I was an evil, cursed monster that didn’t deserve to be a mother. Heaven had known it all along, and today I’d become aware of it, too. A woman who would—even for a split-second—think about taking a baby from her mother didn’t deserve to be one.
My eyes squeezed shut, burning. How the fuck had I become that woman who had a thing for the devil so strong she’d become his fucking mate for all eternity, allow him in her head, heart and soul, and even embrace his logic, thinking—just like him—about stealing a baby she’d once helped save?
“Baby, you’re so tense.” Alec’s drew the sponge over my shoulders. “If the bath isn’t working, maybe we should go for a run?”
My eyes snapped open as I darted a death glare at him. “I know it’s your fucking day to give me the knot, but really? Do you think I’m in the mood to take it? What’s even the fucking point anymore?”
He dropped the sponge in the water with a splash. “The fucking point is being together. Since when us mating and making love has been only for breeding, Belle?”
“Don’t fucking yell at me!”
“Guys, c’mon,” Kayden said.
“I didn’t yell. You’re the one who is yelling. Stop being a bitch,” Alec snapped.
I gaped at him. “You didn’t!”
He was gaping at me, too. “I didn’t mean that, I swear. God, baby, I’d never…”
“Shit. It’s Damien again,” Joshua said. “He’s been whispering his filth in our heads, my love. He wants us to fight all the time. He wants you to hate us so you’d be his alone.”
Scowling, I swallowed. Then I nodded, cooling my face with some water. “Yeah.”
Alec hugged me close. “I’m sorry, baby.”
I tilted my head back into his embrace and brought our mouths together in a kiss. “Me too. I didn’t mean to yell.”
“It’s okay. He’s in your head, too. Why else have you been acting so weird all day, and around that baby?”
My eyes narrowed at the bathroom wall. They thought that was what was happening? Damien was making me feel and want those awful things?Hewas to blame?
I wished it’d been true. I wished I could have lied to myself and said so. Damien might have been in their heads to break us up, but he hadn’t been in mine. I might haven’t been able to know if he was whispering to me when I was human, but now, as a demon, I’d have known.
The devil didn’t tell me to take that baby girl. That was all me.
The dark side I surrendered to the second I made my deal with the devil. The second I submitted to his will and let him have a piece of me. The second I let him inside me and enjoyed every moment of sin with him.
The second I’d become the fucking devil’s mate. Hell’s future queen. A glorified whore for the devil himself.
“Baby.” Alec passed the sponge between my breasts teasingly. I was too absentminded to notice he got it back and resumed bathing me. “Do you wanna tell us what happened between you and that demon? You had amomentthere.”
“No.”
Kayden pressed harder than he was supposed to on my toes. “Why not?”
Because my demon side was scaring the shit out of me. Because Inferno asked me the question everybody seemed to be dodging and found the answer. The truth I wouldn’t admit to.
Why wouldn’t I go find Damien and talk to him myself? Why wouldn’t I go back to Hell?
I didn’t need to answer mystepson. One look inside my mind, and he knew.
“Because I don’t want to talk about it.”Not with you or even myself.
“Sweetheart, we gotta stick together to beat that piece of shit. If Damien is using his son to get to you, you gotta tell us.”
“He’s not.”
“How do you know? The fucking devil is messing with your head like the rest of—”
