Chapter 80
Alexa, play ‘Let it go (With L? Spirit)’ by Chandler Leighton, L? Spirit
“I’m not a smart man, but I know what love is.”
—FORREST GUMP
L ilith informed me that her pork curry took a few hours, so I instructed one of the chefs to watch it for us. She hadn’t wanted me to bother one of the busy demons with the task, but I brushed her off.
I had a few more to-do’s on my list that I wanted to check off before I needed to leave her to meet with Gabriel and Art. She would get used to the fact that all these demons were literally here to serve her eventually.
“So, what are we going to do now?” she asked, turning to me with an easy smile. My heart squeezed in my chest. I still wasn’t used to her looking at me like that. As if she liked me and actually wanted me around.
“You’re going to have a bath and read your book, then we’re going to eat your curry and watch The Fall of the House of Usher until Jezebel and Shem get here.”
I watched her face carefully, not wanting to miss one single second of her reaction. The slight widening of her eyes and the rise of her brows as she processed what I had said. The subtle twitch of her mouth as she realized she was going to get to chat my ear off about another one of her favorite shows while eating something she had made with her own two hands. Especially the excited flush to her cheeks and the slight softening in her posture as I reached out and tucked a strand of caramel hair behind her ear.
I waited for her to flinch away, but instead, she tilted her head into my hand. It was subtle, but it was there, and it made my stomach flip.
“That sounds amazing.” She beamed at me.
“Go get in the bath. I’ll bring you your book and some champagne.”
Her eyes sparkled, and she nodded, heading into the bathroom to do just that.
I waited a beat and grinned when her excited little squeal met my ears. Manifesting a flute of bubbly and grabbing one of the dark romances we had picked up from the library, I followed her into the bathroom.
I had arranged to have the large obsidian tub filled with steaming water and rose petals while we had been in the kitchen. There was a bath tray with a box of chocolates and some hand towels for her to choose from. I set the book and the champagne down on the tray and smirked.
“I thought people just had baths like this in the movies.” Lilith grinned at me, shaking her head. “Well, and maybe on Instagram,” she joked, cocking her head to the side.
I slid my hands over her hips and buried my nose in her soft hair, breathing in her scent.
“Do you like it?” I asked, and she leaned back, smiling up at me.
“Yeah. It looks so relaxing.”
“Get in,” I ordered softly, running my fingers over the edge of her crop top, tugging gently.
She glanced up at me, her little cheeks flushing again, and I frowned.
“What’s that look for?” I asked, somewhat amused.
She shrugged and turned in the circle of my arms, her face turning even more red.
“I don’t know. This feels… different than all the other times you’ve seen me…”
“Without any clothes on?” I asked dryly, raising an eyebrow.
She was shy? I literally had my dick in her ass less than twelve hours earlier.
She nodded at me, somehow unable to meet my eyes. I touched her chin, smiling down at her adorable little pink face, unable to stop myself from chuckling.
“You have no idea what you look like, do you?” I asked gently. “You’re the most beautiful creature I’ve ever laid my fucking eyes on. Every time I look at you, I feel like I’m seeing you for the first time again.”
It was true. Even now, with her standing before me so hesitant and shy, my blood felt hot, and my entire being was urging me to claim her, to consume her. It was an impulsive need that I could barely control.
“Take off your clothes, Lilith,” I demanded, adding a soft edge to my tone. Slowly, almost bashfully, she stripped. Her adorable little blush staining her chest. My amusement faded, however, the moment my eyes caught the stark white bandages wrapped around her thighs.
I crouched before her, gently unwrapping her dressings and inspecting the wounds. They still hadn’t fully scabbed over. She would benefit from some time in the open air so they could dry out a little bit. I resolved to make sure we cleaned them, and she could wear shorts until the party to give the wounds time to breathe.
I placed a gentle kiss on each thigh, pausing only briefly between her legs, teasing her with my breath but resisting the urge to go any further. I wanted her to relax and unwind. Doing all the fucked up shit I never seemed to tire of doing to her was not going to accomplish that goal. With the evidence of what could happen if I pushed her too far staring me straight in the face, I forced myself to stand.
Her eyes were full of heated surprise when they met mine, but she didn’t comment on my obvious restraint. I gestured to the tub behind her, nodding my head once.
“Get in.”
She obeyed, sliding into the hot water. I watched as her skin pebbled and her breath hitched. I bit back a groan, resisting the urge to tear off all my clothes and follow her in. Fuck. I felt like I would never get enough of her. I cleared my throat.
