Page 63 of The Road to Hell

The third punch split the skin of my knuckles, but I didn’t feel it. I didn’t feel anything except the deep, writhing rage that clawed its way up my throat, demanding blood.

Calyx let out a strangled laugh, hands coming up to grip my wrist. “Well, that escalated quickly.”

“You think this is funny?” My voice shook with rage. My wings flared, my grip tightening around his throat. “Fix it. Now.”

Calyx’s bloodied lips curled, his usual arrogance bleeding into something darker. “You think I did this on purpose?” he rasped. His fingers dug into my wrist, but he made no move to fight back. “She fought me. Harder than I expected. I got her past the door, but whatever’s inside? That’s all on her.”

I bared my teeth, my patience snapping like a thread stretched too thin. “Bring her back.”

Calyx let out a slow breath, his head turning toward Lily’s still form before he turned back to me. “I don't know if I can.”

Rage sparked anew. Before I could stop myself, I slammed him into the ground. Calyx uttered a pained grunt, but he still didn’t fight back.

Before he could gather his wits, I unsheathed my sword and pressed the edge against the thin column of his throat. A bead of blood welled against the metal blade, stark against his pale skin.

Lily never should have trusted him. Nothing good came from Lucifer’s fallen. I knew that better than anyone—hadlivedthat truth. Lucifer had created us to destroy, to wage war, to tear the world apart at its seams. And Lily was the one who had pulled me from that darkness. She was pure goodness, the only light in my desolate world.

Without her, there was nothing but darkness.

Without her, I was nothing but another one of Lucifer’s monsters.

I stared at the blood on Calyx’s lips, and something deep inside me stirred. The hunger surged, hot in my gut. My fangs ached and for a single moment, all I wanted was to tear out his throat and drown in the violence of it.

“Rathiel.” Eliza’s voice cut through the pounding in my skull. “You kill him, and then what?”

My breathing turned ragged, and my vision blurred at the edges with fury. Calyx coughed beneath me, shifting slightly, but I pressed down harder on my blade, daring him to move.

“Think, Rathiel!” Eliza snapped. “If he dies, we lose the only person who has any idea what’s happening to her. He might be the only person capable of waking her up.”

I tore my gaze away from Calyx long enough to glance back at her, my fangs still bared and fingers still trembling around my sword’s hilt. Her eyes briefly widened, but then she walked toward me and laid a hand on my shoulder.

“You can kill him later. But right now, Lily needs you,” she said, her words slow and voice calm, as though sensing just how close I was to completely losing it.

I inhaled through my nose, every fiber of my being screaming at me to spill his blood. But Eliza was right.

Lily came first.

With a growl, I shoved off Calyx and stalked back to her side, kneeling beside her once more. My hands hovered over her, useless. I didn’t know what to do. Didn’t know how to reach her.

Calyx sat up with a wince, rubbing his bleeding throat. “Well,” he rasped, “that was fun.”

I ignored him, my focus solely on Lily. “What do we do?”

“There’s nothing we can do,” he said, rubbing his already bruising jaw. “At least, not yet. She has to sort this out herself. The mind is a fragile thing, you know. And you fucked with it when you took her memories in the first place. What exactly did you expect to happen?”

I forced myself to focus on Lily. On the rise and fall of her chest—too slow, too shallow.

“How long?” I demanded.

Calyx wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. “Depends. Could be minutes. Could be hours. Could be days.” He tilted his head, considering. “Or she might never wake up at all.”

“Great response, dumbass,” Eliza muttered.

“She’ll wake up,” I said, more to myself than anyone else.

Calyx rolled out his shoulders like he could shake off the tension seeping into the cavern. “Maybe.”

That was it. No elaboration, no reassurance—just maybe.

---