“Essentially that’s what we are. The princes don’t really want us for anything, but they do want us. So we get dumped here.”
“But what about the demons you’ve seen?”
Joriel shrugged. “I don’t know if they’re working on Lucifer’s orders or if he doesn’t really care what they do to me, but I’m thinking it’s the latter.”
“If he was just going to leave you here, why did he make the deal for your soul?”
Joriel’s smile didn’t have a trace of warmth or amusement in it. “Because the Devil loves nothing more than taking what belongs to God. He doesn’t want any of the human souls he fights to have—he’s always hated humans—he just doesn’t want Father to have them.”
“Why do you think Roth stole me?” I’d thought about it but never really came up with any feasible theories. I was sure Roth had sought me out. He’d been telling me the truth when he said he needed me. Yet once he’d gotten me here, he’d left without really getting anything from me. Same with Soneillon.
“Because he’s the Prince of Theft,” Joriel said with a scowl.
I shook my head. “There was more to it.” I wished I could remember everything Roth had told me that night. If I could pick through his words, maybe I could understand why he’d done what he had. “Do you think they wanted my wings?”
“Doubtful. Angel wings are useless as anything but decoration after they’ve been removed from the body.”
“So is this really it? We’re going to spend the rest of our lives in Hell’s version of an attic?”
“Probably not the rest of our lives.”
“Is there a way out of here? I mean if you weren’t chained to a wall.”
“The only way out for people like us is through the main lobby, which we can only get to from Lucifer’s palace. As far as I know, that would require traveling through five circles of Hell to get to.”
“Do you ever think about it? Trying to get out?”
He tipped his head back against the wall. “No. This is where I belong now.”
“I don’t believe that.”
His lips twisted up in a bitter smile. “Believe whatever you want, snow angel. But don’t come crying to me when you realize your belief was misplaced.”
There was no point in arguing with him further. Joriel believed the worst of himself and took every opportunity to remind me. Someday I would understand why Joriel felt the way he did. I just needed to figure out what questions to ask to get the whole story behind his torment. Maybe then I’d have some idea how to help him defeat them. Because regardless of what he believed, I knew this wasn’t where he belonged.
* * *
I was temptedto give up on my promise not to leave Joriel’s side.
The tension between us had grown until it was so thick you could cut it with a knife. All that talking I’d done right after the kiss to end all kisses had only lasted for so long. I’d run out of things to say, and Joriel didn’t exactly help me keep the conversation going. And without words to fill the space, my mind ran away with my thoughts.
I could still feel the ghost of Joriel’s lips on mine, his weight pressing down on me.
I couldn’t look at him without heat rushing through my body, and I was pretty sure he knew that. He’d been doing a lot of glaring at me in the past however many hours. The kind of glaring that involved an awful lot of heat in his gaze.
How long could we live like this? Which one of us would snap first? And what would that look like? If Joriel snapping resulted in more kisses, I certainly wouldn’t complain. I think I liked Joriel’s animalistic side. Except I didn’t really want to be the source of his regret and guilt.
Joriel didn’t want to want me, and I didn’t know why. I’d considered everything from me being a first-order angel to the possibility that there was someone else. When it came down to it, I really didn’t know much about his life before the prison realm. There could be another girl, an angel he’d left behind. Only if that were the case, I would think he’d be trying harder to get back to her. Or maybe that was just what I wanted to believe because I didn’t want there to be someone else.
Was this what jealousy felt like? It was similar to how I’d felt when I heard the stories about angels who had mates, but so much more potent.
“What’s wrong?” Joriel asked.
“Nothing.” I took a deep breath, trying to push away the feelings.
Another several minutes went by in silence. It was so quiet that our breathing sounded loud and I could hear every shift of rock when one of us moved.
And then there were the footsteps, faint and faraway sounding.
