Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
IVY
Lucy never called a meeting unless she could enjoy herself.
She grinned, lounging across her ridiculous throne—half chaise, half golden dais—draped in silks of crimson and gold trim.
Her six-inch heels were the exact shade of blood.
They clicked against the onyx step as she tapped them absentmindedly.
“Darlings,” she purred, hands steepled like a church full of people, “today we begin the Fortitude Trials.”
Around me, demonesses straightened with a rustle of leather and excitement. Beside me, Shana capped her pen and muttered, “If there’s not at least one fainting bull, I want my morning back.”
I elbowed her. She elbowed me harder. I think that was supposed to mean budding friendship, but it could also have been aggression —who knew?
Lucy let silence bloom until it felt oppressive, and then continued.
“Our HuBulls have danced and flexed, those silly boys. Absolutely adorable. However, performance without control is just peacocking. I’m interested in staying power.
” Her smile sharpened. “Forty-eight hours in a Deprivation Chamber. No sight. No touch. No comfort… save one.”
She lifted a finger. A red spark hovered over it like a cherry ember, then drifted toward us and split into a constellation of glitter.
“Sound,” she said, as if she’d invented it.
“They will hear a single voice through the intercom. It will belong to the demoness assigned to them. You will keep them responsive, obedient, and sane. You may soothe. You may needle. You may interview. You may not break them, and you may not be broken in turn.” Her eyes slid to me, affectionate and predatory. “Try to have fun.”
Heat prickled the back of my neck. I straightened my clipboard as if that could shield me.
“Baseline questions are mandatory,” Lucy went on, flicking her wrist. The glitter spun and arranged themselves into neat, glowing lines.
“We require a truth-set for each bull. Ask them, record them, savor them.” She read, sing-song, like a bedtime story for the wicked.
“One: In your own words, why were you sent to Hell? Two: If you could have lived your life differently, would you, and why? Three: What do you miss most about being alive? Four: What truth have you never spoken aloud? Five: What do you want most now?”
Shana raised her hand. “Can we add a bonus round where they define ‘emotional availability’ in under ten words?”
“Later,” Lucy cooed. “After they cry.” Her gaze skimmed our faces, pleased. “Pairings have been selected. I expect… revelations.” She stretched like a satisfied cat. “Dismissed.”
We filed out in a perfume cloud of steamy seduction. Shana bumped my shoulder. “On a scale of one to ‘I might throw up,’ where are we?”
“Holding the bucket.”
“Nice. Let’s see the line-up.” She snatched the top sheet from the assignments clerk, who hissed and then thought better of it. Shana’s grin got positively indecent as she scanned the names. “Aw, angel-pants. You know Aunt Lucy likes you.”
“I’m not going to ask.”
“You should. You got the crowd favorite.” She flipped the sheet so I could see. My stomach did a queasy little curtsey.
“Max Robbins,” she sang. “Mr. Smug-and-charming. Mr. I-don’t-know-what-I’m-doing, but I do it with dimples.”
“That’s a coincidence,” I said, and instantly hated how defensive I sounded.
“Sure. Because Lucy is famous for random selection.” Shana waggled her brows. “Relax. It’s just a man in a dark box. If he starts reciting poetry at your voice, mute him and think about taxes.”
“Very helpful. I’m a former angel. I never paid taxes.”
“You’re welcome.” She bumped her hip against mine. “Let’s go make some bulls sweat.”
The control room for each chamber was private and comfortable, lined with glass.
Beyond the pane, a chamber hummed—a low, steady thrum that vibrated through the soles of my boots.
They looked like cocoons, doorless, with smooth, unbroken walls and padded benches.
Enchanted microphones hovered at each station like polished black birds, awaiting their message.
I sat at my station and slipped the headset on, staring through my pane at the man I wasn’t supposed to have opinions about.
Dear heaven above, if I could only keep to that.
The glass-softened distance made him feel close enough to touch, yet forever beyond reach.
He sat on the bench, blindfolded, wrists resting open on his thighs, breathing a notch too fast. Bare shoulders, a good map of muscle—not show-offy, just…
delicious. His horns should have been a turn-off.
But all I could picture was me riding him whilst holding onto those curved bits of…
Erm, perhaps if I didn’t look at him. I might be able to behave. But then I saw the plump curve of his lips. His mouth made promises even when it was doing nothing at all.
