“It’s nothing as exciting as being afraid of snakes,” he said and grinned.
He was stalling.“I’ll be the judge of that.You got off lightly, the way I see it.”
“You think so?”
“You spent most of our time in that dungeon force-feeding me poison.From where I’m sitting, seems like I got the short straw.”I’d definitely spent more time on my ass and out of it than he had.Something I’m certain Felditch had done on purpose.
The muscles in his jaw flexed.“I assure you, mine was horrific enough, even for you.”
“Let’s hear it, then.”
His thick fingers curled around the back of the chair in front of him.“My biggest fear is losing the person…people I love the most.”
I searched that stormy gaze.Angels channeled God’s love, I’d seen no evidence that they were capable of feeling it themselves.Nathaniel’s and Eloa’s fears had been centered around themselves because angels were selfish.I found it difficult to believe Silas’s fears had been any different.“I get that,” I said instead of calling him out.What was the point?“I guess mine is essentially the same thing.Being alone is the result of losing the people I love.”I shrugged.“Seems to me, anyone with a heart would have the same fear.”And he didn’t have one, right?
He nodded slowly, eyeing me in a way that made me feel uneasy.“While you were under the influence of the poisons, you went somewhere…somewhere else, Urs.”He shoved his fingers through his black-and-gold hair.“You were in pain…” The muscles in his jaw tightened.“It sounded like you were being tortured.”
“Because I was.”
“What?”
“It was a long time ago,” I said because there was no denying the truth.I’d no doubt freaked the hell out while I was deep in my hallucination, and as much as I hated talking about what happened or how helpless I’d been then, he’d already heard the fear, seen it while I was reliving that nightmare.
“Who?”he said.
My head shot up, surprised by the sudden fury in his voice.“It was a long time ago.”
“Who hurt you, Ursula?”he demanded.
I leaned against the table and crossed my arms.I didn’t need to tell him shit, but he wasn’t going to let up until I told him.I knew for a fact he didn’t actually care about me specifically.Maybe it was some angelic sense of justice that was driving him now.It definitely wasn’t emotion.“The fae.”
His nostrils flared.“Names.”
“Like I said, it was a long time ago, before I knew how to fight.I was a baby really, newly made by Lucifer and trying to learn my place in the world around me.I was susceptible to manipulation and thought I was in love with a fae soldier.Turned out he was sent by their warlock after he heard about Lucifer’s new creations.He wanted to see how much of a threat the handmaids were.Back then the realms were still fighting it out, still trying to make sure their territories were safe, and I was a casualty of that.”
“So they tortured you?”
Despite how long ago it was, talking about it had those same feelings of hopelessness, of weakness, and yes, of being alone and abandoned, rushing back.“They conducted every possible experiment they could think of, because I was nothing but a new creature for them to dissect.They wanted to see what I could endure, and if they could kill me without taking my head.”
“How did you escape?”
“Lucifer came.Uma finally told him where I was.”
“She knew?”
I crossed my arms.“Yeah, she’d overheard me talking to the soldier.She knew he was playing me, but not that he planned to torture me.She also waited several days to tell Lucifer where I was.Things between us had been rocky before that happened, she was jealous that I was being trained as Lucifer’s personal taster and wanted to hurt me.She was scared for me, but never apologized.After that, nothing was the same between us.She’s never stopped trying to best me.”
“I had no idea,” he said, and actually looked ill.
“How could you?”
His Adam’s apple slid up and down his throat.“What did Lucifer do?”
“He made a deal with the fae to get me back, one where we never entered each other’s realms ever again.He took me home and neither us nor them have broken the deal in over a millennium.The fae stick to themselves now, as you know, and that’s down to Lucifer and the literal hell he rained down on them for hurting me.So, as you see, it was taken care of.”
“I still want names.”His jaw clenched as he waited.
I shook my head.“That, you can’t have.”