“Is it too hot?” I asked, trying to keep my voice from giving away how fucking hard she was making me.
She shook her head and sank in, the water coming up to her shoulders. Her hair floated around her, mixing with the crimson of the rose petals. “No, it’s perfect.”
I sat on the edge of the tub, giving her a smile as I watched her get comfortable. She reached a hand out for her flute of champagne, and I grabbed it off the bath tray, handing it to her, unable to stop myself from glancing at the deep pink scar on her wrist from the last time I had watched her take a bath. That time, the water had been filled with blood instead of roses.
She caught me staring, and her face flushed again. She dropped her gaze and curled into herself. I hated that she pulled away from me.
“Hey,” I said, slipping my hand in the water and grazing my fingers against her sternum to get her attention. “Don’t hide from me.”
“I’m not hiding,” she said, though she kept her gaze cast down.
“Look at me,” I ordered, and she reluctantly dragged her mossy green eyes up to meet mine. She was filled with such sadness that my heart broke.
“There’s nothing to be ashamed of, Lilith. You can talk to me about it.”
Suddenly, her sadness turned to anger. “You’re the last person I want to talk to about it with, Ramel.”
I tried not to physically wince.
I deserved that.
Pinching the bridge of my nose, I sighed. I didn’t know how to do this. I wasn’t a good man. In fact, I was the reason she fucking slit her wrists in the first place. I didn’t know how to tell her that the sight of her hurting made my stomach ache so much I thought I might die. What right did I have to ask her to stay here with me? I wracked my brain for something real I could tell her. Something that might make her see that despite the fact I was the villain in her story, she had always been the star of mine, even when I had been too lost to recognize it.
“The first time you tried to kill yourself, I didn’t sleep for two weeks,” I said finally, dropping my hand down to my lap.
She was staring at me, her body so still that for a moment, I was worried she wasn’t breathing.
“I couldn’t leave your side. Every time I thought of returning to Hell, all I could think was, what if you tried to do it again and I wasn’t there? What if you managed to do it before I could get there to prevent your soul from detaching?”
Yahweh did not allow souls guilty of suicide to reincarnate. If I hadn’t stopped her, she would have been doomed to float in the oceans of Hell for eternity. I could remember the panic like it was yesterday. The feelings had been so confusing. I had told myself I worried because I would be bored without her around to entertain me, but I had been a fool. It had been more than that. It had always been more than that. No one feared boredom the way I feared Lilith’s death.
“I thought you were stalking me like that to scare me,” she whispered.
“I was… I was trying to scare you into living.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” she snapped. “I was trying to escape everything you had done to me! Stalking me like that only made it worse.”
I growled. “I wanted you to be afraid of dying. Afraid of spending an eternity stuck with the demon who tormented you your whole fucking life.” A dark chuckle escaped my lips without my permission. “Ironically, I’m now trying to do the fucking opposite.”
She tried to look away again, but I snatched up her chin, forcing her to meet my gaze. “I need you to live, Lilith. I need you here, with me. And not just because Hell needs its queen, but because I need you. I have always needed you. I can’t do this without you.”
“Why should I care what you need when you have never cared about what I need?” she asked. She was still angry, and I couldn’t blame her. A few days of kindness did not make up for a lifetime of abuse and suffering.
“I’m trying to do better in that respect,” I said, gesturing to the bath she was currently sitting in. “But if you don’t want to do it for me, do it for yourself. You deserve better, Lilith. You deserve better than what I’ve given you, but you also deserve better than a lonely, premature death.”
I let go of her chin, and she gave me a long, considering look, as if she was thinking over what I had said.
“I want to be better for you,” I said softly, forcing past the painful lump that suddenly seemed to have made a home in my throat. “But you have to stick around long enough for me to try.”
Finally, she spoke. “I don’t know what to think or feel, Ramel,” she admitted softly. “On days like today, it’s easy to like you. It’s easy to forget, but then I remember everything you’ve done, and I can’t help but wonder if I’m an idiot for trying to look past all of it. For trying to forgive you.”
“I don’t need you to forgive me, Lilith. I need you to forgive yourself.”
“I don’t blame myself,” she snapped. “I blame you!”
She said it like she wanted to hurt me, but she didn’t believe it enough for it to hurt, and we both knew it.
“No, you don’t.”
