Hell's Future Princess

Chapter 4

*Shae PoV*

It was an hour later when I found myself in Azazel's bathroom. The human in me still needed to cleanse frequently, and his massive stone hot tub was perfect for the occasion. Especially after the sweaty kind of s*x that we always had. I ran the soft sponge over my body, taking care to soak the cuts that marred my skin from our excursions.

The tub was the only thing in the room except mirrors that lined the walls. Azazel was vain and liked to see himself from all angles and ensure his appearance was impeccable. They also came in handy when we were... well, the hot tub had been sullied multiple times, to say the least.

I sighed and looked in the mirror in front of me. The right star-shaped pupil of my lime green eyes stood out. It drew attention to me before people noticed the brightness of my eyes, followed by my pale complexion. I had always been extremely light-toned in life, then when I died and had no access to the sunlight, I damn near looked like a sickly vampire. It brought out the light dusting of tan freckles that lined my face and arms that were hardly discernible in my life. My soft, black hair was in a ponytail so I could soak my freshly-cut sore neck. My full lips were swollen from being sucked on for the past hour, but I had the image of a girl that had been well satisfied.

And that was definitely one thing I could not deny Azazel, he certainly knew how to satisfy. I was hardly his first, I mean, the man had been alive since the beginning of humankind. Though he hadn't connected with anyone since he was cast into Hell by those he once considered brothers, he kept himself occupied. There weren't many female demons that couldn't give some testimony to how he was in bed. However, I was the first who could attest to being his sole partner for longer than a week. Two years later, neither of us had sought out anyone else.

I stood and stretched my wings. The bones that connected them to my back cracked gloriously, and I groaned. The torches in the corners made the black shine magnificently under the firelight, and I ran my hands through the plumage. I fingered one of the royal blue feathers that speckled through them with a frown. They were the one hint I had of who my father was, and too bad for me, everyone knew immediately who it was based on the color. Only the Nephilim sons and daughters of the archangels had specific colors spotted throughout their wingspan.

One of the black feathers from my thick layer fell, landing in the water, and I frowned before picking it up. Holding the end, I turned it in the firelight and examined it. It was perfectly healthy, so I didn't understand why it had fallen.

“It starts slow,” a quiet voice spoke from the doorway, and I turned to see Azazel carefully watching me. He was eyeing it, an almost sorrowful expression on his face.

“What does?” I asked, reaching for the towel at the end of the tub.

“The true fall,” he said somberly. He took the towel and held it open for me. I stepped out, my feet splaying into the soft rug as he wrapped the towel tightly around me.

“The true fall?” I asked, still staring at him. He closed the towel around me and grabbed the tie holding my hair up to let it fall past my shoulders. He had an obsession with letting it hang down in its natural waves. “What does that mean?”

His own wings fluttered out and folded, a grimace on his face. “When you lose all the good in your heart and faith that there is any hope in the world... that is the path of becoming a demon.”

My lips parted as I stared at him before looking over my shoulder at my wings. They were still sleek and soft to the touch, and I had come to fall in love with them. They'd only been there for just under 14 years, I didn't want to say goodbye already. “I'm becoming a demon?”

“The more you allow the darkness to take you, the more it will happen,” he said before sighing heavily. He took the feather from me and spun it, examining it in the firelight. “When mine began to fall, I... I don't know. I was sad, but at the same time, I no longer cared. I was so full of ire and vengeance. All that mattered was making Raphael and the Reapers pay for what they did to me. I had survived my father's rebellion, somehow escaped their sight that I had a helping hand in it, just to be cast here anyway. At the time... it was the worst thing that could have happened to me. Losing my plumage didn't matter.”

He went silent, stuck in his memories as he sadly stared at my feather. I touched his face, and he finally snapped out of it, looking down at me. “You would still be ignorant to them and their lies if they hadn't, though. Just as I was.”

“Exactly,” he said, smiling softly. “I do not despair about what happened in the past any longer, I have far more freedoms here in my father's domain than I would have in the light anyway. And not just because I am the prince.” He said the last word with an eye roll and tucked my feather into the back pocket of his black pants. Lucifer was a fan of the clothing styles on Earth, so it carried down here, which was fine with me. I didn't feel like prancing around naked with all this fire and sulfur around. “Shae, tell me... are you hurt by losing a feather?”

“More than I thought it would,” I admitted, my eyes trying to look through him to see his pocket. He gripped my chin and forced me to look at him.

“Then you are not really falling. Only when you lose all care for the world and only darkness clouds your thoughts will you lose all your plumage. Being here in Hell, especially with all the knowledge you carry, you are bound to lose some. All Nephilim are missing some, and though Lucifer appears to have his still, he has shed more than a third of them over the millenia. He is doing his best to keep the inevitable from happening, but one day, my father will be a full-blown demon, just like his oldest son.”

“Do you regret becoming a demon?” I asked.

He was silent for a moment, staring into my eyes while frowning. He was calculating an answer, one he had probably been asking himself for a very long time. “In ways, I do. In others, however, I am happy with my decision. I've always had wickedness within me, Shae, as all angels do. They all have the ability to become demons if given the chance.”

“Do you think I will become one?” I asked quietly. He gave me a small smirk and softly kissed the corner of my mouth.

“You are more human. The sinfulness within you is your angel half, but you are still very human. And that delicious darkness releases either when you feel someone deserves it, and they always do, or when... lust takes you over.” I bit my lip and gripped my towel tightly, and his lip hitched in a half smile. “You are fully aware angels are not the so-called 'good' beings they tried to tell you on Earth. They have the wickedness within them, the lust, the need, the want to murder and see things bleed. That's why angelic warriors are so strong and vicious because it allows them to kill relentlessly. But demons... we can do all these things because we have complete, utter freedom.

“As a Reaper, I got a taste for blood just taking souls, then I saw the need for war in men's eyes. So, I taught them the art of weaponry. In women, I saw the need for lust, so I taught them to act on it. If I couldn't do these things, why did that mean humans could not? I got a thrill from seeing them fight pointlessly, and seeing them f*ck relentlessly. There were even times I gave in to my own need for lust and took daughters of men for my own. I felt more alive as a Reaper in those years than I ever did following all their rules.” He closed his eyes in remembrance, his nose flaring at the thought. I knew some of Azazel's story from religious teachings when I was alive. Then, when I met the being in the flesh and eventually learned it from him, I found what I knew was only half right.

I grabbed at the strong, gold chain that hung from his neck, the sigil of his family digging into my palm as I pulled him down. He grinned broadly, his hair falling amongst my own as I bit at his lip. “And if I turned, would you still want me?”

“My dear Shae, nothing could make me not want you,” he purred and tried to kiss me. I smirked and released his chain before dodging him. I slunk out the door as quickly as I could, dropping the towel as I went. I opened his closet, where a few of my outfits hung for days like this when I stayed with him. The thought hit me suddenly, and I stopped, staring at our clothes hanging together. Were we becoming so entwined that we had clothes in each other's rooms now?

I turned to look at him, and he stared at me with his head tilted. “We're... not just friends with benefits anymore, are we?” I asked quietly.