He rocked against me again and slid his free hand down to grope my breast; he squeezed so hard I squeaked in pain.
“Stop!” I screamed, and he bit my neck. I whimpered, and another tear slid down my cheek.
“No. I’m going to take what I fucking deserve for once.” He sat up, looking down at me, his lips inches from mine. “I’m going to fuck you, Lilith, then I’m going to put your whore ass back in purgatory where you fucking belong,” he snarled. There was a wildness in his eyes I had never seen at Voodoo. I knew at that moment there would be no reasoning with him. I had been kidnapped by demons and spent the last week in Hell, but the real monster had come from Heaven, and there was no escaping him.
Present Day
“If there is a God, He will have to beg my forgiveness.”
—UNKNOWN
“Maybe we shouldn’t have tied her up,” I said as we approached the pearly gates. Shem shot me a look.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. I think I feel… I think I feelguilty,”I said, feeling unsure. Guilt was not something I was particularly familiar with.
Shem rolled his eyes. “It’s for her own good. At least this way, even if she fails, it’ll be a pain in the ass for someone to remove her.”
I nodded. “Yeah. I know you’re right, but still.”
We passed through the gates to find Yahweh standing over the Sorter of Souls. He had His hands clasped behind His back, and He slowly paced back and forth along the edge of the sorter, frowning down at the machine.
Behind Him, Mike hovered in his angel form. It struck me as odd that Michael was with Yahweh for this meeting and not Rafael.
I exchanged a suspicious look with Shem and gripped my scythetighter.
Finally, Yahweh looked up at us. It was always jarring to be in His presence. The weight of His age bore down on us, making it impossible to forget that He was the creator and we were merely His creations. I narrowed my eyes and gritted my teeth. No matter how true that was, I was no longer His. I was Lilith’s, and it was time this fucker accepted that.
“Ramel, Shemhazai. Welcome home,” Yahweh said, smiling at us with His ever-changing lips.
Mike shuffled one of his many wings. I glanced over Yahweh’s shoulder, frowning. Mike blinked one large eye at me, and I frowned. He was trying to tell me something.
“This is not our home,” I growled, anger already stirring in my gut. I looked around the blinding white abyss and shuddered. To live here would be my own personal form of torment. Now that I had my memories back, I could remember how out of place I had always been here. How merely existing had felt as if my skin were being scraped with sandpaper.
“We have come to negotiate Lilith’s renewed citizenship in Hell,” Shem drawled, putting on his most bored voice.
“Lilith has always been a citizen of Hell; it is the two of you that do not belong,” Yahweh replied, examining His cuticles as if He weren’t a godly being with perfect nail beds.
“Enough, Yahweh,” I snarled. “Let it go. We will never willingly return to serve you. Unless you wish to start another war, you will need to agree to new terms.”
“You forget yourself, Ramel.I created you!You aremy creationto do with as I see fit. You are an archangel, not a demon. I knew Lilith would be a problem when she refused to obey her husband, but I never thought she would go so far as to corrupt my Watchers.”
“She hasn’tcorrupted us.If anyone is corrupt, it’syou.You’re being unreasonable. You have more than enough angels to serve you without us. You have the power to create as many servants as you want. Let us live in peace with Lilith and allow us to move on from this feud,” I said, hoping he would be willing tofinallysee reason.
“It is not for you to decide what is best, Ramel. I am all-knowing and all-seeing. I work in mysterious ways, and you musttrust in me.”
Shem yawned. “You would think after a million years or so, He would come up with a better spiel.” He nudged me, grinning.
Yahweh looked like He wanted to smite Shem where he stood, but the cat demon just slid his hands into his pockets and smirked.
“Go ahead. Smite me, almighty smiter.”
Both God and I looked at him in confusion.
He sighed. “I wish Lilith was here. She would have gotten the reference,” he grumbled, kicking an invisible pebble into the Soul Sorter. “You know, for someonewho claims to be all-seeing, you would think you would have at least seen Bruce Almighty.”
“Enough!” Yahweh bellowed as His pristine heavenscape flashed with thunder and lighting. Mike shuffled his feathers nervously behind him, and I made eye contact with one of his many eyes. He glanced down, his many pupils dragging my attention to where my feet disappeared into the wisps of cloud.
