Page 26 of All's Hell That Ends Well

My breath got stuck in my throat. My stomach couldn’t decide between fluttering excitement and roiling nausea.

“Right at this moment,” Lucifer went on, “he is but four rooms from here. Waiting for my response to his request to meet with you.”

So close. He was so close to me.

And yet he might have been miles away for all the good it did us both. If Lucifer didn’t give his permission…

My heart pounded so fast and heavily that I felt the drumbeat of my pulse in every part of my body.

“What does it feel like,” Lucifer asked quietly, his eyes holding canyons of darkness, “not being able to be with him?”

I drew in a sharp breath. Was this some kind of trick question? Honestly, every damn inquiry out of his mouth felt like one! Ugh, why couldn’t he be just a tad less terrible?

Reining in my rising temper, I replied, “Like being cut off from half of my soul, Your Grace.”

Something flashed in the stygian abyss of his gaze.

My voice trembling, I asked, “May I see him?”

Silence, but for the sound of my quickened breathing and the thumping of my heart.

“Do you want me to beg?” I whispered.

His unfathomably black gaze held mine for a long moment. “You would, wouldn’t you?”

Yes.

Immediately.

I’d get down on my knees and crawl across the floor if he wanted me to, if that was what it took to make him grant me this.

I didn’t even care about schemes or agendas anymore. About whether this was part of some fucked-up plan to hurt me. I had no mind to filter my response to play whatever sick game he’d set up—all I had in me right now was to give way to my true, genuine reaction upon hearing that Azazel was actually in the same building as me, that he might be just a few rooms over, that I wasthisclose to seeing him.

I’d give anything, do anything, to be back in his arms.

“I don’t want your pleas,” Lucifer said, no warmth in his tone.

My heart flipped over in my chest. “Then…may I go to him?”

“No.”

Just like that, one word could shatter my entire composure.

My breath hitched, and I balled my hands into fists. “No?” The air rushing into my lungs felt like acid. “He’s right here, just a few rooms over, wishing, hoping to see me, and you just flat-out deny his request? For what reason? Just for shits and giggles? It wouldn’t hurt you one bit to grant us this! Please let me see him.”

He leaned forward and bared his teeth. “No.”

The air around me heated with the rage inside me that was reaching a boiling point. “If Lilith were here right now,” I said through gritted teeth, my fury erasing all thoughts of diplomacyor appeasement, “she would tell you to stop being a dick and let me see him.”

The temperature in the room dropped to freezing in the blink of an eye. Vengeance sat up and whined. Frost licked over the floor, and my breath steamed in front of me.

“You dare?” Lucifer whispered harshly.

My pulse echoed in my head, my limbs feeling numb. And yet, I wouldn’t back down. “She would hate to see you like this,” I hissed. “Do you think this is what she would have wanted? She gave me her favor. She was my friend.” My eyes filled with tears, the heat of them a stark counterpoint to the freezing cold in the air. “She treated me with kindness, and she explicitly told you not to be cruel to me. And here you are, ignoring her wishes and indulging in the kind of sadistic games that made her wither away!”

“Watch your tongue!” he snarled and shot up from his chair. Darkness pulsed around him. Thin black lines feathered out from his eyes as if some toxin spread through his veins. “You speak of things you know nothing about!”

“She told me!” I yelled back.

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