The soapy water in the metal bucket sloshes over the sides when he drops it to the stone floor.
Crouching down in front of me where I huddle in the corner, he dips his hand into the water and picks up the sponge. After squeezing out the excess water, he grabs my chin. Despite my futile attempts to wrench free, he swipes the sponge through the tears and dirt on my cheeks. His calloused fingers add more bruises to my already sore skin, and I whimper as he angles my face up to wipe the column of my throat. Bites and more bruises decorate the tender skin. He’s deceptively gentle while wiping off the excess blood before dipping the sponge into the bucket. He wrings out the excess water and sets to work again with soft swipes that are at odds with the violence he’s unleashed on my body since I entered this nightmare.
When I whimper again, he pauses at my collarbone, those dead eyes watching me from behind the mask. I want to rip it off him.
Abandoning the sponge in the bucket, he leans in close to my neck and slides his wet hand up the inside of my thigh. The cold bite of his mask makes my skin crawl as he whispers, “Mine.”
Everything about him repulses me. Hell has opened my eyes to a lot of horrors, but nothing holds a candle to this.
Speaking of candles, a group of pillar candles sits in the corner. Gone is the lone flame. Four of them flicker wildly, placed on a metal tray. My favorite pastime when I’m alone is to watch the wax drip down the sides in a race for the bottom.
When he picks the sponge back up, the water sloshes again. With his eyes on me, he palms my leg and slides the wet sponge over my shin. He takes his time, removing every piece of dirt and grit. And for some sickening reason, it brings tears to my eyes. This act of kindness threatens to obliterate the walls I’ve erected since my entrapment. I don’t want to feel. Numbness has been my ally. Yet this…
“I love my marks on you,” he whispers in that familiar voice I can’t place while swiping the sponge over a sore bite mark on my thigh. “A day will come when you do, too.”
“Go to Hell,” I snarl, stiffening when the sponge travels higher, tracing the hem of my skirt.
“We’re already here, remember? Besides,” he murmurs as the sponge disappears beneath the fabric. “I don’t need you to like my touch. It makes no difference.”
“Why are you doing this?” I hate the shaking in my voice. “You don’t want me. I’m no one.”
“On the contrary…”
The sponge is right there, sliding over my sore, swollen folds. I screw my eyes shut.
“You’re everything.”
I try to shut my legs, but he pries them open. My heart begins to thrash inside my chest when I look down to see the flames engulfing his hand as it hovers over my thigh.
“Deny me again, and I’ll burn you,” he threatens, making me whimper with icy fear.
As he leans in closer, I hold my breath. “There’s something about your fear that’s tantalizing.”
Cold water pools beneath my ass, and I’m both grateful and disgusted.
Grateful because he’s washing himself off me.
Disgusted because he’s touching me.
“Let’s take this dress off.”
“Please, no,” I beg, but it falls on deaf ears. Rough hands pry it off me, tearing the fabric in the process. When I’m naked, he brings a small flame to life at the tip of his finger and brings it close to my nipple.
I press back against the cold, damp concrete wall at my back.
“It doesn’t matter how much I hurt you,” he says absentmindedly, watching the flame create shadows that dance over my breast, like beasts chasing one another. “I can never get enough.”
“You said he wants me. Who were you speaking about?”
Snapped from whatever sinister daydream held him captivated, he stares at me from behind the mask. I hate that I can’t see his hair beneath the hood that obscures him from me. “He took everything from me.”
“Who?” I press, then cry out when the flame at his fingertip grows higher, singeing the flesh of my nipple. With a flick of his hand, it’s gone.
He grabs my throat, engulfing the tender skin with his large hand. “He thought I would go down without a fight. That I wouldn’t retaliate.” The palpable disgust in his voice washes over me like the bucket of water beside us. He releases me, picks it up, and dumps its soapy contents over my head. A river of cold water floods the floor as I squeal and begin to shiver almost violently.
Teeth chattering, I look up at him as he stands and stares down at me like I’m dirt beneath his shoe. He steps closer to finger my soaking hair. I’ve long since stopped trying to use my tied wings. I don’t even have my hellfire at my disposal. To say that I feel powerless would be an understatement.
