by Nina Levine
“Yeah, maybe. It’s a piece of Michael’s sword, and therefore a conduit to his power, but it is broken. My assessment is: Uncertain. Could be a decoy. You need visual confirmation.”
Sera flexed her knuckles as Plan A turned to shit. Getting in that room was going to be like setting off a bomb and hoping it didn’t bring every demon in the building running. If Tay had given her two thumbs up, she would have legged it, snatched the shard, and then fought her way out.
But uncertainty….
Uncertainty would get her killed. A moment of hesitation would bring her down.
“Okay, let’s go with Option B,” she whispered under her breath.
She needed a look at all the cases.
Getting in was never going to be the problem.
“Sera….” Tay had never sounded so quiet.
“I’ve got this.” She’d known what the risks were.
“Sera, he’s a bad, bad demon prince. If he gets his hands on you….”
If he got his hands on her, then maybe she could distract him. If the shard wasn’t in that room then it had to be elsewhere, and suspicion said that somewhere would be his bedroom.
But every demon prince had their weaknesses.
And she’d just brought Azazel’s into play.
Time to look that fucker in the eye and deal with the past.
“Let’s kill Jilly Bean,” she said.
Silence.
And then she could hear the echo of Tay’s fingers on the keyboard. “Done.”
Somewhere back there, the naked angel on its knees was evaporating like clouds of mist.
“You’d better hope your wards are good.”
“They’re the best. See you on the flip side.”
“I love you.”
“Love you too. And tell Rodrigo the equivalent of wet panties is a tent popper.” She’d heard the others in the Brotherhood joke about it, though she’d never gotten up close and personal.
Something in her heart just wouldn’t let her.
Tay vanished.
But this time it was for good.
Sometimes a bull in a china shop was the best cover. Nobody would ever suspect they had a master thief on their hands if she just blew their wards like a rookie.
Sera strode straight through the laser beams.
“Wow,” she said, spinning around and looking up at the art on the walls. Enormous marble columns supported the ceiling. “Holy fuck. Is that a Michelangelo?”
Long dead, but then, his soul had to be somewhere.
And demons could sometimes hijack a mortal’s body, plug in a long-dead soul, and force it to create new masterpieces for them.
After all, there’d always been rumors that Michelangelo had sold his soul—and any information he could offer to his new masters once he was inside the papal palaces—for the gift of his art.
Lucifer stared down at her from the painting. She could see immediately that it was Lucifer’s Fall. A thousand stars streamed through an inky black sky with the former angel. A thousand angels, who served as his bannermen.
It took her breath all over again. The First of the First. The Morningstar. The most beautiful. And with him, all the others who’d fought free of their chains of Grace and Glory.
Staring at the painting was starting to make her eyes water.
She felt that call again, felt that moment when she’d stood on the edge of Heaven and reached out her hand toward Azazel—though he hadn’t been known by that name then.
“Don’t go. Stay. With me.”
“Come,” he’d countered. “Come with me.”
Heaven cracked in that moment.
The damage was so immense it took centuries to repair some of the harm. And when the last fight had begun, those stopgap seals had torn open as Lucifer and his minions broke Michael’s forces upon the wretched earth, and brought about the Fall.
“A strange piece to stop a thief in their tracks.”
The whisper froze her heart.
Sera slowly let her gaze drop from the painting. She spun around, but there was nothing there.
Only shadows and whispers.
Showtime.
“Who are you?” she asked. “I’m not a thief.”
“No?”
There, further into the gallery.
Sera strode toward the patch of shadow, but it was gone again. And as she turned, she caught sight of a glass case in front of her. The one with the cask.
But right beside it, out of the corner of her eye, lay a single broken shard from an angel blade. Golden runes traced the blessed steel—it was fucking real—but she couldn’t get close enough to see if they belonged to the Sword of Grace, and she didn’t dare let her attention focus upon it.
“That cask holds one of the seals of Heaven,” said the voice, from behind her. It sounded amused. “Tell me again that you’re not here to steal it.”
Sera backed away from the seal. If she touched that thing, she’d level the building. “I’m not here to steal it. What is this place? What are these things?”
“Relics of power.” A sliver of sensation worked its way down her spine, almost as if a fingernail traversed the same path. “Who are you?”
His whisper stirred the small hairs at the base of her neck, and she knew he’d stepped out of the shadows and appeared, right behind her.
“Who are you?” she whispered back, half-turning her head to try and see him.
“Don’t you know?”
“No.”
Her breath caught in her chest. So close. So fucking close. She was dying a mortal death here.
“I am all your sins, wrought into mortal form. I am every wicked dream you’ve ever had, conjured from the night. I am your death, your despair. Your everything.”
A fist curled in her hair. Sera gasped as she was shoved forward, her hands slamming onto the glass case in order to save herself. The case remained inert. There was nothing. No kick of power. No jolt. No like calling to like.
A decoy.
It was fake, after all.