Her eyes welled with tears, and I took the champagne from her as her hand began to shake. “If you did, you wouldn’t have fresh scars on your legs, and we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
The truth settled over her, and I watched as my words snapped something inside her. Abruptly, she stood up, her face and chest now flushed with anger instead of timidness. Water streamed down her naked body as she got out of the tub, aggressively sloshing water over the floor. She bolted for the door, but I was too fast. I grabbed her by the shoulders, and she shrieked in rage, spinning in my arms and pounding her tiny fists on my chest.
“I hate you!” she screamed, pounding her hands into me over and over as I gently maneuvered her backward until she was pressed against the wall. “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you! ” Tears were streaming down her cheeks, and my heart was shattering as I watched her battle with herself.
“That’s not true either, deathtrap,” I said gently, holding her firmly against the wall, more to make sure she didn’t slip and hurt herself.
“It is true! I hate you ! I’ve always hated you!”
She didn’t though, and that was the problem. She didn’t hate me, and she felt like she was betraying everyone she had ever loved by not being able to hate the demon that had killed them.
“You don’t hate me, Lilith,” I whispered, hoping she could see how sorry I was. “You love me, and you hate yourself for it.”
Suddenly, she stopped hitting me, and she let out a keening wail, her body going limp in my arms. I caught her as she collapsed, and I guided her with me to the ground, folding her into my chest as her anger shifted to anguish.
“No, no, no,” she sobbed, burying her face into my chest. “I hate you.”
I shook my head against her as I held her, my own eyes pricking with the unfamiliar hot sting of tears. I swallowed hard enough it was audible.
“You don’t. You love me, and it’s okay. It’s okay, Lilith. ”
She couldn’t answer. She just cried while I held her. I wasn’t even sure anymore if getting her memories back would be enough to erase the damage I had caused.
There was no handbook for what she was going through, and I had no idea how she would reconcile her current self with her past self. My heart squeezed in my chest as I realized she would need to suffer through the added trauma of the time she had spent in purgatory.
A shot of fear coursed through me at the thought. I was out of time. She was either going to fight or break, and there was nothing I could do to save her. This wasn’t something I could force her to do. She needed to want this on her own, and I had never felt more helpless.
She shook in my arms as she cried, and I tightened my grip around her as if just holding her would keep her from falling apart.
“I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry,” I whispered as I held her, knowing that it didn’t matter but wanting her to hear it anyway.
After what felt like an eternity, her tears finally stopped, and she looked up at me with red-rimmed eyes.
“I’m tired,” she said, and I nodded, scooping her up and carrying her to the bed. I got her a pair of soft cotton shorts and one of her favorite T-shirts to change into just as there was a soft knock on the door.
One of the line cooks from the kitchen had come by to drop off the dish Lilith had made. Thanking the line cook, I wheeled the tray of food next to the bed and lifted the sterling silver domed plate cover to reveal her expertly plated curry.
Her puffy eyes widened at how the team had plated her meal. The rice had been molded into a perfect little cup, and the curry and mango salsa were skillfully positioned around the edge of the plate. Tiny pieces of cilantro had been added with precision as a garnish, adding little bursts of color to the dish.
“It’s beautiful,” she breathed, crawling forward to examine the plate. The anxiety that had consumed me eased slightly. The fact that she could still get excited about cooking was a good thing, or at least I assumed. I was excellent at breaking people; trying to fix them was new to me.
I handed her the plate and a roll-up of cutlery and settled in next to her, turning on the TV and lining up her show.
She eyed me warily, and I glanced over at her, unsure what to say. I had said what I said, and there was nothing else I could add that would make our immediate reality any better.
“Eat, Lilith. Let’s watch your show.”
“You’re not having any? ”
I shrugged, feeling exhausted and anxious. The last thing I wanted to do was eat. I would much rather be in the dungeons taking my rage at Yahweh out on Rafael, but I didn’t trust Lilith enough to leave her alone. “I don’t have much of an appetite. You enjoy.”
I was about to hit play when she rolled onto her knees and sidled up closer to where I was propped on the pillows next to her. She was extra careful not to spill and scooped up some curry with rice, holding it up to me.
“Try some. It’s really good,” she said softly.
“I’m alright, deathtrap,” I said, brushing her off. My stomach was unsettled from how upset she had been at the very thought that she might love me. I may have been a heartless fucking demon, but even I felt sick at the fact that the person I loved more than anything in the world hated that she cared about me… and I had no one to blame but my fucking self.
