“She’s still here, thank Satan,” Art coughed again, rolling onto his front and sitting up. He looked up at the illusion of Shem and Ram being tortured and scowled.
“Fuck. EvenIfell for that.”
Shem raised an eyebrow and looked back at me.
“Did that work on you?” he asked, jutting his thumb at the vision portal. “Did you agree to go with him after he showed you that?”
I bit my lip, glancing up at Ram and back at Shem. Ramel’s face went white, and Shem looked furious.
“Lilith! What thefuckhave we been practicing all week?!”
“I said it! I said I’m a citizen of Hell, and I do not wish to leave with you.”
Art nodded. “She did. Twice.”
Ramel ran his fingers up the back of my neck and into my hair, massaging my scalp. “Good fucking girl, Lilith,” he murmured, grabbing a fistful and pulling my head back so he could kiss me. I moaned as he pressed his tongue into my mouth, possessively stroking me. He pulled out of my mouth and left a few more wet kisses on my lips.
“Good,” kiss, “fucking,” kiss, “girl,” he purred, and I sighed, allowing myself to melt deeper into him.
“No!Bad girl!”Shem snapped. “It doesn’t matter how many times you say it if, in the end, you still agree to go!” He angrily waved his hand, and the vision portal vanished. He spun on Ramel. “And you feltguiltyabout chaining her to the fucking bed. If we hadn’t, she would be in fucking purgatory right now. Or worse!” Shem snarled. I pulled away from Ramel so I could scowl at him.
“Maybe if you hadn’t chained me to the bed, I would have been able to get away from Rafael!” I snapped, and all three of them laughed.
“Definitely not. He would have probably just chained you up himself. Besides, you were never in any real danger from that prick; why do you think we forced you through that fucking wedding?”
I frowned, looking down at the goat head ring. I remembered how it had burned when Rafael tried to take advantage of me and how he had suddenly been blown across the room.
“That’s what stopped him? It was because we’re married?” I asked, looking up at Ram. He smiled down at me and rubbed his thumb lightly over my cheek.
“Yeah. Demon weddings come with powerful protection bonds. I would have preferred to wait until you didn’t hate my fucking guts and you were a little more comfortable with exhibitionism, but we didn’t have time. I needed it set before we went to meet with Yahweh. I knew He was going to try some fucked up shit like this while Shem and I were gone.”
“Why didn’t you just take me with you?” I wondered out loud, frowning.
“Lilith, you can never leave Hell, do you understand? He will put you in that bowl again the first chance He gets, and I won’t fucking allow it.”
He was gripping my face and looking so deep into my eyes that I felt like he could see my soul.
“You keep sayingagain,”I whispered, “I don’t remember being in purgatory.”
Shem and Ramel exchanged a look.
“We have a lot to tell you,” Shem said. “Now that Ram has his memories back, I can finally talk about this shit, but it’s a long story, and you just went through a pretty traumatic experience. Maybe we should rest now and talk about it tomorrow.”
I scoffed. “My entire life has been a traumatic experience thanks to you two fucks,” I snapped, and they both had the decency to wince.
“I’msosorry, Lilith,” Ramel whispered. He stroked a thumb down my jaw and kissed me again. “I’m so fucking sorry, you have no idea. Yahweh set me up to hate you. I didn’t know. He took my memories away. If I had known, I never would have…” His voice broke, and something deep inside my chest instantly felt like it was shattering. “I never wanted you to be lonely. I hate that He made me the reason you had no one.”
“I don’t understand,” I said truthfully, “I don’t understand any of this.”
Shem sighed and dug into his pocket, pulling out a key. “Let’s get you untied and cleaned up, then we can cuddle and have story time, okay?”
Ramel cupped my face and kissed me again, rubbing his thumb tenderly over my cheek.
“Would you like that, my little deathtrap? Cuddles and stories with your two favorite assholes?”
I snorted, and he smiled at me. He was an asshole, but he was a really good-looking asshole.
Finally, I caved and nodded.