Focus, Ivy. Give the man a chance.
A rune blinked green at my elbow. SESSION: HHB-37. OBSERVER: IVY. START.
I cleared my throat and pressed the button. My voice went into the dark. “Subject thirty-seven, can you hear me?”
Static crackled, then his reply—careful, trying not to hope. “Yeah. I can hear you. Hi.”
“Hello,” I said, aiming for smooth and not robotic. “I’ll be your observer for this trial. You may call me—”
“Ivy,” he said, surprised into something that sounded like relief.
“That’s… correct, Max.” My pulse tripped. Of course he remembered my name. People remember the first voice that steadies them. It doesn’t mean anything. “I’ll ask you the baseline questions. Honesty is required. Lies are recorded as failures. Do you understand?”
“I understand.” A beat, then, lighter: “So this is like therapy, if your therapist is a disembodied voice and your therapist’s boss is Satan.”
I snorted with laughter, barely keeping it from the microphone.
“Please refrain from calling my aunt Satan,” I said firmly. “She likes it far too much.”
“Your—wait. Is that a metaphor?”
“No.” I should have lied with the ease of someone who’d learned the hard way not to hand strangers her soft underbelly. Clearly, I was still new to the demoness business. “First question. In your own words, why were you sent to Hell?”
He let out the tiniest breath, a self-depreciating laugh that surrendered before it began.
“I liked winning.” He paused as if turning the sentence carefully in his hands to see if it cut.
“Winning came easy, and then it came with perks, and then I started taking the perks like they were owed to me. I worked too much and cared too little. I measured people by what they could get me.” A swallow.
“I don’t think I was born cruel. But my mother, she was…
religious. Nothing I ever did was right.
I suppose I got so used to being told I was bad, I just didn’t care anymore.
I might as well use it to my advantage. So I did.
I took the shortcut so often, my feet forgot the long way. ”
Silence yawned, not empty so much as exact. My throat went tight, unhelpfully so. I ticked a box on the crystal pad just to keep my fingers from confessing anything.
“Thank you,” I said, meaning it.
“You’re not going to argue?” he asked, half surprised, half testing. “Tell me there’s a mistake?”
“No.” It came out softer than I meant. “Your answer registered as the truth. You mentioned your mother. Tell me about her.”
He hesitated at first, but then slowly began to tell me what it had been like to live with a religious zealot who found fault with every move her child made.
My heart ached to think of Max as a child, enduring that kind of scrutiny.
It was wrong of me to want to punch the woman in the face, but I did.
After a while, I asked the next question. “If you could have lived your life differently, would you—and why?”
He made a sound as if he were weighing his options.
“I should say yes,” he admitted. “That I’d be better.
Kinder. And maybe I would. Maybe I’d stop treating people like rungs.
Do I have regrets? Certainly, I wish I’d had a better relationship with my mom.
She was my only family. I wish I hadn't always taken the easy way. But then, if I changed something, what if I ended up somewhere else? If I didn’t end here,” the faintest smile threaded his voice, “then I would never have met you.”
The monitor’s display reported TRUE quickly.
I stared very hard at the blinking cursor. My chest had developed a bad habit of constricting so much that I could hardly breathe. I choked out, “That answer is dangerously flattering.”
“It’s honest.” He shifted on the bench—a scrape of skin on fabric, a small exhale that my body pretended was personal. “You said that we had to be honest.”
I wasn’t certain I would be able to handle much more of his honesty. But nothing could have dragged me away from that chamber or from Max.
“Can I ask you something?”
“I’m here to ask you questions,” I said automatically, and then could have kicked myself. “You can ask.”
“What’s your job like? Outside this.” He groped for words. “Do you… like it?”
The truthful answer? Sometimes. I was new to it, and it was far different from being an angel. Before I knew it, I was telling him the whole story.
He huffed. “And that creep, Gabriel? What happened to him?”
I sighed. “Nothing. He wasn’t punished. He pretended to be testing me, and I failed.
Automatically stripped of my title, my wings, and given the new status of fallen angel.
It was a big fall, Max. I’m not going to lie.
I am still coming to grips with being a demoness.
It helps that Aunt Lucy runs the place.”
“You didn’t deserve that, Ivy,” he said softly.
And the monitor pulsed TRUE.
I cleared my throat. “Third question. What do you miss most about being alive?”