Page 78 of Hell's Prisoner
“Yes.”
“Finding you lying in a pool of blood and knowing you didn’t recognize me when you looked at me. Watching you kiss that siren like she was your whole world. Knowing how much it hurt you when I agreed to Vepar’s demand that you watch me take the punishment for the human. Every time I used my powers on you, not even thinking about how much of a violation that was. How am I any better than the demons that tortured you?”
“Stop it.” I cupped her cheeks between my wrapped hands. “You arenothinglike the demons who messed with my head. You only ever wanted to help me, to make things better. And I knew. When you used your powers to take away my pain or calm me down, I knew what you were doing. It wasn’t the same. Not at all.” I needed her to believe that.
“Can I try?” she asked, nodding toward the punching bag.
My lips curved up. “Of course.” I pulled her over to a bench and reached for a cloth wrap, slowly winding the fabric around her knuckles.
* * *
The tournament was heldin Sathanas’s mansion. The whole first floor was open space with multiple cages set up around the room. The place was packed, and there had been a dull roar of noise since I’d first walked in the door.
It had been five days now, and the fights were still going strong. There must have been a hundred demons competing at the start. Now there were significantly fewer of them.
I stepped out of one of the cages, wiping black blood from the corner of my mouth, and scanned the crowd for Laila. She’d been glued to either Roth’s or Carter’s side since the tournament started.
My eyes landed on her, and my heart kicked up in my chest. She was already walking toward me, pushing through the demons around her like they were nothing more than flies—unworthy of her attention.
She took my hand when she reached me and headed for a door that led to what resembled a locker room.
“Sit,” she ordered, pointing toward a bench.
I obeyed, dropping onto the bench and watching her step between my legs.
Her thumb trailed over my split lip. “Are you okay?”
I nodded. “I’ve had way worse than this, snow angel. I promise I’m fine.”
Her hands linked behind my neck, under my braided hair, and she dropped her forehead to mine. “You remember when you told me you’d do anything for me?”
“Yeah.” She was so close I could practically taste her lips.
“Win for me,” she said. “I need you to stay alive, to be okay.”
“I will, sweetness. I swear it.”
A couple of hours later, I was watching the fight in the cage in the center of the room, waiting to see which demon I would be facing next. I was pretty sure Sathanas liked the idea of seeing me in the final match. I’d yet to fight anyone who’d been particularly difficult to beat, and watching some of the other fights had proven there were demons in this room who could give me a run for my money on a normal day.
This wasn’t a normal day though. I had much more than my life on the line. I was fighting for Laila’s chance at getting out of Hell, for my promise to her that I would win. No one else had as much riding on this tournament. It was one thing to fight for your life; it was something else entirely to fight for the person you loved most in the world.
I threaded the black fabric of the wrap through my fingers without taking my eyes off the match in front of me.
When I stepped into the cage after what felt like an eternity, I thought about what my brothers would think if they could see me now.
Four years ago, the idea that I’d be in a competition in the Prince of Wrath’s house, fighting demons for sport, would have seemed crazy. After spending nearly five weeks in the Devil’s court, I’d grown used to socializing with demons. Seeing them in their own land was different than seeing them on Earth. Here, lesser demons were servants. Without humans to tempt and torture, they were fairly harmless. The greater demons who held titles were still assholes, but there really weren’t very many of them. There were far more of their children, demons who’d grown up without titles and would never gain them unless someone in their family tree happened to die. They were oddly human—immoral and slaves to the sins the original Fallen ruled over—but not actively evil.
I studied the demon who stood between me and victory. He was well-built, a fighter through and through. He was dressed like me, in nothing but shorts, combat boots, and the cloth wrapped around his hands. Sweat coated his bare chest and buzzed head. I didn’t think Abadon had been exaggerating when he said demons trained for this their whole lives. I could believe this demon had been doing just that.
For the first time today, my back burned with the need to spread my wings. I could fight just fine without them, but they gave me an advantage, helped with balance and my control over my body. I pushed down the urge to let them out. I didn’t need them to win this. I’d first learned to fight with my fists and feet, long before I joined the secret order and Micah handed me a weapon. And it had taken hardly any effort to go back to that after Sam locked my axes away as a precaution since we didn’t know how losing my soul would affect everything else about me.
I flexed my fingers at my sides. It was showtime.
We met in the middle of the cage. I knew my greatest advantage at the moment was the element of surprise. I didn’t fight like a demon. I’d trained with humans and angels of three different orders. I was a messenger who’d chosen a different path, and that made me unique. This demon didn’t know what to expect from me.
I’d spent the whole tournament waiting for my opponents to attack me, playing it safe. Letting them come to me, forcing them to make the first move, allowed me to control where the fight happened and tended to make the demons underestimate me. It was also crucial when I was protecting someone else.
But in this cage, there was nothing to protect, and I was done letting the demons underestimate me. It was time to prove that I belonged in this fight.
