Page 139 of Hell Bound

“You’re lost again, letting your thoughts overtake you. Stay here with me, understand what I’m trying to express to you.” He wound both arms around my waist and lifted me so that our noses were even.

My own arms went around his neck, hanging on to him as though he could slip away at any moment.

“I love you, Fire Lily, and I won’t settle for mere seconds of time with you. If you can’t share your time with me, I’ll steal it. I will be here every night that I’m able to sneak away from the others. Holding you against my chest while you sleep, protecting you from the nightmares. Until I can free you from them for good, I’ll be here to fight them off.”

I couldn’t draw in a full breath. My heart threatened to burst from my chest in a desperate attempt to get to him, to settle inside his chest beside his own.

“I love you, Angel.” It was freeing to finally say the words without fear that they’d be overheard by the wrong person. “With everything that’s left of me, I love you.”

“That’s left of you? Lilith, you are more than any other demoness I’ve ever encountered. You’re stronger for what you’ve endured. He hasn’t taken pieces of you, he’s hardened your defenses so that no one will ever be able to break you. The only pieces of you will be those you choose to give.”

“I can’t give away what already belongs to you.”

He kissed me. Words were no longer enough to encompass what was burning between us. When he set me down, he reached into a pocket and pulled out a tiny gold object.

“A promise of what’s to come.” Cool metal slipped over my finger and I looked down to see a thin gold band. A little heart carved from the band was the only embellishment.

It was the most precious thing I’d ever possessed.

I opened my mouth to speak, but he just kissed me again. Without a word, we said everything we needed to say.

He walked me to the bed, carefully laying me down and drawing the blankets up to my shoulders.

Despite everything, fear that he was leaving tightened my muscles, but he merely removed everything but his pants and slipped into the bed behind me. He curled that big, hard body around me, his unnatural warmth blazing into mine, one wing curling over to cover us both.

“Sleep easy, my love.” He kissed the top of my head and squeezed me a bit tighter as I spun the ring on my finger.

I fell asleep with a tear on my cheek, but a smile in my heart.

“Rise and shine, my Queen.”

The voice called to me, but I wasn’t ready to get up. My head pounded and my body ached, so there was no way I had gotten enough sleep.

“If I’d known you’d love it down here so much, I would have found a more suitable punishment.”

That broke through the fog in my mind, bringing me forward to the present.

I pushed up to a seated position, nearly slipping back to the ground when dizziness assailed me.

Asmodeus looked down his nose at me through the bars of my cell. “I’ve come to see if you’ve taken the time to think about your very precarious position in this Court, Lilith. You’ve been corrupted by your time in the mortal world, and I no longer have the time required to break you.”

“Did you really come down here to give me a villain monologue?” The words scratched my throat, but the glare he shot me was worth it.

“Your insolence remains untouched, even by the time in isolation.” He stepped closer to the bars, peering down at me. “I brought you back time and again because you served a purpose—one you no longer serve. So when you return to the palace with the rest of those fit for civilized company, enjoy yourself. Consider it my gift to you. Soon you’ll be back in your garden where you belong, my dear. And perhaps this time, you won’t come back to dig your own grave.”

The wicked curl of his grin stayed in my mind long after he’d gone.

There was no point trying to come up with a way out.

Been there, failed that.

Now I simply hoped that I died down here rather than facing whatever Asmodeus had waiting for me among the demons above.

I stopped fighting the exhaustion that pulled at me. At least in sleep there was the chance Lucifer would be with me again.

It was the closest I might get to saying goodbye.

The dream Asmodeus had interrupted came flooding back, and with it, a revelation.

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