I silently took my spear from my makeshift pack and we proceeded to investigate the reason that particular room was different from the others.
Nothing jumped out at us as we grew closer, so I used the tip of my spear to push the door open the rest of the way.
Still no monsters.
“I’ll go first,” I said, and took a step closer to the dark room.
“I’m cool with that. I’ll make sure nothing gets you from out here.”
There was a cool draft coming from inside the room, and after getting up the nerve to actually look, I was surprised to see a teenager lounging on a couch, reading a book by candlelight.
I glanced back at Phoebe with a frown, and then motioned with my hand for her to look. I didn’t at all feel threatened by the young woman, so I ran my hand along the inside wall in search of a light switch. The girl closed the book with a loud clap and I jumped back out into the hallway. Suddenly there was light in the room and the girl was on her feet and smiling at us.
“Do come in, Rhyan. I feel as if I’ve been waiting eons for you to arrive. I nearly finished reading a fabulous book about a mysterious island full of amazing creatures of the night. I like to see how far off the humans are when they are imagining us.” She winked.
I stood, jaw slack and mouth hanging open slightly, realizing for the first time that I was speaking to Princess Lameria. I knew then what Isaiah had meant by young and innocent. The girl could’ve even been considered sweet by her looks. Luckily, I knew a thing or two about not judging a book by its cover.
“Well, don’t just stand there in the doorway. Come in and have a seat. Would you care for tea or sweets? You both must be parched coming right out of Fallis’ syde with very little water to split between the two of you. I can refill your bottle if you like.”
Phoebe stepped forward, ready to accept anything offered, but I put my arm out to stop her.
“Gratitude, but we don’t need anything except the gift I was promised from Lucifer. I’m sure you realize how little time we have to waste.”
Lameria’s bright red lips curved into a sly smile. “Clever boy you are not to trust me, but Abbi is a very dear friend of mine. I would do nothing to hurt the man she loves. If she has a chance to get out of here,” she shrugged her petite shoulders, “I am happy for her.”
“Forgive me for not believing you. Trust that it’s nothing personal.”
“Rhyan, we need water,” Phoebe whispered to me.
“We will be fine. Take nothing from anyone here unless you wish to return to Pride.”
She licked uneasily at her dry, cracked lips, then swallowed uncomfortably. “Yeah, you’re right. I think I’m good.”
I looked back to Lameria. “If you’re truly a friend of my wife’s, then you will get us out of here. If not, give me the object and stand aside. I am taking her, regardless of who gets in my way.”
Lameria’s eyes widened, maybe in shock, maybe in excitement, but not in fear of me or of my plans to defeat her. At that moment I feared her more than I did Lucifer.
She studied me a long moment, then smiled cunningly and waved off my comment with the flick of her hand. “I insist you have tea and sweets. I won’t give you the object until you do.”
I began to object, but her expression turned sober, almost like she was trying to tell me something.
“You will have tea and sweets, Rhyan.”
There was something in her eyes that made me want to trust her. I didn’t feel like I was being played with; I felt like Abbi was behind it all. And I realized that she was the first of them to call me by my name, instead of angel. It could have been a trick, but I didn’t feel as if it was one. Then again, I’ve been wrong before.
I nodded in agreement. “We’ll have tea. Then we are leaving.”
She nodded once and tossed her soft, black curls over her shoulder as she turned for the kettle.
Phoebe rushed to the plush sofa to sit.
My heart leapt in my chest at her quick actions. I felt as if I needed to babysit her with the irresponsible decisions she was making. I growled in irritation and went to sit in the chair across from her, keeping a careful eye on our host all the while. I glared at Phoebe as I sat, but she managed to avoid my incriminating stare of disapproval.
Lameria served tea and a platter of cakes. Phoebe dove into the offering like she hadn’t eaten in a month or more.
I cleared my throat to alarm her, but she’d already grabbed the second cake in her haste to satisfy her insatiable cravings.
“Phoebe!”
