttony. Must be a bitch to do everything in excess.

My attention returns to Paca, as she looks up at us and cups her hands around her mouth like she’s about to yell. “Where the hell are my roses? Did you four buy me roses or did you just sit around sulking the entire time? See? Even she gets better treatment.”

She points a finger at Hera, who is still getting showered with pink roses. I glare down at Paca, wishing I could throttle her with my own two hands in this moment.

“Could she take this a little more seriously?” Kai gripes, bristling. “It’s not like we fucking knew you’re supposed to throw roses. I didn’t know roses could even survive in Hell.”

“Only roses from Eden’s fallen garden,” Lamar states from behind us.

“You have to spend a big chunk of credits to buy them. Hera’s not worth that from these low-level riffraff, who barely have enough credits to even travel that far,” the twins say in unison. They quickly add, “But we get the most roses.”

I didn’t realize there was a credit system in Hell, but I keep that to myself. I don’t even care. If I don’t know about it, it’s because we get special privileges from our title and affiliation to Paca.

My distracted mind comes to an abrupt halt when Hera lifts her crown from her head, spinning it into the air. It circles as it hovers, spinning faster and faster.

Paca glances up at it, just as I sense the pulse of power crackle through the air with enough static to make our arm hairs raise, even in this protected circle.

Hands stab out of the ground, grabbing Paca’s ankles, and her eyes widen in surprise as she’s taken down. She cries out like she’s in pain, and I struggle with being confined to my chair once more, fighting to get up.

“I’ve stifled her phantom form for this evening’s events,” Lucifer says with a sinister grin as he pets the skull’s head. “I wanted to make things more interesting.”

A collective gasp rattles out of the four of us when Paca cries out again, black marks forming on her skin as the hands keep her pinned down.

“What the hell is she fucking doing to her?” I snap.

“Watch your tone. I’m not known for my compassion towards the insolent,” Lucifer drawls, staring down at his pet skull and dotingly speaking to it as though it’s alive and needs sweet talk.

Clearing my throat, doing all I can to rein in my fury, since I’m not a match for the fucking Devil, I try to calmly recite the question with as much ‘respect’ as I can muster.

It comes out gritted through clenched teeth, which causes his lips to twitch with amusement.

“There’s an underground tribe that dwells here. Very powerful set of underlings. Also, very territorial, which is another reason we’re floating. Hera controls them when there are breaches in this section. All the spectators cheering on Hera would be dead if the tribe could sense them. Hera just used her power to summon them, and now they’re under her control.”

Paca’s skin starts graying and crackling as she struggles to breathe, and Ezekiel curses, as he and Gage renew their struggles. She can withstand hellfire but not whatever they’re doing to her. It doesn’t make sense.

“This is even sadder and more pathetic than I thought it would be,” the twins state in unison.

“Oh, you cheap replica of my dearly departed, bitch sister,” Hera chides as she gloats and polishes her nails.

Her crown continues spinning in the air, the power pulsing as more and more roses get thrown to the ground behind her, offerings for the lust spawn.

“There won’t be anything left of her by the time it’s my turn. I want to go next,” Cain tells Lucifer, patting his shoulder. “Can I go next? Please, please, please,” he whines like a child.

Paca gets flipped back, her entire body almost stiff from the gray substance.

“This tribe paralyzes their victims. Paca is going to be upset if they drag her under and end this fight prematurely. She’ll be even angrier when she sees what they want from a girl,” Lucifer states with very little concern.

This is why you don’t ever trust anyone from Hell you don’t have a bond with. If it’s for their amusement, they don’t particularly care what happens.

“I thought you cared a little more about your favorite child,” I bite out. “Release me. Let me—”

“Paca is disillusioned into believing she’s powerful enough to fight Jahl and win. It’s better for her if she’s bested by my weakest combatant, and learns her new place before she deploys her trigger and dies for good this time,” he says, cutting his eyes toward me. “I’m a man who believes the ends justify the means. Clearly, I’m the motherfucking Devil. Don’t hold me to any righteous idealization you have in your naïve, simple mind, boy. And watch your tone. Last warning.”

A chill slithers up my spine as my jaw grinds. If I could kill the son of a bitch, I’d already be punting his severed head across the stadium right now.

He doesn’t love her. I foolishly thought the Devil could love, simply because of his affections toward her.

I’ve never felt dumber than in this helpless moment. I genuinely thought he wouldn’t be able to endure seeing his child be put through this, especially after getting so upset during Rafael’s first test on her.

Paca suddenly starts laughing from the ground, her cries of anguish cutting out to make room for the hysterics. My head whips back around, and I stiffen, wondering if she’s gone mad from the suffering and pain.

The hands suddenly burst as though they’ve been overcooked in a microwave, and the stands rattle with a pulse of power. Gray goop sprays all over Hera, who immediately drops to the ground, her body going stiffer and stiffer.

Lucifer stops rubbing his pet skull, going motionless, as his eyes widen in surprise.

“She’s not deceptive. She couldn’t have been feigning those screams of pain,” he says as Paca’s skin slowly burns away the gray residue that is now causing Hera some issues.

A hushed silence falls over the crowd, as Paca’s eyes go solid black, her laughter getting louder and louder.

“Sorry. That’s all I could take. I was starting to get a little imbalanced,” Paca says in a tone that echoes around as though she’s saying the words over and over, though her lips only moved once.

“What…the…hell?” Gage asks on a stunned whisper.

“I take it back. I’ll stay farther back in the lineup,” Cain says, patting Lucifer’s shoulder again, as even the Devil continues to stare on in surprise.

Paca smirks, and Hera is suddenly launched into stands, shattering some piece of a barrier there. Hera’s body is frozen from the paralyzing goop that has sprayed all over her.

Hands grapple her, pulling her to them, as a fight breaks out, pulling Hera in all directions as every male on that side tries to verbally claim her as his own.

Paca cracks her neck to the side.

“She’s still training to take a fucking hit?” Kai growls like he’s now ready to throttle her, since she’s no longer writhing in agony and breaking us with her screams.

As the royal guards fight the crowd to retrieve Hera, Paca looks up at us, winking as she squashes a fresh hand that pokes up through the scorched soil.