Chapter 40 Asta #2
I guess it’s a reasonable response. Aerilyn believed them to be friends, and Lea handed her over to Rome on a silver platter.
The room heats, and the shadows dance as my anger grows, but Aerilyn doesn’t seem to notice, and Lea isn’t stupid enough to comment. If she were so much as to look at me right now, I might very well send her soul to the abyss to be consumed by Hell and forgotten.
It’s more than she deserves.
“She’s here because it’s the only place we can keep her safe from Rome.” I barely manage to bite out the words past the demonic grate of my voice, but either way, I know she understands. She’s a demon, after all.
Oh, maybe that’s why Aerilyn is looking at her like that.
Lea is demon-born, not fallen, meaning her demonic qualities are more textbook, and she doesn’t have the ability to mask those features while in Hell.
Her skin is a deep red that is common for hellborn; her hair, dark like the walls of her prison, falls down her back.
She has large horns curling back from her forehead with a sharp point and ridges.
Her ears are also like the rest of us, pointed and sticking out of her hair, though they aren’t as large as ours.
She’s objectively attractive, though not at all my type because I don’t have a type.
My eyes cut to the mortal beside me, and I narrow my eyes as I look her over.
“I’m sorry.” Her voice comes out weak and pathetic, just like her, hardly more than a whisper as tears fall down her face, clearing a path through the dirt from her cell.
“I’m so fucking sorry, Aeri. I didn’t know…
” she chokes on her apology, and it takes me a moment to realize I’m the one cutting off her air.
I release my mental hold on her, and she gasps but still doesn’t dare look my way.
“I didn’t know, Aeri. You have to believe me. I didn’t know.” Lea’s begging, on her knees, reaching through the bars, looking pitiful, and yet still all I see is her betrayal.
“Yes, you did, don’t lie.”
Finally, Lea turns to look at me, her mouth falling open before she quickly snaps it closed, only to do the same thing again, gaping like a fish out of water before she shakes her head.
“I didn’t know it would be all of this.” She gestures around the dungeon, and I raise a brow, unimpressed. So she didn’t know she would get caught. Is that what she’s trying to tell me?
“I thought…” she turns back to Aerilyn, her lip trembling again, but she’s no longer crying.
“I thought he would grab you, and the guys would find you and kill him, and everything would go back to normal,” she says in a rush.
“How was I supposed to know how strong he was? I-I thought everything would be okay…” She slumps down on her ass, looking at her hands, her breathing ragged.
“What you meant to say is you were only worried about yourself.”
“I’m a demon!” she screams before she can stop herself, and Aerilyn’s face shows the first flicker of emotion as her eyes narrow.
Good. She needs to see who Lea really is.
“Yes, a demon who is supposed to be loyal to me!” This time, I don’t stop my temper as it flares. My shadows crawl up her body, making her scramble away, and I breathe in the sweet scent of her fear as it makes my power flare.
“He was going to kill me, he has angelic steel! I didn’t think he was a threat to her!”
“The problem is you did think, but only of your own safety. But who will save you from me?” I’m through the bars and on her in the next breath, my own blade of angelic steel pressed to her neck.
I’ve killed enough angels to have a small collection of my own blades. One of the few things that can kill both angels and demons.
Whether or not they would work on God or Lucifer is unknown, but the rest of us are fair game, and Lea isn’t high enough on the food chain to stand a fucking chance.
Just one cut is all it would take, and she knows it. That’s why she goes limp instead of fighting.
“Asta.”
Her voice washes over me, making me feel as though she’s physically touched me. I grind my teeth together, unwilling to look at her, to give her any power over me.
“Asta, stop!” She’s at the bars, her fingers gripping them until her knuckles turn white as she pleads with me. Worried about the life of a lowly demon, one who couldn’t give her the same courtesy.
I stand frozen, unwilling to move one way or the other as I continue to breathe in Lea’s fear. She’s right to be afraid. I had every intention to kill her, if not for Aerilyn.
“What right do you have to tell me to stop?” I hiss through clenched teeth.
“I’m the one she wronged, not you. She gave me to Rome, but she doesn’t deserve to die for it.”
Her humanity is blinding her.
I remove the blade from her throat, using my grip on her hair to toss her across the cell, where she is smart enough to scurry away into the farthest corner. It won’t save her, but it makes the dark beast inside preen in pleasure to see her fear as I taste it in the air.
