Chapter Fifteen— powerful
Angelina's POV
I couldn't get the kiss out of my mind.
Three days had passed since Daemon had opened my cage, pulled me close, and kissed me like I was the only thing in existence that mattered. Three days of him barely looking at me. Three days of silence broken only by the constant screaming of souls above.
He was avoiding me. That much was obvious.
The guards outside my chamber had tripled. Demons I didn't recognize stood watch in rotating shifts, their eyes always on me. Watching. Waiting. Like they expected me to do something.
Or like they were waiting for orders to do something to me.
I sat in the cage, my back against the bars, and studied my reflection in the polished obsidian floor. My hair was almost completely black now. Maybe a quarter silver remained, scattered strands that caught the dim light like dying stars.
I should have felt horrified. Should have mourned the loss of what I'd been.
Instead, I felt powerful.
The corruption wasn't stealing my grace—it was transforming it. I could feel the change happening beneath my skin. My angelic light hadn't disappeared; it had just darkened. Deepened. Become something that could exist in this place without being consumed by it.
I flexed my fingers, watching shadows pool in my palms. That was new. Yesterday I could barely conjure a flicker. Now the darkness responded to my will like it had been waiting for me all along.
The chamber door opened.
I looked up, expecting another silent guard rotation. Instead, Daemon stood in the doorway. He looked different. Tired. Like he hadn't slept since the last time I'd seen him.
"You've been avoiding me," I said.
"I've been busy." He didn't move from the doorway.
"Liar."
A ghost of a smile. "When did you get so bold?"
"Around the time you kissed me and then ran away like a coward." I stood, moving to the front of the cage. "What's wrong, Daemon? Afraid of what you felt?"
"Watch yourself, angel."
"I'm not an angel anymore. You made sure of that." I gestured to my hair. "So what am I now? Your prisoner? Your pet? Your unfinished corruption project?"
He finally moved, crossing the room in three long strides. "You're playing a dangerous game."
"Good. I'm tired of being safe." I gripped the bars between us. "You wanted to corrupt me. Break me. Turn me into something dark. Well, congratulations. It's working. But here's the thing you didn't plan for—I like what I'm becoming."
His eyes widened slightly. "You're lying."
"Am I?" I held up my hand, letting shadows dance across my fingers. "I can feel the darkness now. Can shape it. Control it. And it doesn't feel wrong, Daemon. It feels right. Like I've been fighting against my own nature for centuries and finally stopped."
He grabbed my wrist through the bars, his grip tight. "This isn't your nature. This is corruption. This is me destroying everything good about you."
"Or maybe it's you revealing what was always there." I leaned closer. "Maybe Heaven was the corruption. Maybe they took someone wild and fierce and powerful and broke her down into something obedient. Something controllable."
"Don't." His voice dropped to a whisper. "Don't make this into something noble."
"Why not? You showed me the memories. Showed me who I was before they remade me. That Angelina questioned everything. Challenged the order. Fell in love with the one angel she wasn't supposed to love." I turned my wrist in his grip until I could lace my fingers through his. "Maybe I'm just remembering how to be her."
His jaw clenched. "You don't know what you're saying."
"Don't I?" I pulled his hand closer, pressing it against my cheek. "Tell me something, Daemon. When you kiss me, when you touch me like this, are you trying to corrupt me? Or are you trying to remember what it felt like when I was yours?"
He jerked his hand away like I'd burned him. "This is exactly what I warned you about. The corruption is making you feel things that aren't real. Making you think you want this."
"And what if I do want this? What if the corruption isn't creating false feelings, but removing false restrictions?" I gripped the bars tighter. "What if everything Heaven taught me about right and wrong was designed to keep me from becoming what I was always meant to be?"
"Stop."
"Why? Because it scares you? Because if I'm choosing this, choosing the darkness, choosing you, then you can't hide behind revenge anymore? Can't pretend this is just about breaking me?"
"Angelina—"
"You said you loved me. Three days ago, you said you still loved me. Was that real? Or was that just another manipulation?"
The silence stretched between us. Above, the souls had gone quiet, like they were holding their breath, waiting for his answer.
Finally, Daemon spoke. "It was real."
"Then why are you running from it?"
"Because loving you destroyed me once!" The words exploded out of him. "Because giving you my heart, my soul, everything I was, only for you to choose to forget—it broke something in me that never healed. And I cannot, will not, go through that again."
"I'm not asking you to."
"Aren't you?" He moved closer to the cage. "What do you think happens here, Angelina? You corrupt completely, we fall into bed together, and somehow everything works out? This isn't a fairy tale. This is Hell. I am the devil. And you are an angel I am systematically destroying."
"Then destroy me." The words came out as a challenge. "Stop hiding behind cages and chains and stop treating me like I'm made of glass. You want to break me? Then break me. You want to corrupt me? Then corrupt me completely. But stop this half-measure torture where you kiss me one moment and avoid me the next."
His eyes darkened. Dangerous and hungry and barely controlled. "You have no idea what you're asking for."
"So show me."
For a moment, I thought he would. Thought he'd open the cage, pull me out, and make good on every dark promise he'd made since I arrived. The air between us crackled with tension so thick I could taste it.
Then he stepped back.
"Not like this." His voice was rough. Strained. "Not when you're confused. Not when the corruption is making you reckless."
"I'm not confused."
"You are. You just don't know it yet." He turned toward the door. "In two days, you're coming with me to Earth. To meet King Marcus and see what your noble sacrifice actually accomplished. Maybe seeing the real world again will remind you what you're supposed to be fighting for."
"And what if it doesn't? What if I see the human world and still choose to stay here? Choose this?" I gestured to myself, to the darkness pooling in my palms. "Choose you?"
He stopped in the doorway, his back to me. "Then I'll have truly corrupted you. And we'll both have to live with what that means."
He left, the door closing behind him with a finality that felt like a ending.
I sank back down to the floor, my hands shaking. Not from fear. From want. From need. From this burning desire to understand what was happening between us.
The corruption had done something to me, that much was true. But not what Daemon thought. It hadn't created false feelings or manipulated my emotions.
It had just removed my ability to lie. To myself, to him, to anyone.
And the truth was simple and terrifying: I wanted him. Wanted to understand this pull between us. Wanted to explore the darkness I was becoming and see where it led.
Wanted to choose him, freely and completely, the way I apparently hadn't been able to before.
Above me, the souls resumed their screaming. But I barely heard them anymore. Their pain had become background noise. Another sign of how much I'd changed.
I looked at my hands, watching shadows dance across my skin. Darkness that responded to my will. Power that felt natural rather than stolen.
Maybe Daemon was right. Maybe I was corrupted. Maybe everything I was feeling was manufactured by the darkness seeping into my soul.
Or maybe I was just finally becoming myself.
Either way, in two days I'd be on Earth. Out of this cage. Close to him without barriers between us.
Two days to figure out if what I felt was real.
Two days to decide if I wanted to be saved or if I wanted to fall.
I smiled in the darkness, and it felt wicked and right and absolutely perfect.
Let him try to corrupt me. I'd show him what real corruption looked like.
I'd make the devil himself fall to his knees.