Chapter 19 Consequences
The portal dumped them back in the Vestibulum courtyard.
Lilith stumbled out still laughing about something Asmodeus had said. Her hair was a mess. Her dress stuck to her skin with sweat. She could still feel the bass thrumming in her chest.
“That was”
“THERE YOU ARE!”
Lilith froze.
Lucian stood twenty feet away. Behind him, Mammon, Beelzebub, and Cain. All four stared at her as she’d just risen from the dead.
“Oh shit”, Asmodeus muttered.
Cain moved first. Crossed the distance in seconds, volcanic glass eyes scanning Lilith head to toe. “Are you hurt?”
“What? No I’m”
“Where the hell have you been?!” Beelzebub’s voice cracked. “You’ve been gone for six hours!”
“Six”, Lilith blinked. It hadn’t felt like six hours. Maybe two. Three at most.
Mammon stepped forward, gold dripping from his horns and fingers. “We’ve been searching the entire palace. The grounds. The” He stopped nostrils flaring. “Is that Infernal wine I smell?”
“Oh, this’ll be good.” Lucian’s mirror eyes fixed on Asmodeus. “You took her to The Velvet Sin.”
Not a question.
Asmodeus raised his hands. “She needed to blow off steam after”
“After you walked out on Azrael and disappeared!” Cain grabbed Lilith’s shoulders. Not rough but firm. “We thought” Her jaw clenched. “We didn’t know where you were.”
“I can go where I want!” The words came out sharper than Lilith intended. “I’m not a prisoner!”
“No one said you were!” Beelzebub ran a hand through his hair. “But you can’t just vanish for six hours without telling anyone!”
“Why not? You all do whatever you want!”
“We’re not”, Mammon stopped. Started again. “You’re different. You’re”
“What? Breakable?” Lilith yanked away from Cain. “Something that needs protecting? Something you need to keep track of?”
Silence dropped like a stone.
Lucian laughed softly and dangerously. “Oh, you really did a number on her, Azrael.”
Lilith spun. Azrael stood in the archway leading to the palace. She hadn’t heard him arrive. His golden eyes locked on her, taking in her messy hair, her flushed skin, and the way she swayed slightly on her feet.
“You took her to a club.” His voice was too calm. “You got her drunk and took her to a club.”
“She’s not drunk”, Asmodeus said. “Just relaxed.”
“RELAXED?!” Azrael’s power crackled. The air pressure changed. “She walked out of my war room, and you took her to The Velvet Sin like she’s like she’s”
“Like she’s what?” Asmodeus stepped forward. “A person who wanted to have fun? Who needed a break from you and your control issues?”
The courtyard erupted.
Azrael moved. Asmodeus moved. Cain threw herself between them.
“ENOUGH!”
But Beelzebub was already shouting at Asmodeus. “You can’t just take her out of the palace without telling anyone!”
“Why?! She’s not YOUR property!”
“She’s not YOURS either!”
Mammon grabbed Beelzebub’s arm. “Calm down”
“Don’t touch me!” Beelzebub shoved him. Mammon stumbled back, gold jewellery clattering.
Lucian watched it all with that sharp smile. “This is exactly what I predicted.”
“Shut UP, Lucian!” Cain snarled.
“Make me.”
Cain’s fist swung. Lucian ducked. His mirror eyes flashed, and suddenly, Cain was seeing her own reflection everywhere, hundreds of versions of herself, all moving differently. She spun disoriented.
“STOP IT!” Lilith screamed.
No one listened.
Azrael had Asmodeus by the throat, lifting him off the ground. “You had no right”
Asmodeus’s power flared. Heat, desire, and want crashed through the courtyard. Several brothers stumbled. Azrael’s grip loosened.
Beelzebub tackled Mammon. They hit the ground rolling, throwing punches that cracked stone.
Cain broke free of Lucian’s illusions and went straight for his throat. He dodged laughing, and she hit the wall instead. Her fist went through it.
“STOP!”
Still, no one listened.
Lilith’s hands clenched. Heat built in her chest, not comfortable, not controlled. It burned.
Golden light exploded from her.
Everyone froze.
The light didn’t hurt, but it pushed. Forced them apart. Azrael dropped Asmodeus. Cain and Lucian separated. Beelzebub and Mammon rolled away from each other.
The light faded. Lilith stood in the center breathing hard. Her hands shook.
“I said STOP!”
6 pairs of eyes fixed on her.
“I went to a club!” Her voice cracked. “I danced! I gambled! I had FUN for the first time since I got dragged to this nightmare realm! And you’re all acting like I committed a crime!”
“Lilith”, Cain started.
“No! You don’t get to Lilith me right now!” She turned on Azrael. “You spent weeks testing me and measuring me! Treating me like something you needed to evaluate! And when I finally told you to stop, you think you get to track my every move?!”
Azrael’s jaw worked. He said nothing.
She spun on the others. “And the rest of you! You’ve spent three weeks circling me like I’m a prize! Fighting over me at every meal! Trying to impress me or seduce me or whatever your individual strategy is! But the second I disappear for a few hours, NOW you care about my wellbeing?!”
“That’s not fair”, Mammon said quietly.
“ISN’T IT?!” Lilith’s hands clenched tighter. The golden light flickered around her fingers. “I’m not YOUR responsibility! Any of you! I’m here because of a prophecy I didn’t choose, because my parents promised me to your family before I was born, but I’m still a PERSON!
I still get to make choices!”
“We know that”, Beelzebub said.
“DO YOU?!” She laughed sharply and bitterly. “Because it doesn’t feel like it.
It feels like you all want me to sit in this palace and wait patiently while you decide which one of you gets to claim me.”
The word hung in the air.
Claim.
Azrael flinched.
“I’m not something to claim”, Lilith continued, quieter now. “I’m not something to own. And I’m not something you need to protect from having a good time.” She looked at Asmodeus. “Thank you. For treating me like a person who wanted to dance.”
Asmodeus nodded, rubbing his throat where Azrael had grabbed him.
“But the rest of you?” Lilith looked around at all of them. “Figure out what you actually want from me. Because if it’s just a solution to your succession problem, tell me now. If it’s actually” Her voice caught. “If it’s actually me you want, then start acting like it.”
She turned and walked toward the palace entrance.
“Lilith, wait” Cain reached for her.
“Don’t.” Lilith didn’t stop walking. “Just don’t.”
She disappeared through the archway.
Silence filled the courtyard.
Beelzebub sat on the ground, breathing hard, blood dripping from his lip. “Well. That went well.”
Mammon’s jewellery was scattered across the stones. He gathered it slowly, not looking at anyone.
Lucian’s mirror eyes reflected all of them bruised, bloody, and defeated. “She’s right, you know.”
“Shut up, Lucian”, three voices said at once.
Azrael still hadn’t moved. He stared at the archway where Lilith had disappeared. His hands trembled.
Cain walked past him, heading inside. “You should have listened to her the first time.”
“And you should have told us she was with Asmodeus”, Azrael shot back.
Cain stopped. Turned. “I didn’t know where she was. None of us did. Maybe if you’d treated her like a person instead of a problem to solve, she would have told us.”
She left.
One by one, the others followed until only Azrael and Asmodeus remained.
“She had fun”, Asmodeus said, standing slowly. “Real fun. Not political. Not strategic. Just fun.” He brushed dirt from his clothes. “You should try it sometime.”
He walked away, leaving Azrael alone in the courtyard.
The silence was deafening.