Page 65 of Replaced Mate

Saying it aloud made my knees wobble, and the giant demon tilted his head in acknowledgment, still refusing to look at us as he explained.

“Some would call it that. I am generally content with my lot in life, but there are times that even I wish I were able to free myself.”

“How do you do it—break the bond, I mean?”

The instinct to help was overwhelming. Slaves. They wereallslaves—the angels and the demons both.

No wonder so many angels chose to work on Earth instead of staying in Heaven. It had been something I’d wondered, given that some took their orders directly from Him, and others rarely ever even mentioned the higher power all angels were beholden to.

“Willpower. You have to be so at odds with what you’ve been ordered to do that you’re able to free yourself from the command. Once you disobey the first one, the others have no power. Most masters are careful not to push that boundary, so there is often no opportunity to break the bond at all.”

Barimuz looked at us, then, and it was unnerving to see him look so angry. “I nearly broke it when he wanted me to infringe upon your mate bond. There were so many caveats laid in place to keep me from breaking free of him that Lucifer nearly scrapped the plan altogether.”

So what he was saying was that had this thrall bond not existed, he would not have done this at all. He valued the concept of the mate bond so highly that he’d nearly thrown away years of service to his master in defense of it.

I couldn’t help but soften at the realization.

Why, though?

“How did you end up in Hell, Barimuz?” Sariel asked before I could, I was desperate to know if he’d lived a despicable life and earned his place or if he’d been born into it, like my mate.

The fact that the rules of good and evil didn’t apply to angels had always been a sore subject for a lot of them. Some Fallen spent their whole lives trying to be good people in the hopes that it would matter in the end, and some of the Heaven-appointed angels were disgusting just because there were no real consequences for their actions. As long as they didn’t Fall, their place in Heaven was ensured.

Barimuz turned to look at us. “All Fallen go to Hell.”

The words were ominous but told us enough.

Barimuz likely hadn’t been a bad person in life—at least, not when put up against people like Azazel and Tarragon—and had been shoved down to Hell simply for being born with the wrong bloodline.

This whole system was so broken, and there was nothing that any of us could do about it.

Sariel was trembling behind me when I turned to face the Archdemon again, sighing softly.

“I was not a good person in life, Aria,” he interrupted before I could speak, “and I have not been that person for many,manyyears. I have enjoyed the lifestyle provided here for so long I don’t even remember that person’s name. Do not let this knowledge color your opinion of me too much.”

I swallowed the acceptance of his apology, pursing my lips as he spoke.

There was no need for him to expand on the ‘lifestyle’ of Hell—we hadn’t needed to see it firsthand, with how well-known the stories were—and he was right. If he’d been a good person when he died, he certainly wasn’t anymore.

“Did you have a mate before?” I pressed.

Honestly, this would just add more fuel to my emotional fire, but I needed to know. I had to hear him tell me why he’d taken part in our pain if he was so opposed to it.

Why hadn’t he broken free? Why hadn’t he tried to escape the thrall bond when the opportunity came up? Surely thecaveatsLucifer had come up with shouldn’t have mattered to him that much.

“No. Once you bleed demon blood, you don’t get one, so there is no ‘better half’ out there to help me make good choices.” Barimuz chuckled. “Thatisa remnant of my previous life, though. My parents were mates, and I spent my short life aching for one of my own, convinced they were out there waiting for me. I died before I could find them.”

A wistful look crossed his face as his head tilted back towards the ceiling for a moment.

“Some things from before never leave you, no matter how long it’s been,” he explained, then looked at Sariel with an unreadable gaze. “Even if you walk the path I did, your mate bond will always be with you. My parents sank into the Dark eons ago together, yet didn’t feel the thrall bond a single moment of their stay here. Lucifer was infuriated by their refusal to obey him, so he cast them to the darkest part of Hell rather than deal with any potential rebellions.”

There was a warning in that story for us. When he looked into each of our faces and saw we’d picked it up, he nodded slowly. “Tread carefully. I would hate for the two of you to share their fate.”

“Did you try to find them?”

Barimuz shrugged. “I was ordered to leave them there.”

So he’d had to, I knew. Even if they were down there and that knowledge bothered him, he’d been told to leave them, and so he’d been forced to.

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