Chapter Twelve—Liith
Angelina's POV
I couldn't stop shaking.
Back in the cage, chains reattached, I sat with my back against the cold bars and tried to process what had just happened.
I won't be able to keep pretending I don't still love you.
He loved me. Still. After everything. After a thousand years of hatred and bitterness and planning his revenge. Somewhere beneath all that darkness, he still loved me.
And I had no idea what to do with that information.
My fingers moved to my hair, finding strand after strand of black. I didn't need to count them anymore. I could feel the corruption spreading like ice through my veins. Could feel myself changing with every passing hour.
But was it really corruption? Or was it just becoming something that could exist in this place? Something that could survive Hell without breaking?
I pulled my knees tighter to my chest. The memory sphere had shown me everything. Showed me loving him with an intensity that terrified me. Showed me willing to fall, to give up Heaven itself, just to stay by his side.
And then showed me choosing to forget.
Why had I done that? What kind of person chooses to erase the love of their life rather than carry the pain of losing them?
A coward, I thought bitterly. The kind of person who takes the easy way out.
"You're thinking too loud."
I looked up to find a woman standing outside my cage. She hadn't been there a moment ago. Just appeared like smoke materializing into form.
She was beautiful in a way that felt dangerous. Red hair that moved like it was alive. Black eyes with no whites, no pupils, just pure darkness. Her body shifted between solid and shadow, never quite settling on one form.
"Who are you?"
"Lilith." She smiled, and it was all teeth. Sharp teeth. "Daemon's second favorite pet. Or I was, until you showed up."
I stood slowly, keeping my distance from the bars. Everything about her screamed predator.
"What do you want?"
"To see what all the fuss is about." She circled the cage, studying me like I was an interesting specimen. "You don't look like much. Silver hair going black, grace fading, probably another week before you're just another corrupted soul in his collection." She stopped directly in front of me. "So why does he look at you like you're the only thing in existence that matters?"
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Liar." She laughed. "I've known Daemon for nine hundred years. Shared his bed for most of them. And never, not once, has he looked at me the way he looks at you." Her smile sharpened. "It's pathetic, really. The great fallen angel, brought low by feelings for something he's supposed to be destroying."
"If you're trying to make me feel special, you're doing a terrible job."
"Oh, I'm not trying to make you feel anything." She pressed her face close to the bars. "I'm trying to figure out if you're worth killing."
My wings flared instinctively. "Try it. See what happens."
"Brave words for someone in chains." But she stepped back, still smiling. "Don't worry. I'm not going to kill you. Not yet. That would be too easy, and it would make him sad." She said the last word like it was poison. "No, I think I'll let you live. Let you corrupt completely. Let him watch you turn into exactly the kind of monster he is."
"Why do you care?"
"Because he's wasting himself on you." The smile dropped. Real anger flickered across her features. "He could be conquering realms. Reshaping Hell into something magnificent. Instead, he's playing jailer to an angel who doesn't even remember loving him." She moved closer again. "You want to know what I think?"
"Not particularly."
"I think you're going to break his heart all over again. I think you're going to corrupt completely, become one of us, and then realize you never really loved him at all. That it was just Heaven's programming making you feel things that weren't real." Her black eyes gleamed. "And when that happens, when you look at him with nothing but indifference, it's going to destroy him worse than the fall ever did."
The words hit harder than they should have. Because there was truth in them. I didn't remember loving him. Didn't remember three hundred years of whatever we'd had. All I knew was what the memory sphere had shown me and this confusing pull I felt toward him now.
What if she was right? What if the corruption stripped away whatever made me capable of love? What if I ended up just another demon, cold and cruel and empty?
Heat spread across my scalp. More strands turning black.
Lilith's smile returned. "There it is. The fear. That's going to eat you alive, little angel. The fear that you'll become exactly what he's trying to make you." She turned to leave. "Enjoy your cage. I'll be back to watch the show."
She vanished in a swirl of shadows, leaving me alone with my racing thoughts.
I sank back down to the floor, touching my hair again. How much was left? Half? Less than half?
The door to the chamber opened. Daemon entered, but stopped when he saw my face.
"What happened?"
"Nothing."
"You're a terrible liar." He moved closer to the cage. "Who was here?"
"Does it matter?"
"If someone threatened you, yes." His expression darkened. "Tell me."
"Lilith." I met his eyes. "She wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Wanted to understand why you're wasting your time on me."
His jaw clenched. "What did she say?"
"That I'm going to break your heart again. That the corruption will turn me into something incapable of love, and when I look at you with nothing but indifference, it'll destroy you." I stood, moving to the bars. "Is she right?"
