Hell's Bells: Lucifer's Tale (Welcome to Hell Book 6) Read Online Free Page A

not just because the lord of the pit was supposed to be a heartless bastard. He didn’t have one because he’d hidden it millennia ago. She knew this for a fact. Heck, she didn’t have one either and for the same reasons as Lucifer.
    One, no one was truly immortal. Everyone sported a certain Achilles heel.
    The damned ones, the souls that came to Hell upon death on the mortal plane, had the Pit. The abyss at the center of the nine circles of Hell acted as a recycler for souls. Damned one jumped in, and somewhere, a baby born got a new, clean soul.
    Demons could die by numerous means in Hell—but in a strange twist those same wounds on the mortal realm just sent them back to the nine circles for shaming by their brethren.
    The Lord of Sin was practically invincible, except for one fragile thing. His heart. Decapitate Lucifer while he wore it in his body and the Dark Lord could perish—if the person knew to incinerate it in the furnace that warmed Hell. Knowing this weakness, Lucifer had removed that pesky organ from his chest a long time ago and hidden it. Not too many people knew that secret.
    Gaia did.
    She also knew where the damned thing was hidden. And it was hidden well.
    Which meant that thing beating in Lucifer’s chest didn’t belong to him. Ursula had infected him with someone else’s heart. A good heart. One untainted by Hell and its sins.
    Absolutely catastrophic. It needed to be removed at once! Problem was, how did one remove the heart from a demon who probably wouldn’t lie still while they cracked his chest open?
    Gaia sighed as she leaned against the rock in the garden Lucifer had specially made for her in the middle of his castle. So sweet, even if he blustered and denied his intention.
    “You made me a garden.”
    “No I didn’t. It’s just a useless space with rocks and shit that you can use if you like. Or not. I don’t really care.”
    But he had enjoyed the reward. The memory warmed and saddened.
    Would he ever take her over a rock in this garden again?
    Her head drooped. She couldn’t give in to defeat. She and Luc had gone through too much for her to give up on him yet.
    I need to change my focus and concentrate on what is surrounding me.
    The rock garden didn’t have the lush greenery of her Eden. It lacked the soft, susurrations and chatter of her plants or the sweet babble of a brook, but the whispery silence of shifting ash and stoic rocks had its own kind of soothing effect.
    A whisper of a footstep let her know she was no longer alone.
    “I unleashed the Lord,” Neffie said, breaking the calming quiet.
    “Did he go on a murderous rampage?” she asked, hopeful.
    “He did not.”
    Hope dashed. “Was he at least mad about the exam we forced on him?” Gaia asked.
    The sorceress snorted. “I wish. He thanked me for my concern and praised my work.”
    Dragging her fingers down the rough surface of the boulder, Gaia held in a sigh. “Nothing seems to bother him.”
    “He is a man at peace with himself and the world. A man no longer concerned with getting revenge.”
    “He’s not concerned with anything anymore.” Not even making Gaia feel like the most important woman in the universe.
    Sure, Luc said all the right things and currently planned a lavish wedding to publicly declare himself as her one and only mate, but that man wasn’t the one she’d fallen in love with.
    Who are you kidding? The Lucifer I used to know dragged me kicking and screaming into love—and often to the bedroom.
    “Put me down,” she squealed as she pounded at his back.
    His callused hand, hard from centuries of sword work, and golf, dragged the length of her leg, pushing her skirts over her rump. “Not until we find a bed, wench,” he declared in his most villainous pirate voice.
    “Since when do we need a bed?”
    Good times followed. Many of them, as a matter of fact. Enough that she couldn’t help but fall in love. Even if she never wanted to.
    People said she was obviously polluted to even