Entice: An Ignite Novella Read Online Free

its way to extinction, so it’s more difficult. It shouldn’t be impossible, but—”
    “Then try again,” Lucifer says cooly.
    “He’s hurt.” The words grate out through my clenched teeth. “Can’t you have someone else do it?”
    “He’s fine,” he answers.
    Azael tears his arm away from me. “He’s right, I’m perfectly fine.”
    “No, you’re obviously not.” I watch as the welt spreads farther up his arm. It must be excruciatingly painful, but Azael stays silent, simply working his jaw.
    “You need to leave, Pen,” he tells me shortly. “Go.”
    “Excuse me?”
    You’re not in your right mind. Go back to Hell.
    I absolutely will not, Az. And since when do you think I take orders from you?
    Lucifer steps up to me and takes my hand between his two cold and clammy palms. He squeezes them tightly. I straighten my back, forcing my spine to stay stick-straight and not flinch away from him.
    “Are you going to be a problem?” he asks.
    I look down at Azael, over to the hoard still waiting at the bottom of the mountain. They’re gathering weapons, removing armor from the fallen and leaving the dead naked. The wrongness of it all screams at me, making my vision blur. How can I look past this, forget the atrocity I took part in?
    Half of me wishes I had died on the battlefield. I begrudge whoever saved me.
    “You wish to die?” Lucifer’s voice is soft, but Azael hears.
    “She doesn’t believe in death,” he laughs from the ground. “If you’ve ever seen her fight, you would think she fears nothing. Pen believes she is mightier than the sword.”
    Lucifer purses his lips. “Are you fearless?”
    “I fear many things,” I say, pulling my hand from him. “Like corruption, corrosion, other words that start with c...” I list a few in my mind.
    “But not death.”
    “Not my own.”
    He considers my words, and I instantly regret telling him this. It’s too much. After what seems like small eternity, he speaks again. “Go now, Penemuel. You may not take orders from your brother, but you take them from me.”
    Do I? I nearly ask before I bury the thought in my head, deep enough that he won’t hear it.
    “Fine.” I hide as much of the venom that leeches from my voice as I can.
    I back away from them, from Azael—this stranger who looks and sounds do much like my brother but somehow isn’t. Lucifer turns to Michael again, to watch Azael as he tries to extract his soul again. I throw one last glare at Lucifer’s back, at the hollow point between his imperious wings, before I disappear into the throng of demons returning to Hell, back to the only home I have left.

Chapter 3
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    T HE THING ABOUT H ELL IS , it’s hard to keep track of time. Impossible, actually. The light never changes, the air never shifts. No one abides by typical schedules so all of the common areas are always busy with bodies of green, black, and blue creatures consulting with fallen angels wearing midnight wings. The circles of Hell are stuffed with bodies.
    In Hell, one day bleeds into the next. You can exsanguinate a week without even noticing.
    Time is a shadowy monster here. It can be chased but never caught. One pause to collect your thoughts kills three days. Spending what feels like years reading or walking in circles around the icy, cavernous halls only passes an hour of your time.
    I don’t know how long ago the war ended.

Chapter 4
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    I SHARE A LARGE DORMITORY with Azael. It’s cold, both in temperature and furnishing. Bare and simple, just two narrow beds pushed up against opposite walls with two plain nightstands.
    We’ve divided the room in half, him taking the right side, and me the left. There’s a clear line in the room that separates our two spaces. His is kept orderly and empty—just a neatly made bed and a side table with a drawer full of weapons and empty vials used to trap and transport souls.
    My side, on the other hand, is in a constant state of