Chapter 56
“Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.”
—MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.
R afael was forcing my leggings down over my hips when the goat head ring Ramel had placed on my finger started to burn.
“Raf, please don’t do this,” I sobbed.
“Shut the fuck up,” he snapped, and I bucked, trying to shimmy away as much as I could. The ring on my finger burned hotter, and I cried out. What the fuck was happening!? It hurt.
“You’re going to take this fucking cock just like I know you take Ramel and Shemhazai’s,” he snarled. He fumbled with his belt, and I flinched. I braced myself for him to violate me when there was a sudden pulse from my ring finger.
Rafael was blown off me with such force that he hit the wall on the opposite side of the room. He crashed to the ground with a moan, and I scrambled to pull my leggings back up. He was on top of me again in seconds, snarling in rage. Instead of trying to penetrate me, he grabbed my left hand, and I watched his eyes widen as he took in the ring.
“He fucking married you?” he hissed in disbelief, and my heart skipped a beat. What did that have to do with anything?
Suddenly, Ramel’s voice floated through the room.
“Fucking right I did, you piece of shit. ”
Rafael whipped around, and I gasped. There in the doorway, looking sinister as fuck, were Ramel and Shem.
Ramel was in his full Reaper form. His decay-ridden hands gripped his scythe, and his hazel eyes were burning with death magic. Shem was leaning against him with his arm on his shoulder and the other hand in his pocket. They were both looking at Rafael with an intense mix of rage and something that looked suspiciously like hunger.
“Did you touch my fucking wife?” Ramel asked, his voice deadly calm.
“I think he did, Ram,” Shem purred. If Ram was murder, Shem was mayhem.
Kicking away from Rafael, I pulled up my leggings, sobbing with relief and reeling from confusion. I glanced at the vision portal that was still burning over Art’s unconscious body. The image of the two of them being tortured was still playing; it had been a trick to get me to leave. My blood ran cold; I had nearly made a grave mistake.
Ramel and Shem watched me cover myself up, and the temperature in the room dropped several degrees. Rafael manifested that fucked up golden scepter, and terror exploded through me at the sight of it.
“Don’t let him hit you with that thing!” I warned them. They glanced at me, their eyes softening.
“We know about the scepter sweetheart, don’t worry,” Shem said, his voice gentle.
“Enough!” Raf snarled. “You’ve left me no choice. We tried to rehabilitate you, but you have forced my hand. I must unmake you. The congregation of Heaven can no longer entertain your treasonous behavior.”
He twirled the scepter expertly between his fingers, and I nearly sobbed with fear. Unmake them? No!
Ramel and Shem exchanged a look. Ramel scratched his chin thoughtfully, giving Shem a nefarious grin.
“What is it that cats eat, Shemhazai?”
Shem turned his gaze on Rafael, and his pupils dilated to tiny pinpoints. His grin spread wide across his face, and I watched in a mix of awe and terror as black, curved claws bloomed from his fingers. Red glowing eyes began to blink in the shadows, and a cacophony of angry yowls filled the room.
A colony of hellcats manifested and stalked out of the dark corners of the room, each one of them made of smoke and shadow.
Before I had time to process the insanity of what I was seeing, Ramel sank into the floor as if it were made of water. I gasped as he reappeared behind Rafael.
Ramel slammed his scythe into the angel’s back, and I gaped as he shuddered and screamed on impact. The magic of the scythe forced Rafael into his angel form just in time for Shem to tear into his feathery wings with an angry hiss .
I watched as Shem gleefully shredded Raf to pieces. The hellcats leapt into the fray to help him, their glowing red eyes leaving streaks of light in the darkness as they launched themselves through the air. Shem ripped out Rafael’s eyes and tore into his wings until the room was sprayed with crimson. Bloody feathers floated down around me like snowfall, and the shadow cats feasted on the angel like starved strays fighting over a pigeon carcass.
Ramel casually picked up the golden scepter from where Rafael had dropped it while Shem continued to violently tear the angel to pieces. Ramel misted it away along with his scythe before turning to face me.
The rage melted from his face, and suddenly he was on me. He cupped my cheeks, tenderly stroking away my tears and checking every inch of me to see if I was injured. I realized I was shaking and cold. Was I going into shock?
“Shh, deathtrap. I’m here. You’re okay. Tell me what happened. Did he touch you?” His tone was soft and gentle. He rested his forehead against mine, rubbing his thumbs across each of my cheeks.
I nodded, feeling burning-hot tears begin to spill from my eyes and down my face. He caught each one and wiped them away.
“Show me where,” he murmured, and I did. With a shaking hand, I pointed to all the places where Rafael had touched me. My neck, my lips, my breasts. Ramel followed my hands with his lips and kissed each spot better, washing away Raf’s touch with his own.
When he was done, he wrapped his arms around me and crawled onto the bed, pulling me into his lap. He rocked me gently and made soothing sounds while I cried into his chest. Soon Shem appeared. His claws were gone, and Raf was now a bloody mess on the ground behind him. Shem crawled onto the bed toward us, his face grim. Reaching out with gore-stained fingers, he brushed my hair out of my eyes.
“Shhh, don’t cry, Lil. You’re safe now… you’re safe.”
“Is he dead?” I asked, hiccoughing. Ram and Shem exchanged a look and pursed their lips.
“No, deathtrap. He’s immortal; he’ll recover from that eventually. The only way to permanently end him would be to hit him a couple times with the scepter,” Ram explained, and Shem chuckled.
