Page 33 of All's Hell That Ends Well

My stomach cramped with fear. “That means a long, drawn-out war.”

“Exactly.”

“Okay, so I’ll be playing Lucifer’s GPS-tracking bloodhound for the foreseeable future… You know this means I’ll have to be on Earth for three weeks in a row each month? I’ll only be down here for one week before I need to resume the search. And…” I played with the trimmed hair on his chest, my gaze on my fingers. “I don’t know if this small win I had today with getting him to let me see you will apply to future meetings. He also said you’re not allowed to join me on Earth.”

His hand came around the nape of my neck, warm and strong and reassuring. “This won’t be the last time we’ll see each other.” Unshakable conviction in his voice. “No matter what, we’ll find a way to be together. We’ll steal time if we have to. I can be sneaky.”

Oh, Lord, his insouciant grin did wicked things to my insides.

“And besides, you convinced him to let me see you once already,” Azazel continued. “I’m confident you can do so again.” His grip tightened on my neck. “Use whatever influence you have over him. Play him, trick him, bully him with Lilith’s memory if you must. I condone any unscrupulous behavior onyour part. You are resourceful and headstrong, and I have no doubt you can get him to allow you greater freedom.”

I pursed my lips, amusement fluttering in my chest. “You want me to be unscrupulous?”

“You’re a demon now, love.” He leaned in until his nose almost touched mine, his energy whirring in the space between us. “Act like one.”

I grinned at his play on the words he’d spoken to me back in Heaven, when he’d trained me.You’re an angel now. Act like one.

It seemed like a lifetime had passed since that moment, though it had only been a few days. So much had changed in such a short amount of time. I’d gone through a fundamental transformation, being ripped from one reality and shoved into another. At the thought of how exactly all of that had gone down, the amusement inside me soured, and the smile slipped off my face.

His brows drew together. “What is it?”

How could I phrase this? How should I give him the news that his own mother had gone behind his back and sabotaged my fall in order to deliver me to Lucifer?

My heart hurt imagining Azazel’s reaction.

“Tell me.” A gentle command.

“The reason I fell so early,” I began in a tentative voice, “and why you didn’t know to be there to claim me…” I paused and swallowed, my throat dry. “It was Naamah. She gave me up to the authorities. She didn’t wait for me to be able to find my mom, even though I’d told her all about it and explained that I needed more time. We’d agreed that I’d search for my mom first and then I’d surrender myself when I was ready, but she just went ahead and told on me right after I’d freed you. Just before I was banished, she came to say goodbye and apologized. She said, ‘I’m sorry, but I promised him. I owe him that much.’ I didn’tknow who she meant at first, but when this demon claimed me for Lucifer, I realized she must have been angling for this all along, setting things up to make me fall at a time when Lucifer could claim me instead of you.”

Azazel closed his eyes, his features drawn. Inside me, the hot poker of betrayal stabbed my heart, an echo of his feelings.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, stroking my fingers through his hair, desperate to soothe him. “I’m sorry she did this to you.”

“Me?” He opened his eyes, thunderclouds slashed by lightning. “What about you? She stole your chance to say goodbye to your mother.” He clenched his teeth so hard that several muscles feathered along his jaw. “I can’t believe she’d be so callous.”

My eyes burned hot, and I had trouble breathing. “I know. I thought—I thought she was my friend.” My voice cracked a little at the emotion behind those simple words.

He looked to the side, his nostrils flaring. The surge of raging-hot anger and hurt that pinged in my chest belied his rather calm response. It was fascinating to now have the insight into what he was feeling and juxtapose it with his outward reaction. He was holding so much back, his control over his expression and actions iron-clad.

“I am sorry,” he said after a moment, those emotions inside him still roiling, evident in the echo I felt. “I believed her affection for you to be genuine. I was convinced she was truly invested in helping me get to you and eventually manage to bring you back to Hell.”

“For what it’s worth,” I muttered, “I do think she was interested in helping you get to me. I feel like her intentions were benign for as long as the goal of assisting you to infiltrate Heaven and get close to me aligned with the ultimate goal of making sure Lucifer could claim me. But then at the end, when she had tomake a choice between her actions benefiting you or Lucifer, she chose him.”

The disappointment that lapped over from him made my heart clench. I leaned forward and wrapped my arms around him, enfolding him in a hug.I’m sorry, I said again, this time without words.

He didn’t deserve this, to have his own mother turn on him like that. He’d been hurt so much already in his life, had seen his family break apart—his father abandoning him, his mother lost to madness. He’d lived through humiliation and abuse at Lucifer’s court and had since clawed his way up the hierarchy, hardening himself and crafting emotional armor to repel any future slights.

That he’d retained the capacity to genuinely love, to open his heart again for others, was nothing short of a miracle.

And now his mom, with whom he’d just formed a cordial relationship again after millennia of believing her dead, had chosen to betray his trust.

I wanted to smash something to pieces to channel the fury I felt on his behalf.

He drew back and peered at me. “That is quite a violent emotion I’m picking up from you. And you look like you’re ready to raze entire nations.”

“Well,” I said grimly, “I guess you might be onto something with your habit of destroying rooms in anger.”

The hint of a smile shimmered through his somber mien. “It can be cathartic.”

---