“Is that all you can think about?” I shouted. “There are bigger things going on here than your advancement in Lucifer’s kingdom.”
“As my future wife, you should be more invested in my advancement—” he began.
I cut him off. “Enough. Really, enough. You need to stop acting like you can use our engagement as some kind of lever to get me to do what you want. I don’t want to marry you, and you talking about it like I’m entering into indentured servitude is not making me feel better about the situation.”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “So, you finally admit that you hate me.”
I clenched my fists. “Did I say that? No, I said that I don’t want to marry you. And why would I? I don’t know you. My father forced me into an engagement with you and all you do is tell me how I ought to be acting so that it reflects better on you.”
“And all you do is sneer at me and treat me with disrespect. It is clear to everyone that you despise me.”
His anger seemed to be growing with each passing moment. I could feel the aura of magic around him pulsing out, pushing against me in fury. There was something unnatural about that power, something that felt not quite like the power he had shown before. My burned-out magic still lay quiet somewhere inside me, and I felt a little afraid. But my own anger overrode that feeling.
“You haven’t done very much to try to make me like you.”
“Did I not assist you in finding the gargoyle? Did I not save you from the spider in the forest when you were overcome by poison? Have I not kept the secret of the thrall’s disappearance from my lord, as you have asked? You do not know in what jeopardy I have placed myself by this action. Lord Azazel would be in his rights to cast me out of the courts of the fallen, to torture me, to sell me to a demon court in punishment.”
I realized that he had put himself in danger for me, and I felt my anger let up a little. I still didn’t like him very much, still didn’t want to marry him, but it seemed like he was trying. I opened my mouth to apologize, to try to smooth things over, but it was too late.
“And not only do you despise me, but you have shamed me,” he said, and his eyes were not exactly Nathaniel’s eyes. There was venom, a pulse of malice that, for all his irritating personal habits, I would never associate with Nathaniel. Something was wrong here, something more than Nathaniel’s wounded pride. But I was too angry myself to pay attention to that sense of wrongness.
I felt my temper fire up again. “Shamed you how?”
“By loving the thrall,” he said.
I felt everything inside me go still. No one could know about that. No one could even suspect that I felt that way about Gabriel. Well, Lucifer knew, but he was keeping that card in his pocket for some reason of his own. But nobody else could know. If they did, Lucifer’s hand would be forced and Gabriel’s life would be forfeit. It wouldn’t even matter that nothing physical had ever happened between us other than a couple of kisses. Even the possibility that a half nephilim might breed with the daughter of Lord Azazel would be enough to send the sword to his neck.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, and my voice was all wobbly.
“Liar,” he replied, and he stalked toward me. “It is there for anyone with eyes to see.”
Was that true? Had I betrayed us? I’d thought I’d done a better job of hiding my feelings.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said again, and this time my voice was clear and confident. “Gabriel is my bodyguard, nothing more.”
Nathaniel gripped my shoulders and squeezed so hard that I cried out. I tried to pull away from him but he held me firmly in place and I felt panic rise up. He was stronger than me, a lot stronger. And I had no magic.
“He may be nothing more than your bodyguard now,” Nathaniel hissed. “But that is not what you desire of him. It is there in every look that passes between you. It is there in the way that he stands too close to you. It is there in the way your fingertips brush when you walk side by side. It was there in your eyes when you asked me to help you find him, to help you keep the secret of his disappearance from Azazel. Your heart speaks through your face, Madeline. Your love for that thing is there for all to see, and my heart burns in shame when I see it.”
His hands clenched tighter. He was going to bruise my shoulders. I tried to calm him, to soothe.
“Nathaniel, I’m sorry you think that. I’m sorry you feel that way.” I flapped my hands ineffectually at the ends of my wrists. My arms were locked to my sides. “Nathaniel. Nathaniel, you’re hurting me.”
His eyes had turned from frost blue to a dark and blazing sapphire. He looked at me but also beyond at something else only he could see. He pulled me tighter, pulled me closer, until our bodies were pressed together and I couldn’t escape his embrace. I was horrified to feel his erection brush against my stomach.
“Sorry?” he repeated, and his eyes refocused on mine. They were the eyes of a predator. It was like Nathaniel was gone, replaced by something monstrous. “Sorry? I will make you sorry.”
I saw what he intended and I felt cold sweat break out all over my skin. I began to thrash, to scream, but he pressed his lips against mine and swallowed my cry. I couldn’t move my arms but I could clamp down on his lower lip, and I did until he cried out and bled.
“You little bitch,” he said, and he backhanded me across the face with all his strength.
My ears rang and I saw stars. I think I blacked out for a minute because the next thing I knew he was on top of me, pulling at my bloody clothes.
“No,” I said, squirming underneath him, trying to find purchase to punch him, to kick. He had my limbs locked down. “No.”
I felt air on my exposed breasts, tasted his blood in my mouth when he pressed another brutal kiss on me. This could not happen.
“No,” I yelled this time and with that my sleeping magic awoke.
Just as when I’d been attacked by Samiel in the alley, I let the magic push up and out and through me. Nathaniel was flung from my body and crashed into a dresser on the other side of the room. The mirror shattered into a million pieces and the shards flew off with enough force to embed in his arms and back. I could see the twinkling edges of glass protruding from his neck.
I leapt off the bed, drawing nightfire, and hit him full on in the chest with it before he could think. He cried out in pain and I saw the blast burn through his shirt and through the skin of his chest. Scorched muscle showed underneath. He didn’t move.
I stalked toward him, full of fury. He couldn’t be dead yet. I wasn’t done killing him.
He opened his eyes, and they were bleary. I raised another ball of nightfire on my palm and made to throw.
“Wait,” he said, his voice croaky and hoarse.
“Now I know what you are,” I said, and my voice did not sound like my own.
I knew that my eyes must be alight with starshine. I could feel the magic inside me burning in a new way and was filled with not only a desire to take revenge, but a desire to hurt. I wanted him to crawl, to be humiliated. I wanted him to feel the helplessness I had felt. And that feeling was so alien, so monstrous, that it made me pause. I dialed it back a little, just enough so that I felt like myself again.
“Now I know what you are,” I repeated, and my magic covered me like a cloak, pulsing and angry. “You are a monster. I will never marry you.”
He held his hand in front of him as he struggled to his feet, trying to ward off another attack. “Madeline, I don’t know what came over me. It wasn’t me. You must believe me. It wasn’t me. I’m . . .”
“Don’t you dare say you’re sorry. You’re not sorry. You’re sorry you didn’t succeed.”
“No, I did not mean . . .”
“I know what you meant,” I said through my teeth. “And what do you think Lord Azazel will say when he discovers that you tried to defile his only daughter?”
Nathaniel went pale as the moon. I saw him tremble all over. “You must not . . . you must . . .”
“I must do what I feel is right,” I said. “Your wishes are hardly relevant.”
He fell to his knees again, held his hands out in supplication. “You must not tell Lord Azazel. He will kill me.”
I narrowed my eyes at him, hating him with every cell in my body. “What makes you think that I won’t kill you?”
His hands fell to his sides. “You are right. I have behaved unforgivably. You are well within your rights to end my life.”
