Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

I t wasn’t that I liked hellrats all that much. In fact, considering that I’d almost been killed and eaten by one, I certainly harbored no warm feelings for the large rodents. They were pests, and when I’d been a human, they’d posed a real threat to me, which was one of the reasons I’d been in need of a guard dog like Vengeance to keep me safe.

But that didn’t mean I wanted to see them suffer. I’d gladly let Mephisto or Vengeance hunt them to keep the population controlled, but at least they weren’t cruel about it.

Well, that was mostly true for Mephisto and his ilk, because cats did like to play with their food a bit.

That was the difference, though. For cats and dogs, the rats were food. There was a purpose to the violence of killing them.

For these demons, on the other hand, the cruelty and violence were the purpose. Not to mention that a single cat hunting a rat that was half its size was a hell of a lot fairer than three adult demons ganging up on one rat. The rodent here didn’t stand a chance, whereas with cats and dogs, the rats often did get away. Even the best predators in the wild only had about a fifty percent success rate in hunting.

At my shout, the tall, silver-haired demon paused his attack and glanced my way. The other two demons also looked up. As soon as their attention was off the rat, it scurried away, impressively fast for the number of injuries it had suffered. Its fur was scorched, the skin blistered, the tail half missing, and it was bleeding from several open wounds.

My chest drew tight, hot anger pulsing underneath my skin. What these demons had done to it was beyond barbaric, and I was glad the rat had gotten away. No matter my feelings about these rodents, no animal deserved to be hurt that way.

“We should go,” Haniel muttered from beside me, a note of urgency in his voice.

But it was too late. I’d caught the attention of those bastards.

“And who would you be?” the silver-haired demon said, sauntering over to me, his two cronies trailing him.

He stopped in front of me, his power a cold shock against my senses. Like all of his kind—my kind as well now—he was ethereally beautiful, his features perfectly aesthetic, an enthralling blend of masculine hardness and smooth elegance. Yet, whereas Azazel’s beauty stoked a fire deep within me, making my knees go weak with awe, this demon’s good looks caused something inside me to recoil. The hairs on my arms and neck rose in primal warning even before he reached out a hand to snag my chin. Revulsion pulsed through me at his touch.

I yanked my chin out of his grasp and wanted to slap his arm away, but he caught my wrist with the speed of a striking snake.

“A new demon, hm?” His lip curled into a mockery of a smile as he squeezed my wrist hard enough to hurt. “And claimed for this territory, I see.”

I had no idea how he could tell all of that. Maybe something in my energy?

He spoke again before I could ruminate on it further. “Wait, aren’t you that human? The one from the Fall Festival?”

God, that shit would haunt me forever, wouldn’t it? I cringed, remembering just how much of a fool I’d made of myself under the influence of amrit.

“But you’re not a human any longer,” the demon mused, still holding my wrist in his grasp. “Curious.” He leaned in, the feel of his power making my skin crawl. “But even if you’re now a cherub, I still outrank you, and you should have greeted me with the proper respect. Not to mention you just lost me my current entertainment. Seems only fair that you’ll replace it.”

Wait, what? A cherub? That couldn’t be right. I’d been a throne in Heaven. How?—

Next to me, Haniel cleared his throat. “Lord Samael, I request that you unhand her.”

I froze, my eyes widening.

Samael . The charts and family trees Azazel and Azmodea had made me learn prior to the Fall Festival flashed before my inner eye. In preparation for my presentation before Lucifer, they’d insisted that I study the hierarchy of his court to know who was who and how they all related to each other, lest I get into trouble by not greeting someone properly or speaking out of turn to someone I should avoid.

Samael had been pointed out to me as such a someone to avoid.

He was Lucifer’s son .

One of three, to be precise, but the only one who was part of the Devil’s court. The other two lived with their mothers, in other archdemonacies. Samael was a powerful seraph, his mother the archdemon Ashtaroth, and from all I’d heard, his penchant for cruelty more than matched his dad’s.

Family connections down here among demons were complex and muddy and super important all at the same time. Of Lucifer’s six children—all with different mothers—only three lived in his own territory. Or rather, had lived.

Naamah, after all, was famously gone.

Besides Samael, the only other offspring residing in Lucifer’s domain was Safrit, his daughter by the seraph Fureas. That alone showed that they held Lucifer’s favor more than the others, though no one had ever come close to how much Naamah had meant to him.

As Azmodea had explained it to me, it wasn’t that he didn’t care about any of his other kids at all, but they simply ranked a bit lower in his regard. Some, apparently, were even a bit estranged from him, and boy, could I understand that .

Samael, though, held a high position on the list of relatives, and he’d been part of Lucifer’s inner court back when I’d had to prepare for the Fall Festival. I hadn’t seen him when I’d appeared before Lucifer, but he must have been among the crowd for him to have recognized me.

And now he was right in front of me, staring at me with the kind of unsettling attention of a bored kid who’d just spotted a bug to harass.

Still holding on to my wrist, his grip painful, he said, “I don’t take orders from you, Haniel.”

“That order isn’t mine,” Haniel retorted, “but your father’s.”