And Yahweh. I could definitely blame Yahweh.
Lilith sighed, reaching over me to put the plate down carefully on the tray beside the bed.
“What’s wrong?” she asked me, and I failed to repress a dark, joyless laugh.
“You’re asking me what’s wrong?” I croaked, and she looked at me with her tear-stained cheeks and nodded. She was so innocent and fragile, and I had fucking broken her.
“What isn’t wrong, Lilith? My fucking wife would rather kill herself than be with me. The idea that you could be in love with me disgusts you so much that you just spent the last twenty minutes sobbing in my arms over it. I can’t even get angry or upset about it because I don’t even blame you.
“I’m out of time to convince you to want this. You’re going to ascend into your power tonight and be reunited with your past self, suffer through the trauma of those memories, and probably hate me even fucking more for not realizing who you were when Yahweh turned me against you.” I closed my eyes and clenched my fists at my sides, taking a deep breath in through my nose.
“If all that wasn’t enough, the crippling guilt I feel for having been the one to break you, to make you like this, it’s unbearable . Knowing that Yahweh set me up isn’t enough to make it feel okay. I should have known. I should have known, with or without my memories, who you were. There were signs. There were deep-seated feelings and instincts, but I ignored them, and it fucking destroyed you. It destroyed us. ”
Featherlight fingers brushed against my cheek, and I opened my eyes to find Lilith staring at me, a pained look on her beautiful face.
“I’m sorry,” she said, and I snatched up her wrist, growling.
“Stop, fucking , apologizing! None of this is your fault,” I snarled.
She sidled up closer to me and placed her free hand over my heart, staring at my chest like she could see the wounds beneath my shirt .
“I’m still sorry that I hurt you,” she said softly, glancing up to meet my gaze. “You were right. I don’t hate you. I’m sorry I reacted like that. I just… everything feels like it’s too much sometimes, and twenty-three years of history is a lot for me to try to move past. There are scars on my psyche that may never go away, Ramel, no matter how much you try to fix what’s been broken. There’s no going back, the damage has been done.”
If she had stabbed me in the chest with an Aetherium blade, it would have fucking hurt less. I increased my grip on her wrist but forced myself to breathe.
“But…”
I froze. But?
“But… I believe you when you say you love me and that you’re sorry,” She was staring at me so intensely I was afraid to breathe. “I believe that you wish you could take it all back. Well, maybe not all of it, but I believe that you wish you could take back killing everybody I ever knew and forcing me to grow up alone.”
I gave her one slow nod, still afraid to speak.
“I can see you trying to be better, but it’s going to take more than a few days, Ramel, for me to heal. It’s not enough for you to tell me that you love me; you have to show me every single day.” Her expression was serious, and there was a strength to it, a fire in her eyes that gave me hope. Someone who looked as determined as she did wasn’t beyond saving.
“You have a lifetime of hurt to heal, Ramel. You need to be patient and wait for me to get there.”
I sat up and cupped her face in my hands. “I will wait for you until the end of fucking time, Lilith. I’m just terrified I’m going to lose you to yourself along the way.”
She bit her lip, her mossy eyes filling with remorse. I was so tired of seeing her beat herself up like this. “I really scared you, didn’t I?” Her voice was so small it made my chest hurt.
I nodded. “Yes. I’ve never been so afraid in my life.”
Her eyes darted back and forth between mine, and I watched her little brow furrow as she mulled over my words.
“I didn’t think you were afraid of anything,” she whispered.
“The only thing I’m afraid of, Lilith, is losing you.”
Tears welled in her eyes again, and her lower lip trembled. Before I knew what was happening, she threw her arms around my neck, and we fell back into the pillows together. I wrapped my arms around her waist and buried my face in her hair, memorizing the feel of her body against me and mapping the scent of her skin.
“I know I don’t have the right to ask anything of you, but please stay. Please stay here with me,” I begged, and my voice cracked. She made a soothing sound, similar to the ones I always made for her, and pressed her lips against the side of my neck .
“Okay, Ramel. I’ll stay.”
I knew she wasn’t telling me she would stay in Hell. She was telling me she would stay with me wherever I was. I wanted to rain a thousand thank you’s down upon her perfect little ears, but I couldn’t speak. I was worried that if I did, I would completely shatter. So, instead, I just held onto her, praying that she was telling me the truth and I would never have to worry about surviving a day without her in my arms again.