After Lilith had giftedall sixty-six angels with a demon of their own, I scooped her into my arms and took her to our room.
She was exhausted but happy. The first demon she had changed was Arteqoph. He had taken the form of a massive snake-man hybrid with a cobra hood that spanned out under his arms. The rest of the demons had taken equally interesting shapes. There were bat demons and some that resembled half-formed humans. These types of demons were all sinew and bone, boasting exposed muscle that glistened in the starlight. Lilith did not gift any of the others with a Reaper the way she had me. Shemhazai was also the only one who had manifested a cat demon, which I found interesting. Despite this fact, they were all still terrifying and magnificent. Each of them looked at Lilith with what I could immediately tell were the beginnings of unbreakable loyalty. She had taken their pain from them, and they would never be the same again.
When we made it to the room, the three of us went straight to bed. Hazai crawled in first and held his arms out to me. I passed him Lilith, and he tucked her in between his legs. He removed her crown and handed it to me as I left to find her hairbrush. This had become a little nightly ritual. The two of us would groom her and pamper her before bed for no other reason than it made us happy to touch her, and she seemed to love it, too.
Sliding into bed next to them, I began separating her hair into manageable parts and running the brush through her burnt butterscotch locks. Hazai wrappeda hand around her throat and tilted her head up, leaving a feather-soft kiss on her lips. I watched her smile against him and felt my heart flutter with happiness.
I had never known each day could feel like this. I was always so happy now; I couldn’t even remember what my life had been like without her in it.
“We will need to build them all homes,” Lilith said thoughtfully. Shem and I nodded.
“Yes, and we will need to work out some sort of hierarchy or governing system. I have a feeling our populace will continue to grow as the Watchers begin to see how much better it is to live here than in Heaven with Yahweh,” I murmured.
“What did you have in mind?” Lilith asked, her green eyes flashing with excitement.
“You will obviously be our little Hell Queen,” Hazai said, dropping a kiss on her head as I continued to brush her hair. “And Ramel will be your King.”
“What about you? Do you want to be my King too?” she asked, and Hazai chuckled, shaking his head.
“Nah. Kings have too many responsibilities. And they never seem to have enough time for naps.”
Lilith burst into uncontrollable giggles. “You would give up a throne in favor of naps?” she asked, twisting around to look at him. He grinned at her and kissed her nose.
“Sure would,” he said, smirking. “Plus, we need someone to lead the armies and patrol the mortal realm. That’s much more up my alley.”
Lilith’s eyes widened. “Armies?”
I nodded, agreeing with Shem. “Of course, we will need armies. We need to protect you at all costs. Yahweh is not happy. If He hurts you, there will be hell to pay.” I assured her, reaching out to curl my finger under her chin.
“He will not hurt us. He cannot take me from Hell against my will. Besides, we will protect each other,” she promised, and Hazai tightened his grip on her possessively. I put down the brush and crawled between their legs, leaning forward to kiss her firmly on the lips. She moaned into my mouth, and Hazai ground into her at the sound.
“Wewillprotect you, Lilith. Nothing matters in this world if you are not a part of it,” I whispered against her, and she cupped the side of my face, smiling up at me.
“I am the luckiest demon in all the worlds,” she said quietly.
Shem chuckled, and I watched as he ran his hand up to cup her breast beneath me. I grew hard as he gripped the tip of her nipple over her shroud of shadows, making her squirm.
“Let us show you just how lucky you are, little Hell Queen,” he murmured into her ear, and I smirked as her cheeks flushed pink with need.
“Show me,” she said, and we spent the rest of the night making sure she knew how much she meant to us.
The next morning,we left our room to find the rest of the demons had congregated in the large, empty dining hall Lilith had built for herself. Angels and demons had no actual need to eat food, but Lilith tried it and found the experience enjoyable. She built the dining hall with the intent that perhaps one day she would have enough company to entertain and impress the same way she had seen mortals do.
She explained this to us as we waited for the demons to settle down, and I decided then that we would need to delegate and assign tasks to each of the creatures before us. I wanted to make Hell everything Lilith had always dreamed it could be, and now we had the demon power to do so.
We spent that first day working with the other demons to make a plan: which of them were most interested in helping to build homes, who wanted to be in charge of recruiting more citizens, and who wanted to be in charge of things like meals and entertainment.
Everyone seemed eager and excited to help. There was a certain level of excitement in the air as if all of us knew this was the start of something wonderful and new.
I was working with Hazai on getting some blueprints started when I noticed Art was speaking to Lilith.
“I think we should keep the black theme going. Wouldn’t it be cool if the homes were reflective? They would look like they’re burning with starfire if we made them out of black obsidian,” Hazai said thoughtfully, but I couldn’t focus.
I couldn’t look away from Art and Lilith. Something about the way he was talking to her was making me angry, but I couldn’t put my finger on what it was. He was speaking to her the same way Hazai and I always did. I watched as he ran his fingers lazily up and down her arm and curled a piece of her hair between his fingers.
The longer I watched, the more enraged I felt. I didn’t understand why I was so angry; he wasn’t doing anythingwrong.He leaned forward to kiss her, and something in me snapped.
I ripped into my Reaper form and sank into shadow, manifesting between the two of them.