He brought his face close to her ear and held her there, his lips brushing against the shell of her ear. “I am your ruin, little angel. And if you’re not careful, I’ll tear these fucking wings right off you.”
A hand captured her jaw, and he turned her face to-and-fro into the glare of the spotlights. She couldn’t see him. The light was in her eyes. All she could make out was the heated flash of dark, dark eyes….
“You’re the angel,” he said, “from the dancefloor. You looked at me. You saw me. How?”
Sera’s heart kicked behind her ribs, like some sort of Morse code from Uriel urging her to get the fuck out of there. Abort, abort, abort….
But Azazel wouldn’t recognize her.
He couldn’t recognize her.
She’d been reforged into a different body, after all, one with blonder hair and curves, and a heart-shaped face punctuated by wide blue eyes. She looked like every man’s wet dream of an angel, even if the truth was as far from the blaze of glory as it could possibly be.
And the little Grace she’d been left with was wrapped small and entwined around her soul, contained by the tattooed runes she’d marked into her skin herself.
“I don’t know,” she whispered back. “I just… I could sense you.” Sera bit her lip. “Let me see you.”
Sera turned as he released her, the glass case cutting into her back. He stepped forward, letting light finally fall over him as his shroud of shadows slipped to the floor. A hand slid down her neck, pausing at the base of her throat. Just lightly, just a threat.
He gave her no room to breathe, no space to move.
Every inch of him was hard, and lean and lethal.
Azazel’s beauty was as sharp as a blade. Eyes as black as polished obsidian locked on her, and all the breath left her body as she waited, waited for some kind of recognition to light him up. His dark hair gleamed like a raven’s wing, and his olive skin made her yearn to touch it.
He�
�d Fallen long ago, losing his Grace in the process.
It didn’t matter.
Where humans might have fallen to their knees at an angel’s feet, prostrating themselves in their glory, they would have stopped dead in their tracks if they beheld him.
She could feel herself spinning, spinning out of control.
Because she’d loved him once.
Loved him with every inch of her heart and soul, until the moment he began speaking of the forbidden.
“Come with me, Sariel….” Those words haunted her every day and night.
“I’ll ask again. Who are you?” It was barely a whisper, but the shiver of it slid over her skin, even as his grip tightened a little cruelly. Smoke wreathed from his lips, as he lowered his other hand—and the cigarette burning there.
She tried to tear her face from his grip. “No one.”
“I had my men run a scan. Your license says your name is Seraphine Murdoch, but I find I don’t believe you.” Azazel’s gaze slid lower, his expression tightening as he caught a glimpse of her breasts. A demon in full control of himself, but still male in all the ways that counted. His gloved thumb brushed against the curve of her breast.
“I am Seraphine!”
“That one tasted a little bit like truth. What are you doing in the gallery?”
“I was walking.” She breathed the words. Glory’s kiss, what was he doing to her? One touch, and a shiver ran through her, curling like a hot, wet fist in her abdomen. It had never felt like this before. “That demon told me to stay put, but I wanted to see more. I wanted to find you.”
“Why?”
“Because… I wanted you. Not him.”
“Lies.” He crushed the cigarette against the floor and pushed her back until her back hit the wall.
“They’re not lies.”
“I can taste it all over you.” He fisted a strand of her hair and brought it to his nose. “Every inch of you is a lie, from the tips of your pretty little toes to the ends of your bleached hair.”
“I’ll have you know the hair’s real,” she snapped.
“Truth again.” His mouth twisted in a mocking apostrophe. “But I want more of it. Careful, little angel. This is going to hurt.”
He stared into her eyes and all the world was stripped away.
This was no gentle touch, no velvet glove.
Instead, it felt like a man yanking the curtains down from a dusty window. Sera cried out as he stripped outer wards away, stripped her raw.
This was what she wanted.
Vision rose, planted under the base levels of her wards by Tayla.
A hand sliding over her knee in a shabby club.
A promise, whispered in her ear. “I want you to find something for me. If you find it, then I’ll give you what you want. I’ll give you immortality. True immortality.”
“You’ll give me the kiss?”
A hand slid between the crevice of her breasts. “Only if you find what I want and bring it to me.”
“What is it?”
“This.”
And all of a sudden, she was staring at the glass case featuring the small golden cask.
Azazel stepped back. Let her go. “You filthy little liar. You are a thief.”
Sera collapsed to her knees—as any mortal would after having their outer wards shattered—and sought to suck back her sobs.
It hurt. It hurt as if he’d cut her open with glass, and yet, he’d bought the false memory as if he’d paid for it in cash.
Thank you, Tay.
“Find out who she works for,” Azazel said, turning to walk away. “Then throw what’s left of her into the streets.”
She hadn’t even realized there were others there.
“Wait!” Sera pushed onto her knees as a pair of demons strode toward her.
Azazel stilled. “You dare?”
Uriel’s words echoed in her head. “What price are you willing to pay for redemption?”
Everything, she’d breathed.
Well, everything was right here in front of her.
And pay it, she would.
“I’ll do anything,” she whispered. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know.” Their eyes met. “But only you.”