Samael’s eyes, their color an unnatural deep red, flicked from me to Haniel.

“His Grace has decreed that she is not to be touched,” Haniel said. “He has claimed her as his ward, and she is to be brought directly to him. If any harm comes to her, you will have to answer to him yourself.”

Samael’s gaze swung back to me, and his eyes narrowed. His power seared my skin, and for a moment, he tightened his grip until I thought my bones would snap. Then he released me and gave me a smile that was chillingly hollow.

“Run along, then, little mouse.” His wine-red eyes glittered. “Give my father my best.”

I glared at him as Haniel grabbed me by my upper arm and dragged me forward.

Oh, I could definitely see the relation between him and Lucifer. That apple didn’t fall far from the tree. In fact, it might still be stuck to it, rotting at the core and all.

“If you want to make it here,” Haniel hissed, pulling me around the next corner, “then you best keep your mouth shut and your head down. Especially around him .”

I blinked at him. Genuine advice? From Mr. I’m just here to deliver you to Lucifer ?

“Wouldn’t Lu—” I caught myself and corrected, “Wouldn’t His Grace’s decree of protection keep others from harming me?”

I remembered how Lilith bestowing her favor on me had been considered an almost fail-safe armor against any attacks.

Haniel clucked his tongue. “Would have. Once. Things aren’t…what they used to be. If I were you, I wouldn’t rely on that to keep my head on my shoulders.”

Dread curled in my stomach. I felt like I’d been thrown into raging waters with only a rickety raft to clutch on to.

Haniel escorted me further into the palace, and I recognized these particular hallways from the time Lilith had taken care of me and ordered me to straighten up her and Lucifer’s personal library. This was the more private wing of the residence, with Lucifer and Lilith’s chambers that were farther from the receiving rooms used for audiences.

My heart ached at the realization that Lilith wasn’t here anymore.

She’d been such a warm, kind, beautiful presence, a light in a sea of darkness. I felt her absence keenly as we walked through the wing that had once been her home, as if the walls and floors themselves grieved her passing. A real note of desolate sadness clung to the air, and it settled heavily on my chest with every breath I drew in.

With each turn we took, the hallway got progressively darker. Fewer and fewer candles were lit, gloom suffusing the corners and veiling the ceiling. Incongruously with the nature of Hell, cold seemed to crawl over the floor, like the chill whiff emanating from a tomb.

In fact, it felt like walking through a mausoleum.

“Should we light some more candles?” I whispered, not daring to raise my voice.

It wasn’t that I had trouble seeing, since my vision as a demon was near perfect even in the dark. But this gloom was creeping me out, and adding some more light might just help chase the chill from the back of my neck.

“I like my limbs all in place, thank you very much,” Haniel said. When I blinked at him in bewilderment, he added, “The last few folks who lit more of these candles have found themselves without hands for a couple of days.”

I shivered.

Finally, Haniel stopped in front of a door, knocked, and then opened it. Not going inside, he bowed deeply and said, “Your Grace. As you requested, I have claimed and fetched the new demon Zoe for you.”

And with that, he slapped his hand on my back and shoved me inside the room, closing the door behind me with a thwack that reminded me of the sound a lid might make when slamming down on a coffin.

It was even darker in here. And colder. So much colder. With my eyes able to see within the gloom, I could tell that my breath was frosting before me.

Frosting.

In Hell.

My heart beating like a drummer on speed, I scanned the room, noting the shreds of furniture, the ruins of what once might have been sofas and end tables, the tears of fabric on the walls indicating where tapestries used to hang.

A single candle illuminated the suffocating darkness, and there, just out of reach of its glow, slumped on a half-destroyed armchair, sat Lucifer.

I sucked in a breath.

His hair was still black.

Whatever effects had turned that once golden blond of his head to unrelenting obsidian in the wake of Lilith’s death, it persisted, same as the haggard look on his face and the pure midnight of his eyes.

Gone was the turquoise of his irises, that stunning hue that had reminded me of Caribbean lagoons, the same color that adorned Naamah’s eyes.

If this were the time to joke, I’d say that he’d turned into an emo-goth version of himself.

But it wasn’t a time for jokes, of course. More like an I’m jumping out of my skin with terror kind of time.

Because though I’d been afraid of Lucifer before, intimidated by the sheer amount of ancient power pouring off him, wary of his unpredictability, there’d still been a thread of…normality about him. I’d recognized him as a demon—immensely powerful, yes, but in the end, a being like all the others I’d met.

This creature before me didn’t feel in any way normal. It felt like something that had crawled out of some other dimension and barely fit into this world, breathing cold and darkness and the musty gloam of death.

Lucifer rose from his seat, and my soul recoiled in horror. I stumbled back a step, heart thumping against my rib cage, watching with wide eyes as he came closer until he stopped right in front of me.

For a moment, he stared down at me, the black of his eyes so absolute, like I’d imagine the primordial darkness before the creation of light. His power washed over me like an icy breeze, making my fingers numb from the cold.

Then he sank to his knees, wrapped his arms around my middle, and hugged me.