"She's jealous."
"That's not an answer."
He was quiet for a long moment. Then, "I don't know. Maybe. The corruption changes people. Takes away the parts that make them human. Or in your case, angelic." He reached through the bars, his fingers hovering near my face. "But I've been watching you. Watching how you change. And you're not becoming empty. You're becoming something else entirely."
"What?"
"I don't know yet." His hand dropped. "But I don't think it's what Heaven would call corruption. I think it's just... evolution."
"That's a generous interpretation from someone who's been trying to break me."
"Maybe I'm starting to realize breaking you isn't what I actually want." The admission seemed to cost him something. "Or maybe Lilith's right and I'm just pathetic."
I studied his face. Saw the conflict warring behind his eyes. The anger and desire and fear all tangled together.
"Daemon." I reached through the bars, taking his hand before he could pull away. "What you said in the memory room. About still loving me. Did you mean it?"
"Every word."
"Then why are you still doing this?" I gestured to the chains, the cage. "Why keep me locked up if you don't actually want to break me?"
"Because I'm terrified." The words came out raw. Honest. "Terrified that if I let you out, if I let myself care about you the way I used to, you'll leave. Or worse, Heaven will take you back and erase me from your mind all over again." His fingers tightened around mine. "At least this way, I know where you are. Know you can't choose to forget me."
"So you'd rather keep me prisoner than risk losing me."
"Yes." No hesitation. "I'd rather have you hate me and be here than love me and be gone."
The honesty of it was brutal. Selfish. Exactly what I'd expect from the devil.
And somehow, I understood it.
"I can't promise I won't leave," I said quietly. "I can't promise anything about what I'll become or how I'll feel when the corruption is complete." I squeezed his hand. "But I can promise I won't forget you. Not again. Not ever."
"You can't promise that. Heaven—"
"Heaven doesn't control me anymore." I pulled his hand closer, pressing it against my cheek. "Whatever I'm becoming, it's not their perfect angel. And maybe that means I get to make my own choices this time."
He stared at me like I'd just offered him something impossible. Something he wanted desperately but didn't dare believe in.
"Don't do that," he whispered. "Don't give me hope. It's cruel."
"Then we're even." I turned my face, pressing my lips against his palm. "You've been cruel to me since the moment I arrived. Let me return the favor."
His breath caught. For a moment, I thought he might pull away. Might retreat back into his armor of bitterness and revenge.
Instead, he opened the cage door.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
"Something stupid." He reached for my chains, and they fell away with a thought. "Come here."
I stepped out of the cage on shaking legs. The first time I'd been truly free since arriving in Hell. I could run. Could try to find a way out.
But I didn't want to.
I wanted to understand what was happening between us. Wanted to figure out if this pull I felt was just residual memory or something new. Something real.
Daemon pulled me close, one hand tangling in my hair. Black and silver strands twisting together. His other hand rested on my lower back, holding me against him.
"Last chance to run," he said.
"I'm not running."
"You should."
"Probably." I looked up at him. "But I've never been very good at doing what I should."
He almost smiled. Almost. Then his lips were on mine, and everything else stopped mattering.
The kiss was nothing like I'd expected. Not violent or cruel or punishing. Just desperate. Like he was trying to prove through touch alone that this was real. That I was real.
I kissed him back with equal desperation, my hands fisting in his shirt. The corruption burned through me, but so did something else. Something that felt like memory trying to surface. Like my soul recognizing his even if my mind couldn't.
When we finally broke apart, both breathing hard, he rested his forehead against mine.
"This doesn't change anything," he said. "The chains. The cage. The corruption. It all continues."
"I know."
"I'm still going to break you."
"You can try." I pulled back enough to meet his eyes. "But I think I might break you first."
For the first time since I'd arrived in Hell, Daemon smiled. A real smile. Sad and beautiful and absolutely devastating.
"We'll probably just break each other," he said.
"Probably."
He kissed me again, softer this time. Then he stepped back, and the chains reappeared around my wrists. The cage door swung shut.
"Back to your prison, angel."
"I'm not an angel anymore."
"No." He looked at me with something that might have been pride. Or grief. Or both. "You're not."
He left me there, locked up but somehow feeling freer than I had in days.
Above me, the souls had stopped screaming. They just watched in silence as I touched my lips, still feeling the ghost of his kiss.
My hair was more black than silver now. But for the first time since arriving, I didn't feel like I was losing myself.
I felt like I was finally becoming who I was always meant to be.