She straightened, confusion on her face.“Why are you talking this way?You’re acting as if I don’t care about your well-being.”
“Do you?”I asked.There was no future for her and I.I didn’t love her, and she sure as fuck didn’t love me, but I had to try to make her see what she’d become, what so many of us had become.
“Of course I do.”
“Yet you haven’t attempted to heal my wounds or asked how you can help me.Instead, your main concern is how my appearance will shame you by association.We’re angels, Rosalind.We were once filled with love and compassion, we fought for what was right and good, now we’ve grown…cold and hollow.We’re selfish and ugly.”
She flinched and took a step back.“Uriel is right, Lucifer and his demon have corrupted you.You never would have spoken about your brethren like that before you fell.”She gripped the door handle and shook her head.“Your words are what’s ugly.I don’t think…I don’t think I should come back here and see you anymore.”
“Agreed.I think that would be for the best.”
Her fingers curled into a fist and color darkened her cheeks.“I’ll give you some time to consider your actions.More time with Uriel to correct your corrupted soul is all you ne?—”
“Don’t come back.”
“What?”
“You and I will never happen.”
She sucked in a shocked breath.“You’re not thinking clearly.”
The female didn’t seem to have an ounce of compassion or even understand it.How had I never seen it before?How had I been blind for so fucking long.I saw it now, though, and I didn’t care about her feelings or anything else when it came to this place.Not anymore.“I assure you, Rosalind, I’m thinking with extreme clarity.I’d rather reside in Hell than be tied to you for the rest of eternity.Now, please, would you kindly fuck off.”
Her eyes flared, then she strode toward me and leaned in.“I hope Uriel tears those wings from your back again and throws you out like the trash you are.”Then she strode out, slamming the door behind her.
I hoped so as well.More than anything.
Twenty-One
Ursula
My boots sounded tooloud on the stone floor as I headed toward Lucifer’s quarters.I’d been avoiding this conversation, but there was no hiding from it any longer.Rox had offered to come with me, but I needed to do this alone.Not just because I didn’t want any witnesses when Lucifer let me know how disappointed he was.I wasn’t afraid of him, of course not, but disappointing him was the worst thing a handmaid could do.
We were literally here for him, to protect him, and I’d failed in my duty.
Without giving myself time to chicken out, I knocked.
The door swung open a moment later, Lucifer there to greet me because he’d already felt me coming.
He motioned to the couch.
I strode in and tried not to fidget when I sat.This all felt weird.Lucifer was a part of me, he was everything, and I never felt uncomfortable in his presence.But now it was like I didn’t fit my own skin.I didn’t know how to sit with myself, let alone Lucifer, in the face of my own failure—my weakness.
He dropped down beside me.“How you doing, sweets?”
I curled my fingers tight.“Honestly?”
“Always.”
“I feel like a heaping pile of dog shit.”
He covered the back of my hand briefly.Not all of us were touchy feely, and Lucifer knew which of us liked affection and which of us didn’t.That was him showing me he cared by not overstepping my boundaries.He was quite capable of thinking of others, it just didn’t come naturally and was something I assumed he was making an effort to work on since his blowup with Roxy.“Well, you don’t look like dog shit.”
The softness in his gaze was making my eyes sting.I looked away.
“Urs?”
“I’m fine.”