As an angel trained to fight the forces of demons, Chiara knew to not let them take her alive, but she never expected to survive her first battle. Trapped in the depths of hell and tortured, only one thing is keeping her alive - the demon kept priso...
***This romance starts slow - patience is required! I promise there are detailed sex scenes, but also violence and some graphic details of torture that might be triggering to some. It is intended for a mature audience!***
*Chiara
Chiara shivered on the stones slick with blood and mold. Her broken wings ached too much to lay on tonight. They always hurt. While other wounds healed, more or less—but less as time went on in the Pit—her wings never did. They never went numb, either. Her arms, hands, legs, toes and fingers would go numb quite often from when she was tied or cut, but her wings? Never. Always the same lancing agony through the bones and into her back.
What she would give for the whisper of sweet wind through her feathers. A tear slipped free from her eye.
Right on cue, as if he could sense her weakness through the darkness of what passed for night in their shared torture chamber, Logan shifted and groaned with faked annoyance. "What a shitty day. Was it shitty for you, too? I couldn't tell through all the smoke and flames coming off the coals on my chest. What I wouldn't give for a cold beer and a hot tub to soak in."
His voice stirred her. It warmed her. She told herself it was hate for the enemy. She was not a fool. If he was free, he would kill her or worse in an instant, just as she would try to kill him first. But he wasn't free, and holding onto his voice in the darkness, this game they played, was the only thing she had left. Knowing her voice would break, she didn't answer.
He continued. "What was the worst part of your day? My worst part had to be when Dirk sniffed his armpits right in front of my face and I got a whiff of that demon's body odor. I thought that was the end, I'm not gonna lie. You?"
How did he know to keep talking until she got herself under control? What did he sense in the darkness that was hidden to her eyes and mind?
"My worst part," she said slowly, deliberately drawing out her answer as if bored, "was definitely when he picked his lunch off the floor and continued eating. Or maybe, maybe it was when you got weepy at all his talk about the grand party they will be holding soon in the Halls of Lustfulness. You sniffled like a three year old who didn't get a cookie and I wanted to die of second-hand embarrassment. Man-up, demon."
"You are heartless. Of all the angels, you are the cruelest. It's not a party, my dear. It's an orgy if they are holding in the Halls of Lust, not lustfulness. Get it right," he said. He sniffled again, as if crying.
It cut her to the heart he said she didn't have. She was the one crying on the floor. She was one who was weak. This game they played—insulting each other, complaining about nothing after Dirk put away his knives and instruments and stamped the fires, pretending to be stronger than each other after their voices were shredded from screaming all day, every day—it was what gave her strength to last the nights.
At the same instant she had that thought, a large cut across her belly knitted itself closed, leaving an itching and aching spot. Dirk had pulled her out her intest—she wouldn't think about what Dirk had actually done to her. She would play the game with Logan and let her body heal as best it could.
"If you snivel all night, I'll petition Dirk to put me in my own cell so I can get some sleep," she said. Not that he would. Not that she would ever ask. A tremble wracked her as bones snapped into place.
In the shadows, just out of reach, Logan shifted, perhaps healing as well.
Then he whispered, closer to her than before. "Careful what you wish for, love. Without me to keep you company, you'd be sad and lonely."
She almost stretched out her hand. Would his be in reach, if he reached his? She could hardly breathe at the thought of touching him. His warmth. The texture of his skin. The feel of his hand on hers. His fingers trailing down down her arm...
"What a paradise my own cell would be," she said in a rush. "Not listening to you cry and moan all day."
"Cry and moan?" he scoffed. "That's just for show and you know it. You'd miss my charming insults and lightning wit, and don't you deny it."
She humphed, unable to lie and say she would be fine without him. Without Logan, without this terrifying demon whose predatory danger made all her nerves scream a warning, she would have gone mad long ago.
And wanting him to hold her, to do more than hold her, might still drive her mad before the end.
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