“Well, that or use an Aetherium blade, but we won’t be unmaking him for a long time.” Shem looked over his shoulder at the bloody mess of angel wings and smiled. “Payback is going to be fucking sweet.”
“Art!” I cried. “Raf hit him with the scepter. Does that mean he’s…?”
We all looked over at poor unconscious Art, where he lay beneath the illusion Raf had created in an attempt to trick me. Shem frowned and went to him, placing his fingers against his throat to feel for a pulse. His shoulders relaxed, and I let out the breath I had been holding .
“He’s alive,” Shem said just as Art coughed and rolled onto his back.
“Fuck,” he spat out black sludge, and Shem brushed his white hair out of his eyes.
“Hey man, you alright?” he asked, his voice full of concern.
Ramel didn’t seem as concerned with Art’s well-being. He was stroking his fingers lightly up and down my arms and leaving delicate kisses on the top of my head. I snuggled deeper into him, and he curled tighter around me. It didn’t make sense that I felt this safe with the creature who had tormented me my entire life, but right at that moment, I didn’t have it in me to question it. I just wanted him to hold me and comfort me until the shaking stopped.
“She’s still here, thank Satan,” Art coughed again, rolling onto his front and sitting up. He looked up at the illusion of Shem and Ram being tortured and scowled.
“Fuck. Even I fell for that.”
Shem raised an eyebrow and looked back at me.
“Did that work on you?” he asked, jutting his thumb at the vision portal. “Did you agree to go with him after he showed you that?”
I bit my lip, glancing up at Ram and back at Shem. Ramel’s face went white, and Shem looked furious.
“Lilith! What the fuck have we been practicing all week?!”
“I said it! I said I’m a citizen of Hell, and I do not wish to leave with you.”
Art nodded. “She did. Twice.”
Ramel ran his fingers up the back of my neck and into my hair, massaging my scalp. “Good fucking girl, Lilith,” he murmured, grabbing a fistful and pulling my head back so he could kiss me. I moaned as he pressed his tongue into my mouth, possessively stroking me. He pulled out of my mouth and left a few more wet kisses on my lips.
“Good,” kiss, “fucking,” kiss, “girl,” he purred, and I sighed, allowing myself to melt deeper into him.
“No! Bad girl!” Shem snapped. “It doesn’t matter how many times you say it if, in the end, you still agree to go!” He angrily waved his hand, and the vision portal vanished. He spun on Ramel. “And you felt guilty about chaining her to the fucking bed. If we hadn’t, she would be in fucking purgatory right now. Or worse!” Shem snarled. I pulled away from Ramel so I could scowl at him.
“Maybe if you hadn’t chained me to the bed, I would have been able to get away from Rafael!” I snapped, and all three of them laughed.
“Definitely not. He would have probably just chained you up himself. Besides, you were never in any real danger from that prick; why do you think we forced you through that fucking wedding?”
I frowned, looking down at the goat head ring. I remembered how it had burned when Rafael tried to take advantage of me and how he had suddenly been blown across the room .
“That’s what stopped him? It was because we’re married?” I asked, looking up at Ram. He smiled down at me and rubbed his thumb lightly over my cheek.
“Yeah. Demon weddings come with powerful protection bonds. I would have preferred to wait until you didn’t hate my fucking guts and you were a little more comfortable with exhibitionism, but we didn’t have time. I needed it set before we went to meet with Yahweh. I knew He was going to try some fucked up shit like this while Shem and I were gone.”
“Why didn’t you just take me with you?” I wondered out loud, frowning.
“Lilith, you can never leave Hell, do you understand? He will put you in that bowl again the first chance He gets, and I won’t fucking allow it.”
He was gripping my face and looking so deep into my eyes that I felt like he could see my soul.
“You keep saying again,” I whispered, “I don’t remember being in purgatory.”
Shem and Ramel exchanged a look.
“We have a lot to tell you,” Shem said. “Now that Ram has his memories back, I can finally talk about this shit, but it’s a long story, and you just went through a pretty traumatic experience. Maybe we should rest now and talk about it tomorrow.”
I scoffed. “My entire life has been a traumatic experience thanks to you two fucks,” I snapped, and they both had the decency to wince.
“I’m so sorry, Lilith,” Ramel whispered. He stroked a thumb down my jaw and kissed me again. “I’m so fucking sorry, you have no idea. Yahweh set me up to hate you. I didn’t know. He took my memories away. If I had known, I never would have…” His voice broke, and something deep inside my chest instantly felt like it was shattering. “I never wanted you to be lonely. I hate that He made me the reason you had no one.”
“I don’t understand,” I said truthfully, “I don’t understand any of this.”
Shem sighed and dug into his pocket, pulling out a key. “Let’s get you untied and cleaned up, then we can cuddle and have story time, okay?”
Ramel cupped my face and kissed me again, rubbing his thumb tenderly over my cheek.
“Would you like that, my little deathtrap? Cuddles and stories with your two favorite assholes?”
I snorted, and he smiled at me. He was an asshole, but he was a really good-looking asshole.
Finally, I caved and nodded.
“Yeah. I would like that,” I admitted.
Shem gently took my arms and uncuffed my wrists. “Art, want to whip us up something to eat? Make it fattening and terrible for us. Lil needs the good stuff.”
“And take that feathery fuck with you,” Ramel added, eyeing the still-bleeding mess that was Raf.
Art laughed and saluted us.
“Aye, aye, captain. Coming right up.”