Page 107 of The Road to Hell

Agony.

A sound escaped from me, something raw, broken.

“This was always going to be the outcome,” Lucifer continued. “You were never going to win.”

I gritted my teeth, refusing to give him the satisfaction of a scream.

“Tell me, daughter.” He leaned down and gripped my throat, pinning me to the ground. “How does it feel to finally know your place?”

Somewhere deep inside me, something sparked. A flicker of power stirred to life in my chest—born of rage, or desperation, I couldn’t tell. But it was there. I reached for it—desperation clawing at my insides—but with a single wave of his hand, Lucifer ripped the fire away from me.

The flames guttered out, snuffed like a candle in the wind. Gone.

Again.

I was as helpless as a newborn hellcat, defenseless against him.

His grip tightened, his cold, unrelenting fingers digging into my skin as he lifted me up, holding me high in the air, my feet dangling uselessly above the ground. I clawed at his fingers, desperate for air, desperate for escape, but his hold didn’t falter. I couldn’t move, couldn’t fight. My wings hung limp behind me, and my heart drummed so violently, I feared it might burst.

“Did you truly think you could defy me?” my father demanded.

I gasped, struggling for a breath that refused to come. My chest heaved in vain, and my mouth gaped. Panic surged through me as darkness clawed at the edges of my vision. But it wasn’t just the suffocating grip on my throat—it was the crushing force of my father’s power. Lucifer didn’t just control the realm; he commanded it, bent it to his will. His fingers tightened and my wings twitched weakly, a pathetic reminder of how powerless I was in his grasp.

“Did you really think,” he growled, the sound vibrating through my bones, “you could stand against me?”

The ground trembled beneath us, the entire realm seeming to quake from the force of his fury. His black wings flared wide, casting a massive shadow over the battlefield. Even the distant geysers, which once roared with unrestrained passion, seemed to shrink, their flames sputtering under the weight of his presence.

I tried to summon my powers again, to call the fire to me, but not a single spark flared inside me. Lucifer had won. He’d beaten me, and he knew it.

“I will tear you apart,” Lucifer whispered, malice dripping from his every word.

A glint of cruel satisfaction lurked in his eyes before he slowly, deliberately, turned me in his grasp, his grip loosening. He faced me toward the battlefield, forcing me to look upon the devastation, and I sucked in a rasping breath. My fallen soldiers, the gutted remnants of my rebellion, lay strewn across the scorched ground, broken and defeated. Blood and ash coated their bodies, and my heart broke at the sight of their sacrifice.

But it wasn’t just the dead that surrounded us.

Lucifer’s forces stood like dark sentinels amidst the carnage, their eyes fixed on me. They encircled us, an audience to my destruction, their expressions cold, indifferent to the violence. This was no longer just punishment—it was a spectacle. A message to all who dared defy him.

Lucifer loosened his grip just enough for me to drag in a lungful of air.

And then the agony struck.

It was sudden, brutal.

His fingers dug into the base of my wings. Searing agony shot through my back like liquid fire, spreading with an unbearable heat that consumed everything in its path.

A scream erupted from my throat—raw and ragged, echoing across the battlefield. My father tore asunder every shred of muscle and bone. Blood poured down my back in hot, sticky streams as he ripped my wings from my back, piece by piece.

I gasped for breath between screams, my body convulsing with each savage wrench. Lucifer didn’t pause, didn’t hesitate. Every movement was deliberate, every second filled with unbearable torment. He wasn’t just ripping my wings from my body—he was destroying me. Shredding my soul.

Finally, with one last, excruciating tear, my wings were gone. The scream that escaped me was ugly. A burning void seared across my back where my wings had once been, and the pain, the loss, the overwhelming emptiness crashed over me in waves. My father had ruined me, left me nothing more than a shell of what I once was.

I sank into despair, wishing for the darkness to take me. If I could just sink into it, maybe I’d never resurface. Maybe I could finally be free. But amidst the torment, a sound cut through the haze.

A voice. Distant at first, muffled by the overwhelming pain crushing me.

“Lily!”

I barely heard it through the suffocating haze of agony. My body trembled violently, unable to handle the fact that my wings were just gone. My breath came in short, ragged gasps, my fingers twitching uselessly at my sides.

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