Page 23 of The Road to Hell

“No, Lily. I’m not an angel,” he snapped.

His tone startled me into silence. And no matter how hard I stared, he wouldn’t look at me.

“Uh, what argument did I just start?” Eliza questioned.

Rathiel’s gaze shot to her, cold and distant. When he didn’t speak, Eliza looked at me for clarification.

I sighed. When I’d first introduced Eliza and Mason to Rathiel, I hadn’t exactly given them a full history lesson. I’d covered the basics—his connection to me and my father—but I’d left out the finer details. At the time, it hadn’t seemed necessary.

But considering we were now trekking through Hell together, perhaps it wouldn’t hurt to give a little more context. Especially because she didn’t know he fed on blood. That seemed like something I should share with the class.

“Rathiel is technically a vampire,” I told her. “The progenitor of the species, in fact.”

Her eyes widened. “As in, the first ever made?”

“Mm-hmm,” I murmured. “Technically, none of the fallen are celestials anymore, thanks to my father. Gremory, Gavrel, Rathiel…” I gestured toward him. “They all chose to fall alongside my father. But when they landed here, Lucifer saw an opportunity to make them into something else. Before he shaped Hell into the lovely place it is now, the realm was little more than a void—a black hole where the worst souls resided until they repented. My father changed that. He remade it. And he remade his most loyal too.”

I glanced at Rathiel, whose shoulders had tensed.

“My father came across demons native to this realm and, in essence, let them possess his fallen.” I said. “Two beings forced into one. Lucifer called it a gift, but really, it was a punishment—a way of ensuring his fallen could never abandon him and return to Heaven.”

“He made us into monsters,” Rathiel growled.

“Rath, no?—”

“But her?” he interrupted, gesturing to me. “She’s perfect. No matter what Lucifer has done to her, she’s still…pure. She’s the best of us, the best either Heaven or Hell has to offer. And she always will be.”

The raw conviction in his voice stole my breath. My chest tightened as I tried to process his words.

“Rathiel,” I started, but my voice faltered. The way he looked at me—like I was something untouchable, something beyond his reach—unsettled me more than I cared to admit. He was wrong, so deeply wrong, about himself. But how could I convince him when he so clearly believed it?

Eliza shifted beside me, her brows furrowed as her gaze darted between us. Her confusion was evident, though she said nothing. Instead, she gave me a pointed glance, her eyes silently asking what the hell was going on between us.

I ignored her, my focus locked on Rathiel. “You’re not a monster,” I said, my tone firm. “You’ve done things, yes. We all have. But that doesn’t define who you are. You’re more than what he made you.”

Rathiel shook his head, a bitter laugh escaping his lips.

“It’s true,” I said, my tone hardening. “You’ve made mistakes but so have we all. No matter what, though, you’re here. You’re fighting to save Hell, to save me, to right all my father’s wrongs. That’s not what a monster does, Rathiel.”

When he didn’t respond, I placed a hand on his arm and squeezed, my fingers kneading his flesh. “You are not Lucifer’s weapon anymore.”

“No, I’m yours,” he said gruffly, though he gave me a small, albeit forced, smile.

I chuckled and bumped his shoulder with mine. “And don’t you forget it.”

Eliza’s gaze ping-ponged between us, her lips pressed into a thin line. Finally, she crossed her arms and leaned slightly toward me. “So…there’s definitely some history here between you two,” she said, her tone dry but tinged with curiosity.

“A lotof history,” I admitted. A history I couldn’t fully remember. But now wasn’t the time to dwell on that. I was Lucifer’s daughter, but I wasn’t in the habit of kicking others when they were down. And right now, Rathiel was way down.

“We should get moving,” I repeated, bringing us full circle. “It’ll take hours to reach the cliffs.”

If it were just Rathiel and I, he likely would have flown me there. But Eliza’s presence complicated things. There was no way he’d leave me alone while he flew her all the way to the cliffs. So, walking it was.

Eliza raised a brow but didn’t press further. Rathiel simply nodded, falling into step beside me as we started toward the cliffs in the distance. The tension between us lingered, but I forced it aside. There were more pressing concerns to focus on—like surviving Hell.

ChapterSeven

LILY

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