She seemed to realize her mistake and practically threw the cake to her tea saucer. “Oh, no,” she said, then covered her mouth with her hand. She looked up at me with regret clear in her eyes. “I’m so sorry, Rhyan. I don’t know what came over me.”
“I know exactly what came over you,” I said, and then looked to a smirking Lameria.
She shrugged, taking a small sip of her tea. “It seems you’ve been starving the poor girl, Rhyan. It appears she is no better off with you than she was alone, back in her syde. You may have struck a quite smart deal with Lucifer, but she has not. He will not let her leave here, no matter what she does to prove she has earned the right of exit.”
“Where’s the object?” I asked, and the tension in my voice was sharp enough to slice through butter. I couldn’t have hid it if my life depended on it. A little ironic, since that was exactly what was at stake.
“Drink your tea, Rhyan—”
“I don’t want tea!” I shouted as I hurled the china across the room. “I want the object I was promised so we can leave here. Stop playing games with me, demon. It will not end in your favor.”
She stood abruptly, black curls bouncing down past her petite shoulders in a flurry of silk ringlets, her eyes completely gone black in the image I had once thought all demons favored: fierce and evil. “You’ll leave here when I allow you to leave here,” she said menacingly as she set her tea on the table, then immediately closed the ten foot distance between us.
Her movements were too quick for me to follow, so I didn’t bother trying. I just braced for what was about to come, and come it did. An involuntary scream tore from my throat. Intense pain was suddenly present throughout the upper part of my body. I forced my eyes to open and look down at the cause. Princess Lameria’s hands were hidden from my view. She was elbow deep in my chest cavity, her hands thrust up under my ribcage with my right lung in one small hand and my beating heart grasped in the other.
“Rhyan!” Phoebe screamed, but I couldn’t assure her everything would be okay, because I wasn’t sure myself.
I fought through the overwhelming, excruciating discomfort and tried to speak, “I-I only wish to get to my wife.” I swallowed around the growing lump in my throat. “I can’t let him win. I won’t let him keep her here. She belongs with me in Heaven. You could all leave here. You only believe you can’t because he says you can’t.”
She squeezed my heart and I cried out again.
“This is my home. I wish not to leave it. And if the others try, they are fools and will get no better treatment than what has been bestowed upon you. You are highly mistaken, angel. Lucifer will not let them leave, and that includes you and your precious wife, Abigail.”
Okay, so that kinda let me know how close of friends the princess was with Abbi—the demon would just as soon burn all the royalty at the stake as help set them free. Perfect. I was stuck between a rock and a hard place and hadn’t a clue how to get myself unjammed.
“Why would you not want to live in a place free of fear, regret and pain?” I asked.
“Heaven?” she asked, and gave a hearty laugh, making her hands shake, sending a fresh wave of razor sharp pains through my chest.
I managed to keep from screaming, but hot tears poured down my face, like they could somehow, on their own, make the nightmare go away. “Why not?” I choked out, and wasn’t surprised when I coughed blood on her yellow blouse. I was dying, and the thought terr
ified me. I feared she was right in saying I would never get to leave Hell, let alone get to leave with Abbi.
“I was banished from Heaven not long after Lucifer fell. He offered me a home here as a princess and I will eternally be grateful. I wouldn’t dare betray him as Abigail has. The little bitch knows not her place and must be punished for her treachery. You are just an added bonus. Your pure soul will allow Lucifer access to Earth again.”
I remembered Malcolm saying he would gain more power from receiving a pure soul willingly, but I hadn’t stopped to think it would put more people in danger. Very selfish and greedy of me. “Please—”
She squeezed my lung and I couldn’t scream like my mind was telling me I needed to. I couldn’t catch even half a breath. I clenched my jaw and swore internally.
“Aw, so you are not above begging, I see.”
