Chapter 54
Present Day
“Betrayal is common for men with no conscience.”
—TOBA BETA
I struggled against my restraints. Though more for something to do than because I was actually trying to get free. I knew there was no use. I was stuck. At least since that first night, when my hands had gone numb, they had adjusted the chains enough that I could sit comfortably.
How kind.
Fucking pricks. I crossed my arms over my chest and scowled, my gaze falling to the large book Ramel had thumped down on the table by the fire before he and Shem had taken turns giving me personality whiplash.
I couldn’t understand them. The longer they held me captive, the more confusing everything was. I knew in my heart I should hate them. They had abused me in nearly every way imaginable. They had put me through so much that I likely wasn’t even fully aware of the extent of the trauma they had inflicted on my psyche… so why did I miss them now that they were both gone? I realized suddenly that since I had been here, I hadn’t been alone once. Well, except for that time they tricked me. But even then, Art had been with me .
One of them was always with me. One of them was always touching me. When they weren’t degrading me or humiliating me, they were usually making me feel really fucking good.
They showered me with praise when I did the things they asked me to do, laughed at my jokes, and held me while I slept. They gave me earth-shattering orgasms every day, and as depraved as the sex was, they both seemed to get off on watching me come. And let’s be serious, who could complain about that?
Then they would turn around and do something like this. Shem would threaten me with a cattle prodder, or they would fucking chain me to the bed against my will. The word ‘ no’ meant nothing to them. Sometimes, they listened when I said it, but only if they felt I deserved a reward of some kind. It was absolutely fucked and toxic, so why did I like it so much?
Okay. Maybe I didn’t like being chained to the bed right now while they weren’t here, and I was bored as fuck, but I would be lying if I said I wasn’t starting to like being chained to the bed for other reasons.
For fuck’s sake, I needed therapy.
What the actual fuck was wrong with me? I was clearly being conditioned, or groomed, or whatever it was called when prisoners fell in love with their captors… except…
Before Ramel left, he said that Yahweh had put me in purgatory because he loved me. Loved as in past tense. As in, we had met before. He had been stalking me my whole life, so that meant we must have met in one of my previously reincarnated lives.
The book was sitting so innocently on the table. I wanted to get my hands on it so bad. The answers were in there, I just knew they were. That book held all the whys. It would tell me why they were doing this to me, and even though knowing why wouldn’t make a difference, I still wanted to know. Just then, the door opened, and Art walked in. His frost-white hair shone in the green firelight, and his ice-blue eyes stood out against his dark skin.
“Hey, Lilith,” he grinned at me, and I scowled at him.
I still hadn’t forgiven him for betraying me, but I was beginning to realize that demons thrived on torture, humiliation, and betrayal.
I was not the only one who was publicly tormented at meals. Over the last few days, I had seen demons do so many depraved things to one another; it was beginning to just feel normal. None of them ever seemed to hold grudges. It was like they needed to hurt one another, and there was a mutual understanding that they were just helping each other meet their needs.
They were little torment junkies, and they couldn’t seem to get enough of it. I supposed when you lived for eternity, things would get boring after a while, and you would need to find increasingly depraved ways to spice things up. It felt odd and foreign to my mortal mind, but I was beginning to understand that these beings were not human. They were just behaving in a way that was natural to them. Nothing was ever personal.
With that in mind, I decided to accept Art for the company he was, considering I had no other choice.
“Hey, Art,” I grumbled, and he chuckled.
“I was sent to keep an eye on you while Ram and Shem are off negotiating with the man upstairs.”
“I can see that,” I replied coolly. He sighed.
“Look, I would say I’m sorry for the other night, but I’m not. You need to get over it. It was for your own good.”
“Everyone keeps fucking saying that,” I snapped, and he shrugged.
“Maybe because it’s true, Lil. There’s a ton of stuff going on that we can’t explain to you, not because we don’t want to, but because we literally can’t. You’re just going to have to trust that we have your best interests at heart.”
I felt a wave of indignation roll through me. I snapped my head around to face him, and he frowned at what I was sure was a look that could kill.
“ Trust you?” I spat. “I will never trust you, Art. I did that once, remember? You’re fucking delulu if you think I’m ever doing that again.”
