Feeling the temperature around himself fall, Crowley's wings gave an uneasy shift, but he made no move to cover himself- despite the tone, and the look, he knew this was barely brushing the surface of Alexia's- Ashmedai's- true Wrath. They were just words, cold as they were, and looking back, they were deserved.
"You are right, Ashmedai. It was my choice, and I know nothing of what you went through. All I meant to say, was that I-" He sighed, willing up his forgotten cigar again, to take another puff. "I love him, my Lord. It is vile, and unbecoming, and whatever else you wish to call it, but it's the truth, and I- it angers me, to see such purity, even something I took such pleasure in defiling, forced to endure even as I did. The Angel cannot fathom what he is contemplating, and it falls to me, to be the realist. Were you any other of our bretheren, I would fight you to my last for simply debating bringing him Down. But you, my Lord, I believe will be able to use him properly. Without crushing what he is. My fate may rest in his choice, and I give him that right freely. But that does not mean I have to sit idly by and watch what is mine, for the moment, be coerced."