Page 1 of All's Hell That Ends Well

CHAPTER 1

“Ihereby claim you in the name of Lucifer,” the demon Haniel said.

And as if to underscore his words with fateful finality, magic seemed to lock around me, the snap of invisible shackles echoing through my soul.

“No,” I rasped in spite of the power that brimmed along the newly forged connection between Lucifer’s proxy and me.

“See, that’s the thing.” Haniel casually stepped closer. “You don’t really get a say in this.”

I shook my head and stumbled back, almost tripping over a pile of rocks. My heart beat so fast, so hard, it threatened to break out of my rib cage. “I’m not coming with you.”

I’d wait here for Azazel, thank you very much. Or rather, I’d run away and hide, seeing the determination on Haniel’s face. Unless I managed to ditch him, he’d really drag me to Lucifer with him.

“Fallen angels are fair game to us.” Haniel raised his hands in a shrug. “And whoever is here first gets to call dibs.” He made a show of looking around. “I don’t see your boyfriend here, do you?”

“Husband,” I hissed.

He clucked his tongue. “Till death do you part. And correct me if I’m wrong, but you did die, didn’t you?”

My mouth was suddenly as dry as desert sand. The threat of this demon claiming me for Lucifer aside, was it true what he’d just said? Had my bond with Azazel really been broken? Fissures of pain cracked my heart. I hadn’t even considered that.

Not that it meant we couldn’t be together, of course, but that marriage, the way it’d defined the weird start to our relationship, it hadmeantsomething to me, and I hadn’t realized how much until now. Not to mention there’d been an actual bond tying us together, a tangible connection beyond the love we felt for each other.

The thought of having lost that caused a deep ache within me.

“So,” Haniel said, his dark gray eyes glittering, “what’s it going to be? Are you coming along like a good girl, or do I need to drag you with me, kicking and screaming? I’m fine with either option, just to let you know.”

I only stared at him for a second.

Then I ran.

Or, to be more precise, I tried.

But considering that my body was broken in more places than I could count from my crash landing on Earth, and given that I wasn’t yet healing as fast as I would as an angel in Heaven—or a demon in Hell—I was currently as nimble and swift as a sea lion on land.

I only made it about two feet up the incline of the crater, my shattered bones screaming at me as I scrambled up the rubble, before Haniel was on me. I still fought him like a wildcat, but the combination of my injuries from the fall, my power being weakened from having God’s grace stripped from me, and thefact that I was exhausted and not at my best after the shit I’d been through resulted in Haniel overpowering me in no time.

After punching the crap out of me, he grabbed me by my hair and proceeded to drag me along the ground like some barbaric caveman of yore. I screamed bloody murder and clawed at his hand holding tight to my strands while the sore spots on my back where my wings had been fired volleys of pain through me from being hauled over the rocky terrain.

“All right, that’s it.” Haniel stopped and faced me with an expression of utmost annoyance. “I can’t fucking take the shrieking anymore.”

And before I could so much as twitch, he drew a dagger, swung, and planted it right in my heart.

I grunted, choked, and pawed weakly at the blade protruding from my chest, and then everything went dark.

When I came to again, the heat of Hell pressed against my skin.

And it feltwonderful.

That was the worst, best, weirdest feeling.

It felt like coming home.

And not just because this was the realm I’d been meaning to get back to given that I wanted to live with Azazel, but because…I now drew energy from the very land itself. I breathed in the air, and itnourishedme. Every beat of my heart fed strength through my veins, pulled directly from the fabric of this world.

I felt this realm and all the creatures and plants like an extended part of myself, just like I had in Heaven when I’d been an angel.

My eyes flew open at the realization of the latest transformation I’d gone through, this time from fallen angel to…demon.

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