He rolled his eyes. “Whatever you say, Lilith.”
I opened my mouth to respond when the walls suddenly shook with what sounded like an explosion. Art’s face paled, and he leapt to his feet.
“Fuck,” he hissed, and I screamed as he shifted into a massive cobra-like demon. His body was easily forty feet long and led up to his human torso, a large hood expanding out from his back and beneath his arms.
I dove to the far side of the bed as he thrashed out of the room, heading toward the sound of the explosion.
Holy fuck. That had to be the scariest fucking thing I had ever seen!
My heart was hammering in my chest as there were more explosions. I heard the screeches and wails of what I assumed were more of the Fallen preparing for some sort of battle.
It suddenly occurred to me that we were under attack. We were under attack, and I was chained to the fucking bed! My blood boiled with fear and fury. I was completely defenseless! What could I do? I yanked on the chains so hard my wrists bruised, but there was no use. I could do nothing but sit here and hope Art was able to fight off whatever was coming for us.
My mind was still racing when suddenly there was a creature in the doorway, and I let out another terrified scream. If I had thought Art’s snake-man form had been scary, whatever the fuck was now in my bedroom was ten times worse.
It was all wings and eyes. I counted nearly ten wings that all joined together at the center. There was nothing connecting them, only massive lidless eyes that bubbled out from the joints. A booming, echoing voice filled the room around me, and I held my hands over my ears, worried that my eardrums might burst at the sound.
“Do not be afraid, Lilith, for I have come to free you from sin.”
I cowered away from the monster, kicking as far to the other side of the bed as my chains would allow me to go.
“Get fucked, feathers! I’m not going anywhere with you!” I snapped. What the hell was that thing? It was so damn freaky!
The creature morphed and changed, and before I knew what was happening, Rafael was standing in the monster’s place. He looked just as clean-cut and well-groomed as the day I had met him. He pushed his thick glasses up his nose and smiled at me.
“Hello, Lilith, I’m sorry if I frightened you. I assumed that your captors might have warned you about what angels really looked like.”
I scowled at him. ‘Get fucked, feathers’ had not been on the list of approved responses to archangels that I had worked on with Shem, but I supposed it did the trick. Shem and Ramel had been so worried I would want to leave with one of them if they offered me a chance to escape. They should have just shown me what angels actually looked like. That thing had been terrifying. As scary as Ramel was in his Reaper form, I would take his inky death fingers over feather face any day. There was no way I was willingly leaving with Rafael now that I had seen his true form.
Suddenly, Art exploded back into the room, attacking Rafael from behind. Raf manifested what looked like a long, golden scepter and slammed it into the great snake’s chest. With an inhuman screech, Art was forced back into his human form, and I gasped as the scepter pulsed with a horrible, godly power. Art fell to the ground, pale and writhing. I violently pulled on the restraints, attempting to go to him, but he held up a hand to stop me.
“No Lilith, stay where you are, don’t let him near you,” he warned. He coughed and struggled to get up before collapsing again on the floor. Raf sneered down his nose at Art as if the demon disgusted him.
“Pathetic,” he snapped, turning his attention back to me. I watched his cold, angry face switch to a kind, warm, smiling one, and I narrowed my eyes.
“Come on, Lilith. I’ve been sent to save you.” His eyes fell on the chains attached to the bed, and his smile widened. “I know you’ve been kept here against your will. Yahweh sent me to collect you while Ramel and Shemhazai were distracted.”
I shook my head and slid further away, wishing my chains had more give.
“No,” I said, remembering what Shem had taught me. “I am a citizen of Hell, and I do not wish to leave with you.”
“Good girl, Lilith.” Art coughed, and Rafael snarled, slamming the scepter over Art’s back, causing him to buckle against the floor again in pain .
“Stop it!” I screeched. “Stop hurting him!” I didn’t understand it, but I was furious that Rafael was hurting Art. Some primal part of me screamed ‘mine!’ I shook my head, feeling thrown off by the sudden desire to protect the demon that had betrayed me just days ago.
Rafael tutted his tongue and turned back to face me. This time, he did not smile.
“I see. You have already been corrupted,” Rafael sneered, and I frowned.
