Page 141 of All's Hell That Ends Well

“None taken,” my mom replied with a dignified nod.

“I can decide what to do with her,” Naamah continued. “And if I want to stuff one of my souls into a box and take her for a trip, who’s going to stop me?” She shrugged and lifted both hands in the air, her expression all innocence, with just a hint of mischief.

With a relieved laugh, I stood and hugged her. “Thank you!”

“Don’t mention it, sweetie,” she murmured, squeezing me tight. Releasing me, she added, “And this is not limited to a onetime visit, you know? Anytime you and your mother want to chat, just send me a letter, and I’ll make it happen.”

“You’re the best.”

She flicked her braid over her shoulder, her face alight with a sly smile. “Oh, I know.”

Chuckling, I turned back to my mom.

“Tell me all about your new life,” she said and pulled at me to sit on a boulder. “I have heard of some of your adventures, but not in detail. I want to know everything.” With a smile, she added, “And tell me about Azazel. Tell me the story of you two. He seems to be wonderful.”

With a knot in my throat, I nodded. “He is.” I sniffed and wiped a new tear away. “He’s everything and more.”

And then I recounted the strange, unpredictable, amazing tale of how a botched seance at the age of thirteen had made me the Queen of Hell, with the love of my life at my side.

A few days later,I stood on a glacier under the endless Arctic sky, Mammon at my side, both of us watching the horizon for the demon who would meet us.

“I still don’t understand,” I muttered, unbelievably glad that I didn’t feel the cold here as a human would. “This doesn’t seem like a good idea. Are you sure this won’t end in bloodshed?”

“Why?” Mammon turned a perplexed look on me.

“I don’t know.” I threw up my hands. “Maybe because you gave his true name to a human, which led to him having to perform the humiliating task of acting out that human’s messages in front of me?”

“Nah.” Mammon slid his hands in his pockets and rocked on his heels. “He doesn’t hold a grudge.”

“Seriously? That goes contrary to everything I’ve heard about Belial.”

“In fact,” Mammon said with a sly grin, “he’s grateful. Said he owes me.”

I lowered my chin and gave him an incredulous look. “For fucking up his life?”

“Quite on the contrary,” he murmured. “Oh, here he comes.”

With unmatched speed, Belial approached the glacier where we stood and then landed in front of us, his wing beats whirling up the fine dusting of fresh snow that had fallen.

With his impressive height, the broad shoulders, and muscles all over his body, he looked like he crushed boulders with his bare hands and then ate the pebbles for breakfast. His features weren’t quite as finely drawn as those of most other demons, yet he was still arrestingly beautiful, in a primordial, hewn-from-rough-stone kind of way. He was ruggedly handsome, and I had no doubt he had a panty-liquefying effect on most women when he entered a room.

Not on me, though. I preferred my dude with silky black hair, storm-gray eyes, and a smile that turned my knees to pudding.

“My queen,” Belial said in greeting and went down on one knee. When he rose to his feet again, he stepped up to Mammon, reaching for him.

I was about to jump between them to prevent the aforementioned bloodshed, but Mammon clasped Belial’s arm and pulled him into one of those manly, back-thumping hugs.

I was sure I stared at them with my eyes bulging wider than those of the fish swimming somewhere below us in the frigid water.

“You’re…you’re okay? With each other?” I gestured between them.

“Of course,” Mammon said. “Itoldyou.”

“But—how?”

Smirking, Mammon glanced at Belial. “Show her. It’s time she found out.”

His eyes glinting ominously, Belial reached into his pocket, pulling out—yet another soul-transport box.

---