What kind of magic had Lucifer given the Red witches, exactly?
I suddenly wished that I’d shown more interest in the workings of Margot’s Coven, beyond a particular disdain for Lucifer’s wife and the ways she’d altered all our best-laid plans. Perhaps I’d stand a better chance of understanding the way her mind worked, of getting into all the nooks and crannies that made her who she was, if I understood how she’d been raised. “It’s okay, songbird,” I said, attempting to reassure her in the only way I knew. I couldn’t touch her, couldn’t cross the distance between us and help her lose herself in the physical way I would usually distract a struggling female. IknewMargot had been hurt, but I hadn’t known the extent of the trauma it had left her with to this day.
I hated that I wanted to touch her. Loathed the fact that I wanted to do it to bring her comfort. There was a depth to her call that was so far beyond the physical that I struggled to wrap my mind around it. But the worst part was having the desire to soothe her, and not being allowed to.
So what did that leave me with?
“How is any of this okay?” she asked, her face twisting as she glared at me. Her voice dropped lower, the husky note that seemed ever present fading into something dark and menacing. “We are inHell,Beelzebub! The seal is closed and I’m fucking stuck here with you!”
Her words were said with the utmost disdain, as if she couldn’t bear the thought of me being near her. And yet all I could do was think of the way my name sounded on her lips, of how pretty her mouth looked as it formed the syllables. I stared transfixed at the plump flesh at the perfect bow at the top of her mouth and only looked away when her nostrils flared with anger.
Ugh.
“Neither of us want to be stuck here together, that I can promise you. I waited centuries to escape this place only to plummet down into the depths to try to save a fucking witch of all people,” I growled.
“I didn’t ask you to do that,” she said back, her voice soft andsad and melancholy in a way that pulled at the space where my heart would have been if I’d been human.
I wanted to cheer her up, and for that, I knew I had to make it so much worse. We both needed the reminder of exactly what this was, for both our sakes. “Didn’t you?” I asked, flinching in time with her. “We both know I wouldn’t have been so willing to jump through that gate if it hadn’t been for your song.”
Margot flinched, the words striking my intended target. I regretted them immediately, felt the urge to heal the hurt I’d caused.
Maybe the reminder was more for me than it was for her.
She nodded her head in understanding, her pretty face pinched in pain as moisture welled in her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said, her voice soft and broken.
“Don’t be sorry, songbird,” I said, some of the bitterness leaving my voice. I couldn’t keep up my facade of anger when faced with her sorrow, couldn’t stay mad at our situation when she was so melancholy before me. “I know you didn’t do it on purpose, but that doesn’t change the reality of what this is.”
She swallowed, her throat moving with the motion as she turned to look away from me. “You’re right. It doesn’t,” she said in answer.
“I know you have your demons. But I’m not like the human men who have wronged you, because I’m not human. I’m not like him, and I am not going to touch you unless youwantme to. If you never want me to, then I’ll accept that. Because that is the bare minimum of what you are owed,” I said, watching her head snap back to meet my stare.
Her mahogany eyes were wide with shock. “Beelzebub,” she murmured.
I flinched.
There was power in names.
“I need you not to say my name again, songbird,” I said, willing her to understand how much I meant that statement. My namein her voice did something to me, unraveled layers of my control that neither of us could afford to lose.
“What?” she asked.
“I like it, more than I want to admit, and I can’t like it. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Margot held her hands out in front of her, twisting them with subdued energy that seemed to attempt to mask her need to move. I knew from the time I’d spent watching her that this was a moment she would have gone for a run, when the emotional contradictions within her made her compelled to move and push herself until she was so tired there was nothing left.
“I don’t know,” she admitted, a question in her voice. She didn’t dare to theorize as to what I actually meant, didn’t dare to hope that I was just as disinterested in being attracted to her as she was inhavingme attracted to her.
“You and I are never going to fit. I am a demon, and you are a witch. We are everything that each other has grown to hate. It doesn’t make sense, and it can’t make sense. If I am going to keep you safe in this place, then I can’t get caught up in you and your spell. I can’t like the way you say my name. I can’t like the way you look at me when you think I’m not looking. I can’t do anything but protect you for Lucifer and bring you home. And when I do, it doesn’t matter how interesting I think you are, I’ll leave you with Willow and never look back. Because this cannot happen,” I said, leaving no doubt as to the meaning of my words. I’d hoped that the assertion would ease some of her tension, allow her to rest easy in the knowledge that I had no interest in being further enslaved to her will.
“Do you think I don’t know that?” she asked, her voice so hollow it shocked me. I’d thought it would reassure her that her body was safe with me; instead it seemed to make things worse. She picked at the skin on the side of her nail, anxious energy thrumming through her. “I know exactly what I did to you, as unintentional as it might have been. I warned you to stay away from me, but you didn’t.”
“I know,” I acquiesced. I’d made our situation worse by giving in to the call, because in Hollow’s Grove there had been so little at stake. I couldn’t rid myself of the witches without pissing Lucifer off, and to convince Him to do so would take time.
There hadn’t seemed to be any harm in finding a witch to entertain myself with in the meantime. None of it would have mattered after I grew bored with her.
She left me, making her way to the window and staring out over the red earth of Purgatory.
“What do we have to do to get me back home?” she asked, turning to face me finally. All traces of discomfort and sadness were gone from her face, the brief moment she’d allowed herself over and done with. The Margot standing before the window was all business, to the point and direct in a way I hadn’t seen her.
