The Lure of the Devil (The Demons' Muse #4) - Auryn Hadley Page 0,103

assumed was lightning striking close enough to knock me out. Those were my first memories, hazy as they were. Now, this dragon was telling me it hadn't been that simple.

Slowly, I looked over at my weak right side. In my research, I'd covered the human myths of creation. I'd read them all, and my least favorite was the story of Adam and Eve. I thought the slanderous comment about how God created men and women, not Adam and Steve, to be disgusting. And yet, here I was, being told that I was this mythical Adam, and my counterpart was an angel who was just as broken. Just as unable to enjoy life as I had been before Sia came into it. An angel named, of all things, Stieviel.

The irony of it was just too much. A little laugh began to build in my belly and burst from my lips even as I tried to stop it. Then another, and I shook my head, unable to even explain. Four and a half billion years, and that was her excuse? She'd left me crippled and in pain because I was a fucking prototype?

"Did you just throw me away and move onto a better version?" I finally asked.

No. The dragon shifted her foot closer, one massive claw slowly moving toward me. I hoped that I could fix you, but I can only create. I could not destroy the mess I had already made. I could not undo it.

"But Sia could?" I scoffed. "Sia, a Muse, could fix what God couldn't?"

The Ayala, Tiamat corrected. The destroyer. She did what she was designed to do. She unmade the mess I created. She destroyed the pain. She broke the locks so your soul could breathe. She fixed you, my child, because she - and only she - can break you.

"So what took you so long?" I demanded. "You made all of us to what? Be your little pets, and then you simply ignored us when we needed help?"

Do you hear when the zerky leaves die? When they are sad? No, you simply see the plant. You see the whole, and you treat it as a single thing. I watched the worlds, and I did the same. You thrived, as well as any other demon, so I did not know. How can I repair this?

"You can't," I told her. "You've been here, living with dragons for how long? You say we're your children, but you don't seem to fucking care!"

I... The large eye turned to Sia, then to Bel. How do I fix this?

Nick flared his wings, drawing her eye, and stepped forward. "You help us," he said. "You claim you're God, and that you created the five planes - "

The first dimension, yes.

"What?" I asked, but Nick's raised hand made me close my mouth quickly.

"So," he went on, "I think you should help us fix this mess. You say that Sia is the Ayala, right? Your destroyer. What is she supposed to destroy?"

The bad. The mistakes. I designed it so that if the planes ever banded together, the child of them all would have the power to stop any threat. She could be the one to punish those who break the system, and the most devoted would stand at her side. You. All of you. You would find her because you cannot stop caring about those who are not you.

"So then you should help us," Nick said one more time. "This is your great plan, and you're the one with the power, right? Well, you screwed it up pretty bad. Angels are reaping your children for their souls, using that to make their lives easier. The fairies are almost gone. The satyrs weren't too far behind until we locked their world. But that? Creating a veil to keep them safe? That should've been your job."

I made moats around the worlds. Gaps that were strong enough to keep you all from swimming them, and yet you learned how.

"You're supposed to be all-powerful," Sia told her, lifting her face in the way she had that meant she was bracing for a fight. "You are God. The All-Mighty. Omniscient, omnipotent, and all of that. Now you're saying that you just gave up because we didn't stay in our lanes?"

"That's kinda mixing your metaphors," Sam mumbled.

"Don't care," Sia said, but she flashed him a smile before looking back at the dragon. "What excuse do you have for letting the angels fuck with the rest of us? Killing us! Do you