“You will come with me Lilith or Yahweh will make Ramel and Shem suffer. He has them. If you come with me willingly, Yahweh will keep them out of purgatory.”
“Say no, Lilith,” Art rasped, wincing as Rafael brought the scepter down on him again.
“I am a citizen of Hell, and I do not wish to leave with you,” I repeated, though my resolve was wavering. Did they really have Ramel and Shem? If they were thrown into purgatory, what would become of me?
Rafael snarled and waved his hand. It was as if a window had been opened in the very air before me, and I could suddenly see through worlds. Ram and Shem were on their knees with their hands bound behind their backs. I watched in horror as an angel slowly poured holy water down Ramel’s back. He looked as if he were screaming in agony into the leather strap they had given him to bite on. His skin was burning away beneath the holy water as if it were a corrosive substance.
I told myself I didn’t care. I tried to pretend that his pain didn’t matter. It was merely a drop in the bucket compared to what he had done to me my whole life. I should feel happy about it. I should feel glad that he was suffering.
But I didn’t. Watching them hurt him was more excruciating than anything he had done to me in my short, miserable life. There was a seed planted deep within my heart that throbbed in agony at the sight of Ramel being tortured. When the angel turned its attention to Shemhazai next, my last thread of control snapped.
“I’ll go, just make it stop!” I screamed, and a cruel smile curled across Rafael’s face.
“Lilith! No!” Art shouted, but Raf cracked him over the head with the golden scepter, and he fell unconscious.
I screamed again. “Art! Art, wake up!”
Rafael laughed and strolled leisurely up to the bed. He reached out and grabbed my chains, dragging me closer to him. I screeched and kicked and pulled as hard as I could, but he was so much stronger than me. I was just a human girl; he was a fucking celestial being. I fought him hard enough that he needed to mist away the scepter and use both hands to drag me to him.
“Stop fighting so I can fucking free you, Lilith,” he snarled, but I couldn’t stop. Every fiber of my being was telling me to get him the fuck away from me. I lashed out and managed to kick him in the jaw with my bare foot, and that seemed to be the last straw .
He cracked me across the face with a closed fist and climbed up on the bed, straddling me. I screamed and thrashed beneath him, but he snatched up my wrists and pinned them over my head with one hand.
His chest was heaving with exertion as I bucked under him. I felt him grow hard, and we both froze. I met his eyes through his thick glasses and felt the blood drain from my face. I had expected him to force me to leave with him, I hadn’t expected rape.
“Ramel will kill you,” I breathed as I watched Rafael’s eyes darken above me.
“Ramel can’t kill me. I am immortal.”
“Isn’t there some rule against angels fucking mortals?” I asked, resisting the urge to struggle. I didn’t want to egg him on any more than he already was.
“Yahweh can’t see what happens in Hell.” He ran the hand that wasn’t pinning my arms above my head down the side of my face. I shuddered with revulsion beneath his touch.
“Rafael, please, don’t do this. I’ll go with you. Just… let me go.” I felt a tear slide down my cheek, and he watched it slip into my hairline. Instead of softening, he rocked against me, rubbing his cock against my pelvis. He groaned, and I felt all the hairs on my body stand on end.
“Do you know how long I have been celibate for, Lilith? Angels are not permitted to indulge in sins of the flesh.”
“Rafael, please,” I whispered, but he ignored me. He leaned forward, and I cringed as he ran his hot, wet tongue up the side of my neck before closing his lips around my earlobe. He sucked, and I squirmed beneath him. My skin was crawling .
“Fuck,” he breathed into my ear. “I can understand why Ramel and Shem fell prey to your tempest ways. You’re fucking irresistible.”
He rocked against me again and slid his free hand down to grope my breast; he squeezed so hard I squeaked in pain.
“Stop!” I screamed, and he bit my neck. I whimpered, and another tear slid down my cheek.
“No. I’m going to take what I fucking deserve for once.” He sat up, looking down at me, his lips inches from mine. “I’m going to fuck you, Lilith, then I’m going to put your whore ass back in purgatory where you fucking belong,” he snarled. There was a wildness in his eyes I had never seen at Voodoo. I knew at that moment there would be no reasoning with him. I had been kidnapped by demons and spent the last week in Hell, but the real monster had come from Heaven, and there was no escaping him.