“I can sense their desperation. They’re hunting for you.” Fingers sliding into the damp strands, he pulls tight. “Does that make you feel good, knowing they’re searching for you?”
Tears spring to my eyes, and I push up onto my knees when he continues to pull. “Does it soothe the darkness inside you?” I hiss. “To hurt me?”
“I’m only doing what he wishes he had the balls to do to a pretty little thing like you. It’s in our nature to dominate. And with big wings like yours, I’m surprised he didn’t chain you up already.” He snorts disgustedly, tossing me to the wet floor. “I’m not as weak as him.”
My wings ache to stretch out, to flare aggressively. I settle for baring my teeth instead, and he backhands me hard enough to send me flying into the wall. Pain explodes across my cheek, causing a whimper to shake my trembling shoulders. I huddle, knees drawn up to my naked chest.
“Don’t piss me off.”
The candles blow out, descending the room into darkness as he leaves. Wrapped up in a black, empty void, I palm my throbbing cheek. Shivers wrack my body, the icy cold slowly seeping into my bones.
“I want this nightmare to end,” I whisper. “Please, let it end.”
DAEMON
As we walk up the front steps to the house, I slow to a halt and cock my head sideways. “The door was closed when we left, right?”
Too absorbed by his phone, Ronan bumps into my back.
Beside me, Dari laughs as she opens the door the rest of the way and enters.
Ronan claps my shoulder on his way past, and I fight the urge to grab him by the wing and haul him down the front steps. I point an accusing finger at Amenadiel behind me. “Don’t try any funny business. This is my house.”
“You mean my brother’s house?” he quips, stepping past me.
Alaric grasps my shoulder too and jostles me. “Interesting ceasefire, huh?”
I sneer at him, about to open my mouth to speak when Dari’s voice steals my attention from inside the house. “Guys, you need to see this.”
Frowning, I walk inside with Alaric and Dmitriy on my heels. The first thing that hits me is the coppery smell.
“Blood,” Alaric says behind me, his voice thick with alarm.
I pick up my pace and shoulder past Amenadiel and Ronan. My eyes widen as I take in the state of the grand entrance. Blood covers every inch of every surface—blood and body parts.
“Your guards?” Dari asks, her voice barely audible over the loud rushing in my ears.
“She killed them all,” I whisper, stumbling deeper into the room. “Holy fuck…”
“Well, that’s what I call a massacre,” Amenadiel points out.
“We miss all the good parties,” Ronan grumbles, and I shoot him a look over my shoulder. With a shrug, he steps over a severed leg, trying damn hard not to chuckle under his breath. I wish I could see the funny side of it, but now I have to think of a way to explain to my dad why his entire hired guard is dead. I see that going down well.
“How is it that a female angel can cause such destruction by herself?” Alaric asks, and Dari snaps her head in his direction.
“Did you have to bring gender into this?”
Rolling his eyes, he continues, “Well… gender aside, it was one against how many?”
“Fifteen,” I mumble, dragging a hand down my face.
“How is this possible?” Dari asks. “We left her chained to the bed. Both wrists.”
“How the fuck am I gonna get this cleaned up?” I grumble, wincing when I step on a severed finger.
Amenadiel can’t hide the amusement in his eyes as he stands by the grand staircase and stares up at the chandelier. “I’m impressed by her inventiveness. I don’t think I’ve ever impaled someone on a chandelier and torched him.”
Looking green, Dari stares up at the charred corpse, too.
“I repeat, how the fuck am I gonna get this cleaned up before my dad returns?”
Ronan fishes a joint out of his pocket and puts it between his lips. “Hire a cleaning crew.” With a click of his fingers, he lights it. “The question I’d like to know the answer to is, where has the little witch gone?”
My eyes widen. “Fuck!”
Their laughter follows me upstairs as I run to find Genesis. She’s nowhere. The bedroom is empty except for a dead guard chained to the bedframe, his decapitated head sitting neatly on my bedside table.
There’s blood fucking everywhere.
Spinning on my feet, I check all the other rooms, too, but she’s gone.
“No luck?” Alaric asks when I descend the staircase.