She released her death-grip and I shuddered through several breaths before I was able to speak again. I could feel my head growing light and knew I wasn’t far from losing consciousness. It made me ill to think I would wake up under Pogo’s bridge with no recollection of ever having met any of the royalty. I could’ve sworn a few of them wanted to side with me and Abigail. Malcolm had helped me through most of the sydes. I wasn’t sure Isaiah would know how to help me. I couldn’t tell he had helped much since he’d popped into my head in Envy. At least Malcolm stayed around and kept my spirits lifted, whereas I couldn’t even feel Isaiah. It may have been because he was considerably more powerful than just a normal angel and could hide his presence easier. Then again, it may be because something else terrible had happened in Heaven…or on Earth. I suddenly panicked at the thought of something happening to Kendra or her family, then immediately forced the thought to the back of my mind. I couldn’t worry about things I had no control over. I wanted to think I still had a little control over saving Abbi’s soul. If I had to stay in Hell after she was safe, then so be it. “I’ll do what I have to, to be able to hold my wife again. If you force me to start over at Gluttony, I will be back. I will be back a thousand times if that’s what it takes to save her soul.”
My response seemed to confuse her and she loosened her fingers from around my vital organs. “You are serious, aren’t you?” She frowned. “You really do love her that much?”
I coughed again and blood splattered the left side of her chin and neck. She flinched and inhaled sharply. I could tell she wanted to wipe it off, but her hands were covered in more than what was on her pretty face, so she left it there. Even with all the pain in my body and the fuzziness that had just settled over my brain, I wanted to laugh at her. I didn’t; instead I answered her ridiculous questions.
“I thought it was obvious how much I love Abbi. I’m not exactly trying to hide my feelings here.”
“I know—I just thought—”
My eyes shot open and locked with hers. “You thought what?”
She huffed. “I thought—we thought,” she said and started blinking rapidly, “that maybe you were here just to prove Lucifer could be defeated, that you were sent here by the archangels to weaken him.”
I chuckled, then stopped abruptly when it hurt like hell. “How could I, a fallen angel with no more than human strength and abilities, defeat the King of the Underworld in a physical battle? I was sent here by the archangels, but I have never once led any of you to think what you assume. I came here for my wife, and her alone. I couldn’t care less if Lucifer’s ego takes a punch or not. He could have prevented all of this if he had just given her the soul and let her go. She’s done her time, and doesn’t belong here any longer. She belongs with me, her soulmate, in Heaven.”
Lameria averted her black eyes quickly and looked down at her own hands, seeming to realize for the first time that they were shoved deep into my chest. She glanced up and I briefly caught a glimpse of tears shimmering in her very pretty brown eyes before I was thrown fifty feet. The opposite wall in the hallway slowed my speed from 120 mph to zero in two seconds flat.
I gasped for a breath and sat up, quickly searching for the princess back inside the room. The lights had dimmed considerably, but I could make out the princess, and her arm that was wrapped loosely around Phoebe’s neck.
“Rhyan—”
I was getting back to my feet when the princess smiled, placed her hand under the girl’s chin and then jerked Phoebe’s head, breaking her neck instantly.
“No!” I screamed with all the breath I had left in my lungs and started running for the door. It slammed hard in my face, and after trying the knob, I realized I wasn’t getting back in the room to save my new friend.
She was gone.
She would wake in the Syde of Pride with new scars and no possessions, because she had left them in the hallway while we were introduced to Lameria. Her clothes would be cut and torn, and she wouldn’t have a clue as to why.
She had trusted me.
I had failed her.
I had promised her that I would never leave her behind.
I had failed her, like I was sure to fail Abbi.
Who was I kidding? I couldn’t win against Lucifer.
I felt defeated and lacked the will to go on. My heart ached for the loss of the young woman. She had only wanted out of Hell.
I leaned against the wall beside me and slid down it to the floor.
The first of many tears escaped the corners of my eyes and I allowed myself to grieve for the loss of a friend.
“I’m sorry,” Isaiah said, but I ignored him.
Chapter 44
Thoros
“What in Satan’s name was that?” Thoros mumbled to himself after he returned to his private quarters in Lust. The image of Josselyn, defenseless and full of heated passion, burned like it was permanently seared and branded on his brain. Her lips had tasted of sweet honeysuckle and felt like the velvet side of a rose petal on his lips. His eyes involuntarily closed and a soft moan escaped through his parted lips as she smiled at him through his memory.