“She gave you to Rome, not knowing if you would survive. Handed you back to him after you did so much to escape, left everything and everyone you’ve ever known with nothing but what you could cram in your piece of shit car.
She did that to save her own skin. She betrayed a seven-thousand-year friendship instead of simply coming to us for help, and then she ran as if she might be able to escape her punishment.
” I see her flinch at the mention of all she did to try and escape Rome, but we both know it’s the truth.
“Lea gave you to Rome despite what I said because she thought it would save her, and she’d do it again if given the chance. Demons are a lot of things, but I expect loyalty, something Lea is very aware of. It’s why she was allowed topside to begin with, to work for me.”
I take a step forward and hear her whimper; I don’t even try and hide the smile that pulls at my lips. I’d like to say I’m reasonable, a businessman if you would, and Lea owes me her soul.
“Asta, please,” Aerilyn begs, her voice small and strained. I don’t like the way it sounds, find no joy in it the way I usually do, but I brush that off. This isn’t about her, not really.
Lea sits in the corner, her knees pulled up to her chest, her arms wrapped around them, making her look small. She’s gasping for air as she looks up at me, and I see her fear; she knows as well as I do that she won’t be leaving this cell.
Death to a demon with angelic steel is the only true death, worse still than sending her soul to the abyss, because nobody knows what happens after true death. And who doesn’t fear the unknown?
“I’m sorry, Aeri, I was afraid and made a stupid decision. I’m glad you're okay.”
I stand over her, watching as she says her final piece, satisfied when I sense no lie.
Too bad it’s too late for that.
I wave a hand and lift her into the air, my shadows reaching out to hold her still, but again she doesn’t fight.
“Turn away, Aerilyn,” I tell her, flicking my eyes up to meet hers as she glares at me through the bars.
There’s so much fire in those eyes, the same ones that have looked so lost since Rome had his way in her mind.
It’s intoxicating seeing her like this, and I struggle to look away as my blood runs south.
Thankfully, if anyone were to notice, I can blame the torture, but the fact that I’ve reacted to her like that at all is a problem, one I’m more than happy to ignore for the moment.
“Asta, stop!” Her demand cuts through the air like a whip, and I freeze, knife in hand, ready to slit the traitor's throat.
I can’t move. One second ticks by, and then another as I fight against whatever this hold is.
Five whole seconds she holds me, and when I finally manage to break away, Lea is no longer my concern.
My shadows reach for Aeri as I move out of the cell and stalk toward her. She stands her ground, craning her head back to hold my gaze, and fuck if that doesn’t make me harder.
I will not be undone by this tiny mortal!
“She deserves death!” I shout, making her flinch, but still she remains where she is, her shoulders squared and her jaw set.
“She was afraid, and it made her irrational, excuse me if I can relate.”
It takes every ounce of willpower I have not to roll my eyes at her lame-ass attempt to cover for her.
“You are not the same. She knows better. You’re far too forgiving!” I snap, pinching the bridge of my nose to give me something to do that isn’t reaching out for her the way I suddenly want to.
“Maybe you're just too much of an ass!?”
The urge to hold her grows stronger, and I have to force myself to take a step back.
What is happening?
I get my answer a moment later when she gasps, her hand flying up to her chest.
No.
“No,” I speak the word aloud, shaking my head as I take another step back away from her and this.
The words get stuck in my throat, but I force them out. “I will not bond with you.”
The pain is instant, burning through my veins as if someone injected lava into my veins.
I turn and leave, headed back down the long corridor. I hear her stumble behind, groaning and panting, but still managing to follow me.
“Asta,” she calls for me, and it takes everything not to turn around, to go back to her and hold her. To undo what I just did and accept the gift from the universe, but that’s my own weakness, my own longing, and this isn’t about me.
No, this is for the best.
We make it to the stairs before she gives in. I hear her knees hit the floor and feel the fear that takes over as she crumbles.
She has no idea what this is; she has every right to be terrified. The urge to go to her is so intense it’s like breathing; it would be natural.
But I can’t even stop to explain for fear of what I might do. Instead, I walk into the shadows and let them take me anywhere but here.
Leaving my mate… ex-mate lying on the floor of the dungeon, crying and confused.
Maybe I’m the one who deserves death…