Page 85 of All's Hell That Ends Well

“Was it? Didn’t you have inklings of your past life already, and then the proximity of the one you’d bonded with graduallybroke down the containment of your memories until it all came crashing down?”

I sucked in a breath. “Okay, first of all, how do you know those details?”

A glimmer of the old Lucifer shone on his face. “I have my ways.”

“Naamah,” I muttered. “Of course.”

“Was there a second point?” he asked with a smirk.

“Yes!” I pinned him with a look. “I had Azazel to chip away at the wall that kept my memories contained. But if you can’t go to Earth, who’s going to do it for Lilith?”

His smile was slow and a touch sly. “You.”

“Excuse me?”

“You are bonded with her.” He tipped his head, indicating the spark of her power in my chest. “The way you’ll find her is the same way you’ll be able to rouse the memory of her past life inside her. Your proximity will make her remember.”

I rubbed a hand over my face, trying to process the fact that Lucifer thought the kernel of Lilith’s energy inside me was some sort of versatile super tool.

“You should have some faith.”

At Lucifer’s quiet remark, I looked up at him again, raising my brows. “Faith? You’re telling me to have faith?You? The Devil, God’s greatest critic?”

He shrugged. “Things have a way of working out in the end.”

I chewed my lip. “I don’t know. I mean, there’s plenty that’s gone shitty over time. Exhibit A—Lilith’s fate.”

“Ah, but that story’s not finished, is it?” He conjured a glass of amrit and took a sip. “That which belongs together will always reunite.”

“That’s mighty optimistic of you,” I murmured, leaning forward to pick up the glass of the amber liquid from the small table he’d summoned.

“Do you not hold the same conviction with regard to you and Azazel?”

I paused with the glass half raised to my mouth. Dammit. He had me there. Deep in my heart of hearts, I couldn’t see a future where Azazel and I weren’t together. It was a belief that went soul-deep, an immutable fact.

I narrowed my eyes while taking a sip, then mumbled, “I sure didn’t have philosophical discussions with the Devil on my bingo card for this year.”

“Why not? That’s what friends do, isn’t it?”

I almost dropped the glass. With my eyes wide as saucers, I stared at him. It took me a few seconds of sputtering, but then I blurted out, “We’re not friends!”

Did I imagine the slight flicker of hurt across his expression?

“No?” he asked quietly.

I opened and closed my mouth several times, then squinted at him and ground out, “Everything you’ve ever done to me aside, the one reason I’d never consider you a friend is that you treated the man I love like shit when he was a youth in your care. He had lost his parents, and you failed him. You might have been a great father to Naamah, but you were a horrible grandfather to Azazel. If you’d only shown him a sliver of the love and consideration you gave his mother…but no, not only did you treat him like dirt back then, you’ve also been sneering at him for thousands of years, actively trying to make his life difficult.”

He blinked at me, his expression unreadable, but the fact that he wasn’t yet hurling threats at me made me dare to lay into him more. I’d kept all these feelings and thoughts inside me for so long, my grudge and resentment festering with time, but I didn’t want to bottle it up any longer. I had no idea if anyone had ever given Lucifer a dressing-down for his behavior toward Azazel, but by the fires of Hell, I would.

“He is the most amazing male I’ve ever had the fortune to know,” I said, my voice wavering with emotion, “and you don’t appreciate him at all. You cast him aside when he is the very best among you. He’s strong, loyal, smart, ambitious, and a damn good leader. He is exactly the type of demon you should surround yourself with and hold in high regard because he plays the political game exceptionally well, he’s wise enough to give good counsel, and he’s proud enough not to spew falsehoods just to appease your ego. He’s got a backbone of steel and will fight to the death for those he loves. He would besuchan asset, if only you ever opened your eyes andsawhim.”

I sat up straighter, balling my free hand to a fist to hide how it shook. “But all that aside, even if you never saw him for what he was worth, you should have respected and loved him as the child of your favorite daughter. If Naamah has always meant so much to you, you should have raised her son in her spirit, with the affection and care she wasn’t able to show him. The fact that you didn’t is deplorable. You let the hate for his father taint your heart and vented your anger on an innocent boy.And you never even apologized for it.” I stood, setting the glass on the table, my pulse a rolling drumbeat in my head. “So, no, we’re not friends. That is an honor I give only to those who respect the people I love.”

And without waiting for a dismissal, I turned and stalked toward the door, throwing a “Stay, girl!” at Vengeance.

Pensive silence followed me into the hallway.

Outside, once the door had fallen shut behind me, I released a shaky breath. Tremors took hold of my limbs, adrenaline and anxiety coursing through my veins in a toxic cocktail.

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