I snort a laugh and shake my head, angry with myself for letting her out of my sight. I should have foreseen this. Though how would I know a petite little angel like her could tear through my father’s guard like they were nothing more than toy soldiers?
I come to a halt at the bottom of the stairs and place my hands on my hips. “What the fuck do we do?”
“We need to find her,” Alaric says. “She’s dangerous.”
“Where could she have gone?” Dari asks, sidestepping a large puddle of blood on the floor.
Amenadiel joins us, hands in his pocket. “There’s only one place she’d go.”
He sounds so fucking sure, and for reasons unbeknownst to me, it rubs me the wrong way. Crossing my arms, I sneer, “Yeah, where’s that?”
“She went to search for your dad.”
“And you know this how?”
“As I said,” Amenadiel drawls, “he’s the next one in line to fall under Genesis’s spell. Not only that, but she holds a grudge.”
“A grudge?” I raise a brow.
“You know how stubborn women can be,” he replies with a disarming smile that has me sucking on my teeth in annoyance.
“Are you going to tell us about this grudge?” Dari asks, watching my uncle closely. “I feel like there’s information missing.”
Amenadiel spares her a brief glance and shrugs his shoulders. His eyes find mine as he scrubs his beard. “We both dated her.”
“Now, wait a minute.” Dari holds up a finger. “You both dated her? What does that mean exactly?”
“I may or may not have fucked her behind Lucifer’s back.”
Dari’s mouth falls open. “You did not!”
He tugs at his tie.
“I can’t believe you, Amenadiel.”
Alaric shoots her a look. “Really, Dari? You can’t believe he fucked Lucifer’s girl?”
“We were gonna tell him,” Amenadiel interjects, kicking a foot out of the way. “But the timing was never right. Lucifer found out about the affair and used her as a sacrifice to open the gates.”
“I can’t fucking believe this,” I mutter, rubbing at my neck. “Can we please focus on what to do next?” Dropping my hand down by my side, I scan the room. “We need a plan.”
We’re so out of our depth here. This darkness, this monster, is far more powerful than we could have ever imagined.
“Well…” Amenadiel looks around the room. “You and I are going to step through the veil and hunt for the angel while the others go find my brother.”
“And where will we find him?” Ronan asks, handing his joint to Alaric. “I doubt he’s in his office.”
“The club,” Amenadiel replies. “He has an apartment above it.”
“Of course he does.” Ronan releases a chuckle. “Daddy Lucifer has a secret apartment for his conquests.”
I slap him over the back of his head on my way past. “Don’t ever say that shit again.”
“Oh, come on…” He follows after me. “Your father is a womanizer.”
“My father is a psychopath. Don’t confuse the two.”
“Well, he did create Hell and is solely responsible for an entire generation’s separation from the Light, so…”
Alaric tosses the joint into a pool of blood on his way out of the grand entry as we take a left down another hallway toward my father’s office. Restlessness has me fidgeting the entire way there. I scratch at my neck, click my thumbs, and scrub the stubble on my jaw. I hate not knowing where the little witch is.
“You know how to hunt,” Dari says, hurrying to catch up with me. “If anyone can find her, it’s you.”
The narrow hallway stretches out in front of us, the walls lined with gold-framed paintings and sconces. I skirt around a console table with a vase of wilting black roses on top.
“I know you can,” she adds softly, like she’s trying to convince herself more than me.
Shoving my hands into my pockets, I shoot her a small, reassuring smile. “We’ll find her and bring her back.”
She looks at me with those big, brown eyes that swim with regret and things unspoken. Sliding my arm around her shoulder, I pull her into me as we near the office door. “Do you doubt my abilities?”
Her smile is weak, but it’s there, and that’s all that matters. We’ll get through this like we get through everything else—by not giving up.
“I could never doubt you, Daemon.”
I catch Dmitriy’s eyes as I look behind us. The unreadable look on his face is mirrored in my own. With a slight tip of his chin, he offers the one thing I never thought I’d earn from him.
Respect.
“Bring her back to us.” The tremble in Dari’s voice pulls me back to the present moment.
I squeeze her to me as we reach the office. “I will.”
