Page 41 of All's Hell That Ends Well

“But are you here to hear me out? Are you ready, or do you need to vent some more?”

I clenched my teeth and balled my hands into fists. “Speak, then. What is it you have to say about this? Why did you double-cross me? You know how much she means to me. Yet you made sure I wouldn’t be able to claim her.”

“Hm.” She nodded. “And without me, you wouldn’t have had the chance to court her again as an angel, win her love a second time, and help her regain her memory at her own pace.”

“That doesn’t make up for handing her over to Lucifer!”

“It does when the alternative was him seizing her years ago!” she yelled, her own temper now flaring.

I narrowed my eyes. “What?”

“If it weren’t for me,” she said with a hard gesture, “he would have taken her as soon as he had located her in Heaven, before you ever made your way to her.”

That struck me silent for a good minute. “Explain,” I rasped eventually.

“Do you think I’m the only connection he has in Heaven?” Her eyes glittered, her features tense. “I’m simply the one he can rely on the most, which is why he turned to me first. But if I had refused his request to deliver Zoe to him, he’d have managed it some other way. I am the reason she remained in Heaven for you to find and woo—because you wished it so.”

Taken aback, I stared at her, my mind reeling.

“When we first talked about getting Zoe back to you,” she continued, “I told you that I could make her fall right away. That you wouldn’t even have to enter Heaven and put yourself at risk. But you were adamant about it. You wanted to give herthe chance to remember who she was, who you were, before her fall, and to grant her the time necessary to get to know you under good circumstances before she’d be wrenched out of her normal life and thrust into Hell.”

The recollection of that conversation came back to me now, as did my conviction that I wouldn’t put Zoe through the stress and trauma of falling from grace and becoming a demon when she had yet no idea who I was to her. Just the thought of what that would have felt like for her, to be dragged to Hell and claimed by a demon who was a stranger to her but declared himself to be her long-lost lover, put a sour taste in my mouth.

No, I hadn’t wanted to restart our relationship from that place. I wouldn’t have wished that for her, nor for me. The way we’d first gotten to know each other had been contentious enough, and everything in me had rebelled against the idea of having to convince a traumatized, scared, and very likely pissed-off Zoe who didn’t remember me or herself that we’d had a shared past full of love and trust.

And trying to trigger her memory to resurface while we would’ve been at odds like that would have been beyond difficult.

Which was why I had rather put myself at risk by sneaking into Heaven, all in order to win her heart even before she remembered me, to build a strong foundation for our love. That way, even if triggering her memory took longer and I was discovered before she remembered, which would prompt her fall from grace, at least she’d arrive in Hell knowing the why—knowing me.

“When Lucifer found out Zoe was in Heaven,” Naamah broke through my thoughts, “he contacted me to request that I help him bring her to Hell. By that time, you’d already confided in me about your plans to infiltrate Heaven to approach her. I knew how important it was for you to have the chance to get close toher in Heaven and court her, to try to see if you could trigger her memory. So I talked him out of it, Azazel.” She firmed her jaw, her eyes hard. “He wanted her right away, and I talked him out of it. I convinced him to allow you to get to her first, to grant you both that time together. Otherwise, you would have lost her before you were ever even ready to set foot in Heaven.”

“And you didn’t see fit to warn me?” I hissed, teeth bared. “To make me privy to this grand scheme of his?”

“That’s right. I didn’t.” She looked daggers at me, every inch the Princess of Hell, no give or remorse in her stance. “Because you would have pitched a fit if you knew, and you wouldn’t have let her go.” When I wanted to counter something, she raised a hand and cut me off. “You wouldn’t have let her go.You would have moved Heaven and Hell—literally—to keep Zoe from ending up with him, even risk a war you would never be able to win, especially before you became an archdemon.”

I thrust a hand through my hair and turned away, frustration and fury making for an explosive cocktail of emotions within me. I pivoted back to her with a snarl. “And you just took his side, didn’t even think to look for other solutions. You could have told me, and we could have made her fall without his knowing so I could have claimed her. It’s not what I wanted for her, but at least she’d be with me.”

“Do not presume to know what I did or did not think of.” Her own power vibrated in the air, a hint at the massive amount of strength she’d inherited from her father. “Hewouldneverhave budged on having her under his direct control. There was no talking him out of that. He’d have come for her in Hell, andall of youwould have suffered for it. Early on, you weren’t an archdemon yet, didn’t even have the power to claim her should she fall, and by the time you’d made it and were ready, he’d already delayed his quest to get her for so long—at my behest—he’d have snapped the instant she came to Hell and would havetried to seize her with no regard to consequences. You do not wish to measure your strength against his, boy.”

The pressure in me boiled so violently that I wanted to raze an entire city block just to relieve this feeling.

“This,” she said, cutting the air with her hand, “was the best option.”

“The best?” I choked out, trying very hard not to strangle my own mother. “That she’s back with the monster who still has a bone to pick with her? Who now hasuncontested controlover her? He is well within his rights to torture the fuck out of her if he so wishes!”

“But he won’t!” she snapped.

“You must not know him very well for you to speak with such confidence,” I said through clenched teeth.

She lifted her chin. “I know him well enough to know he will not break a promise he made to me.”

I stilled and stared at her.

“I made him swear it, Azazel. He will not harm her. She is to be given accommodations suited to the highest rank, her status and treatment that of an honored member of the inner circle of his court. He is oath bound.”

I exhaled a shuddering breath, some of the tight knots in my chest unraveling. Not all of them. Just the ones stemming from my concern about Zoe coming to harm at Lucifer’s hands, if not by physical violence, then maybe by mental torture.

“I advocated on her behalf,” Naamah added with emphasis. “Believe me when I say, I am the reason she is being treated with anything akin to kindness and respect right now. You think me callous, uncaring for her as a friend, as a daughter-in-law? It isquitethe opposite, son. I used every last bit of influence I have over him to make sure she will be well.”

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