4
“I’m waiting.” Azazel poured them both a scotch, vapor curling off the ice as the liquid hit.
They were in the private room overlooking the dancefloor. The glass was thick enough to stifle the music—or warded—but she’d caught a glimpse of hundreds of people throwing themselves around in ecstasy.
It was miles away from this moment.
Miles away from the deals and punishments that were clearly meted out in this room. She hadn’t missed the scars on the enormous desk of polished walnut that stood in the center of the room. Razor straight lines that had to have come from a knife.
“I… met a man. I don’t know his name, okay? Just… it’s been hard to pay the rent this time of year, hard to keep the bastards from knocking at my door, and he promised me a huge reward if I brought him the golden box in your gallery.”
“Immortality.”
“Exactly.” She wrapped her arms around herself, trying to play the innocent. “You don’t know what it’s like to be human. I just wanted… a chance. I wanted to be the strong one. I wanted to be the predator for once.”
Merciless eyes watched her as he sank into his chair and rubbed his knuckles over his thigh. A little smile formed. “You’re a fool if you believed he’d pay you thusly.” Lazy lidded eyes glanced to the left. “And only a demon could promise you such a thing.”
There were hundreds of true demons in the city.
But only a few who would dare take on the Prince of Ruin.
“What are you thinking?” she whispered.
“That you don’t send a girl like you to steal a dangerous weapon.” He brushed his thumb across the fullness of his lower lip. Thoughtful. Dangerous. “No. You send her to be a distraction.”
Sera swallowed. Hard.
He was buying this.
She turned away, pacing two steps to the right. “Then you think this was a setup? You think he played m— Oh.”
The painting stopped her in its tracks.
She’d raked the room for danger the second they entered, but her entire focus had been locked upon him the second she’d marked it as clear. Not the furnishings.
This wall dwelled in shadows as if he wanted to hide the painting.
But it was her.
Her.
In her real form, light blazing from her eyes and fingers as she wielded her burning sword. A warrior. An angel. Bloodied and anguished, lifting her sword one last time as if to ward off a blow—
“What’s wrong?” Soft footsteps stalked her, like a hound on the scent of something. Maybe he could scent the lies twisting off her. “Something catch your eye?”
He knew.
“I just….” It was hard to find her way back to the story. What had she been saying?
“You just?” He stood behind her, and Sera froze. “What do you see?”
“She’s on her knees.” The detail floored her. “She’s backed into a corner, desperate, trying to save herself from some unseen punishment.”
Is this how he saw her?
Is this how he wanted to see her?
“The interesting thing is that you shouldn’t be able to see it,” Azazel whispered, and the second he let his fingertips trail down her spine, she knew the mistake she’d made.
The painting had been warded.
There were only a few beings that could stare right through those wards without being distracted by them.
She tried to spin around, but he held her there, hands harsh on her hips.
“Once upon a time a demon fell in love with an angel.” His voice was like velvet over her skin, but she could sense the threat within the words.
It took all her strength to swallow down the rush of feeling those words conjured. “Love? Can a demon truly love anything other than
himself?
Those gloved hands brushed against the curve of her hips. “You know nothing of the world, little one. Loves makes us all fools. But only once.”
“What happened?” she whispered, because a part of her needed to know.
His breath whispered over the back of her neck. “It ended. Badly. She betrayed him and left him for dead.”
That wasn’t how the story went.
Sera closed her eyes. A shiver ran through her.
“He swore vengeance.” Those hands shifted up, caressing the softness of her breasts. “But she had vanished, and when Heaven fell, her body was nowhere to be found.”
“You looked for her?”
“Oh, I looked for her.”
Sera stared at the painting, her stomach churning. Not with dread. Heat melted between her thighs. “Maybe there was a reason she betrayed him.”
“Because she was a filthy, rotten liar.”
His fingers found her nipple and pinched.
Sera gasped, clapping a hand over his. But she didn’t pull away.
She couldn’t have, even if she’d wanted to.
“You remind me of her,” he breathed, his hand skimming up her throat.
Sera took a sharp breath. He couldn’t know. He couldn’t.
But what if some part of him sensed the truth?
“Do I?”
His hand curled around the base of her throat in a silken threat. “Yes.” His lips brushed against her cheek. “You do. You’re so fucking pretty. Just like her. This lying mouth is just like hers—”
“I’m not lying—”
“You’re full of shit,” he growled, his thumb caressing her carotid.
Her heart burst into thunderous applause, but then the pressure was easing. The threat was gone, no more than a silken whisper as his hand stroked lower, palm scraping against the silk that covered her breast.
Sera shivered. She’d volunteered for this mission—if Azazel had managed to get his hands on one of the shattered remnants of Michael’s blade, then he couldn’t be allowed to surrender it to Lucifer’s forces—but maybe some part of her had also wanted to see what became of him.
Or maybe she wanted to know if what she’d felt all those years ago was just a trick of her memory.
“Beg me for mercy,” he breathed.
