None of those words seem to fit the man I spent the last three years with. He was my lover. The father of my unborn child. I lean my head back, resting it against one of the bars trapping me. If I were to look down, I’d see the eternal flames of damnation—something I never thought I’d see, something I never wished to see. But it’s better than looking at the other cage.
For hours, Az was gripping the bars of his cage as if there wasn’t empty space between us. Then again, he can fly. As an archdemon, he’s probably capable of much more than that.
“Can you get us out of here?” I ask him with a voice that sounds hollow to my own ears, speaking to him for the first time since the Devil—the actualdiableSatané—locked us in these cages.
Az shakes his head. I’ve never seen him look so defeated.
“I’m afraid not, little fairy,” he says just loud enough tocarry over the infernal wailing. “These are no ordinary cages. There is only one way out of the Pits for us.”
My hands clench into fists. “Selling my soul to you? An archdemon?”
Az—Asmodeus—clicks his tongue. “It’s not a terrible idea, Simone. Regardless of Sataniel’s murky motivation. It ensures virtual immortality for both you and our child.”
I get angry all over again.
“And what were your motivations?” I hiss, moving closer on all fours. I want to feel like I’m screaming in his face. “Do you honestly even care about our baby? The…Hesaid you have more than you can count already!
“Of course I care!” he growls, his green-gray eyes blazing at me. “Simone, you and our baby are everything to me now. I even stopped caring about my territory. I already left my court to fend for themselves.”
I scoff in disbelief. “Territory. Court. You’re nowhere close to who I thought you were. You lied about everything!”
“Not everything.” His eyes slide away from mine as if he can’t hold my gaze. “Iamthe son of a fallen angel. Samael was one of the first to fall. And that necklace you’re wearing. Lilith did give me that eons ago. Though I haven’t seen her for almost as long,” he adds bitterly.
Lilith. The Devil did mention she’s Az’s mother. All these creatures from myth, coming to life around me.Incroyable.
“And I didn’t lie about my feelings for you, little fairy.” He’s pleading with me now, his voice anguished, his eyebrows slanted with earnestness.
“If you truly cared, you would have told me sooner. You would have told me before I let you touch me.”
He actually flinches. I just made an ancient archdemonflinch.
“I wanted to tell you,” he says so quietly I can barely hear him. “I finally got your affection. I couldn’t stand to see it turn intodisgust. I couldn’t bear to see you look at me the way you’re looking at me right now.”
My eyes fill with tears of anger and frustration. “The way I’m looking at you now has everything to do with the fact that you lied to me and got us into this position!”
Az tries to rattle the bars of his cage, but it’s like they’re made of titanium. “Then let’s get out of it.”
“How?” I wail. “I don’t want to lose my soul!”
He shakes his head. “You won’t lose your soul, little fairy. While it will belong to me as long as you’re alive, it won’t be separated from you.”
I frown at his choice of words. “As long as I’m alive? And when I’m not?”
I swear he blanches. “I’ll never let that happen, Simone. Never.”
“But if it does?” I insist.
Az sighs. “Then it will return here. Until the universe is no more.”
It’s a good thing I’m sitting down, or I might faint. As if being condemned to Purgatory wasn’t bad enough, I’d have to burn in these fires forever?
“And you? Where would you go?”
His lips curl into a grimace. “Celestials have no souls. We have no afterlife.”
“I’d rather have no afterlife than one like this,” I deadpan.
Lucifer’s seductive voice suddenly sounds over the screams of the damned.
