A Beautiful Evil (A Beautiful Book. 1) #Wattys2015

Chapter Twenty-Seven - A Siren's Song

After Sarah dropped the bomb about Asmodeous, she ushered us into a spare room down the hall. When she closed the door behind her and turned on the light, I realized we were in a large broom closet. All four of us could stand with our arms outstretched and not touch the walls.

Charles, Avery, and I were silent. I just couldn't wrap my mind around what she was saying. It didn't make sense. Why would Asmo lie to us when he wanted the box...

Wait.

He never told us why he wanted the box. He just said he wanted to help, and the more I thought about it, the more Sarah's proposal made sense.

Sarah turned towards us, grief making her eyelids hang and her mouth turn down in the corners. She moved her thick curtain of curls to one side of her face, revealing a heavy scar running from below her right ear and reaching towards her collar bone and breast. I don't know how I didn't notice it before. It was thick, purple, and seemed to be pulsing with an angry intensity.

"He gave it to me," she whispered. Her bright eyes were cast to the side, as if looking at our faces was too much for her. "He's the one that killed me. And before you ask, no. I don't know why he did it."

My heart cried out for her. "How?"

She snickered bitterly. "I let him in, that's how. Despite my all my father's warning about the man with silver eyes, I let him into my heart. You'd think I'd listen to an Archangel. I was naive, and it killed me."

"The scar?" asked Avery.

She finally looked up, her orange-yellow eyes glistening with golden tears. Like me. My breath caught. "I had just given myself to him physically, completely, and that's when he told me who he was. The Prince of Lust. He told me he could never forgive himself for what he's done, or what he was about to do."

"About to do? And what was that?" Charles's eyebrows drew together. Reaching out, he twined his fingers with mine, and my stomach flipped at the contact. I squeezed his fingers gently.

Sarah's eyes drifted to our clasped hands, staring at them with desire and anguish. "I loved him. My father had warned me over and over again that I should never talk to anyone with silver eyes. I always thought he was just being overprotective, but I guess that's something else I was wrong about."

Sarah sighed. "Asmodeus killed me after we made love. He transformed into.. into... a beast. He had large claws and fangs. He told me he was sorry over and over again and I begged him not to, but he wouldn't listen. He kept telling me that it was for the future, and him and I could live together forever in our own little kingdom, but I just had to wait a few thousand years. He kept telling me that it was all going to be okay, that I wouldn't truly die because I was supposedly destined for so much more."

"Your own little kingdom? How would that work? Was he talking about Purgatory?"

Sarah shrugged. "I always assumed so, until you you three came for the key-" she held up the small little key hanging around her neck, "-and said that Asmodeus was waiting outside. I kind of made a connection."

The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. My mind was making connections too. "What were the connections you were making?"

Her eyes met mine and I felt like I was being crushed by the intensity in them. "Before Asmodeus killed me, and after he told me who he was, he told me that he had a brother, Lucifer, and that he planned to strip everything away that he held dear. Just as Lucifer had done to him."

"But Lucifer was the one who cast Asmodeus here," injected Avery. "Why would he send Asmo here if he knew you were here?"

Sarah nodded. "I've thought about that too. The only conclusion I can come up with is that Lucifer didn't know I was dead until it was too late. When Asmodeus had me killed, my father chased him to Egypt, and it was there and then that Lucifer banished him to Purgatory. I'm assuming Lucifer didn't want Asmo getting to much power and overthrowing him, and ultimately killing him."