Page 110 of All's Hell That Ends Well

“There they are,”Daevi murmured, her gaze on the three figures flying toward us.

She shifted her weight on the sloped roof of St. Paul’s Cathedral, the London landmark we’d picked as the meeting location. Next to her, Verrin, my second-in-command and most powerful seraph in my territory, snapped her wings in tightly to her back, the wind whipping at her sleek black hair.

Neither Daevi nor I had trusted any of the other archdemons to be privy to this discussion, so we’d opted to bring Verrin along, seeing as she was poised to replace me as head of my territory once I ascended the throne. She’d long shown signs of extraordinary power, and she stood a good chance of proving her claim to succeed me as archdemon.

I still didn’t like that the power differential for this meeting would not be quite equal, with three archangels facing two archdemons and a powerful seraph. It couldn’t be helped, though, and my unease was more of an instinctual nature, since there was little risk of this meeting turning into a fight. None of us would dare go there. It was simply my deeply ingrained sense of strategy that whispered it would make for a better impression to appear on equal footing.

Uriel was the first to land, finding purchase on the slope of the cupola with angelic grace. Like us, she kept her wings out, and the sunlight glinted off the gold striations in her otherwise pristine white plumage. The snowy feathers made for a striking contrast to her dark brown skin and the black of her tightlybraided hair. She eyed us as the other two archangels touched down beside her.

A small leather band tied at the back of his head held the upper part of Gabriel’s wheat-colored hair off his face, his fair skin warmly dusted with gold. Like Uriel, he was dressed in warriors’ clothing, parts of his armor reinforced with the gleaming metal favored by angels. At his hip hung an intimidating sword, the hilt of which he had a casual grasp on.

When my eyes tracked to Raphael, my muscles tensed involuntarily, a visceral reaction to my only previous experience of meeting him—in a blood-drenched room, bound and beaten, feeling his blade cut into my skin.

Then, he’d looked just as cold and unfazed as he did now, his face of porcelain color calm, almost placid. His glossy black hair was tied back in a braid, thick lashes framing his ice-blue eyes, which were slightly tilted up at the corners, like Verrin’s.

When his gaze found me, he stilled, those glacial eyes widening the tiniest bit.

That tension in my muscles increased, and I kept a tight leash on my surging power.

Had he recognized me?

It was Gabriel who broke the strained silence and pulled my attention from Raphael. “We are here,” he said without greeting and preamble. “What is the reason you requested this meeting?”

Since I was the one at the center of the issue, and the designated leader of Hell, I spoke up despite Gabriel’s gaze resting on Daevi. It was a given that he’d address her, since, in his eyes, she’d be the senior demon among us. He probably knew her from before her fall.

“We come to you with news about the future of Hell,” I said.

Gabriel looked at me, surprise and curiosity written across his face. To him, I had to be but a babe. Like the other archangels, he’d been around since ancient times, had seen thebirth of humanity and the original war, and he carried the weight of the ages on his shoulders.

I shushed the whisper of inadequacy inside me and focused on the fact that I held enough power to have climbed the ranks in record time, that I had earned this position with iron determination and an impressive amount of strength.

Age did not always correlate with power.

“Lucifer is abdicating,” I said into the weighted silence.

Uriel gasped, Gabriel’s hand spasmed around the hilt of his sword, and Raphael pressed his lips into a thin line.

“He cannot do that,” Gabriel said eventually.

“Yes,” Daevi cut in calmly, “he can. There are no laws forbidding him from doing so.”

“He neither needs nor asks Heaven’s permission.” I folded my wings tighter to my back to minimize the pull of the wind on them. “He will forsake his right to the throne and become but a regular demon. Eventually, he will stay on Earth and live out his life as a human.”

“He will become human?” Raphael asked with disgust written all over his face.

“What about the truce?” This came from Uriel, her brown eyes glinting with concern.

“It will be upheld by his successor.”

“And who is it,” Raphael asked with quiet menace, “that is going to succeed him?”

I paused for a beat, then I said, “Me.”

Awkward silence reigned for a moment.

It was Gabriel who broke it, again. His dark blond brows drawing together, he studied me. “And who are you?”

If Zoe had been here, she’d have laughed. Not just at the fact that these archangels hadn’t even asked for my name at the beginning of this meeting, dismissing me out of hand, but alsoat the irony that this demon they’d colossally underestimated would now be the one leading their enemy realm.

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