His eyes flew open and he took a great gasp of breath. “Bloody hell, the angel has bewitched me,” he murmured, eyes wide in disbelief and borderline denial.
His hands came up to rub briskly at his face. When that did absolutely nothing to fix the problem and rid her from his memory, he growled in frustration and quickly stomped his way to the bar. He would drown her out, he thought, and nodded once to agree with his own brilliant plan.
A knock at the door alerted him and he looked up at the large rectangle of steel, turning his head to the side in puzzlement, like it was foreign to his eyes. He hadn’t sensed anyone approaching, nor was he expecting any visitors.
“Enter,” he said loudly, then cleared his throat as he tipped the decanter up to fill a more than healthy level of scotch in the glass he was holding.
The door flew open and a very distraught Lameria came running into the room with red, swollen eyes, desperately searching for someone. Him.
Confused, but ready to beat the hell out of anyone that had hurt her, Thoros set the old fashioned glass on the bar and caught the girl as she flung herself into his arms and against his hard body.
“Lameria—”
She looked up at him, brown eyes glistening from fresh tears and the light from the fireplace. “Take me to your bed now, Thoros. Put your hands on me. I want you now. I need to forget again. I need you to take my mind elsewhere, anywhere…just—please,” she pleaded, and began to take short, shallow breaths.
Not taking his worried eyes from her face, he cautiously led her toward the couch so she could sit, and he could possibly figure out whom it was he needed to murder. She seemed to realize they were going in the opposite direction from his bed and she jerked from his gentle embrace, tearing at her clothes in an effort to disrobe before he could refuse her of sexual services.
“Lameria, what are you doing?” he asked, grabbing his reaper robe from the arm of the chair to help cover her already half naked body, but she vanished and then reappeared in the middle of his bed, her flesh c
ompletely bare and glistening with a sheen of sweat. Has she gone ape-shit crazy? He thought, then approached her with extreme caution. “You must tell me what has happened. I’ve never seen you quite so distressed in all the time I’ve known you.” He didn’t know who was at fault, but he had confidence that it could be fixed if she would only tell him.
His face sobered and his stomach gave a small flip when the thought crossed his mind that Lucifer might possibly be behind her panic attack. He couldn’t fight Lucifer. There would be no competition. Lucifer made sure nobody had enough power to defeat him. After all, it was he who gave them their abilities.
Thoros swallowed and wet his lips nervously with his tongue. “Was it Lucifer that hurt you?”
She got to her knees, all the while staring at him like he’d gone crazy. “What? Don’t tell me you are siding with him! You haven’t touched me or kissed me since I arrived. The look of lust in your eyes is gone,” she accused. What has happened to you, Thoros? He hasn’t even visited your syde—”
“Siding with whom, Lameria?” he bellowed, throwing the black satin to the stone floor, making her flinch and sit back on her heels in an instant. “You aren’t making any damn sense. Until you do, any help from me, including any type of sexual satisfaction, will not happen. Do you understa—”
“The angel!” she screamed, and clutched at the black satin comforter. It was the only thing within her reach.
Thoros blinked a few times as he watched her fall apart on his bed. He hadn’t been keeping up with Abigail’s pet angel. It hadn’t even crossed his mind that the guy would make it past the first syde. What had happened while he’d been observing - obsessing about - his angel? No, not his angel, he thought, scolding himself; the angel, the female angel, Josselyn.
“Where is he?”
Lameria laughed hysterically for a moment, then finally realized he was asking because he really didn’t know. She sobered and shook her head. “He has defeated every syde except for Greed, Lust and Wrath. He’s in my syde now. I had him. I had his heart in the palm of my hand, my nails piercing the racing muscle, ready to squeeze and send him back to Gluttony. Then he said it. I’ve spent centuries trying to forget and now it’s as fresh in my mind as if I’d seen him only yesterday. My defenses are down. I am weak,” she cried.
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