by Nadine Mutas
Oh. My. God.
This jerk of a demon could be Prince fucking Charming—when he wanted to. My blood boiled. He’d been an ass to me all night, and here he was being the epitome of a gentleman, with an ease I’d never thought him capable of considering his condescending demeanor toward me.
While I’d been stewing in my renewed irritation about my betrothed, the women had all but fallen over themselves to agree. The demon turned to me, a glint of something I couldn’t quite place in his stormy eyes. His smirk held a distinctive smugness I wanted to erase with acid.
“Shall we?” he asked.
My answering smile may have shown too much teeth.
“Dearly beloved,” the black-haired of the women intoned with all the fine enunciation of someone on their third cocktail.
Her two friends snickered as she went on with a rather garbled medley of an officiant’s speech that was likely pieced together from various movies and TV shows featuring a wedding.
Finally, she arrived at the pertinent part. “I...” She trailed off, gesturing to the demon.
“Azazel,” he supplied, and his name sent a shiver down my spine.
“I, Azazel,” she repeated, with minimal butchering of the syllables, “will take you...”
“Zoe,” I offered.
“Will take you, Zoe, to be my lawfully bedded—”
“Wedded!” her friends shrieked.
“Sorry!” She threw up her hands against her friends’ slapping. “Lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold, in sickness and in health—”
“—for richer or poorer!” her brunette friend threw in.
“—for better or for worse!” the blonde suggested.
“—come hell or high water,” the black-haired woman added, and her friends oooohed.
“That’s a good one,” the brunette said. “Oh, oh, add this one—to be your loving and faithful husband.”
“—from this day forward,” the blonde chimed in.
“—until death do us part,” the black-haired woman continued, pointing at the demon with her cocktail straw. “This is my vow.”
He raised a brow and faced me. His eyes held a lightning storm, his veneer of charm and primal attractiveness barely concealing the twitch of fury in his features. The women didn’t notice, but I sure did. I’d had the good luck of watching his face contort in anger all evening, and this was a new level of wrath. The air hummed with his restrained power, causing the outside space heaters to crackle.
“I, Azazel,” he began, his voice like rough-spun silk over my skin, “take thee, Zoe, to be my lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, for better or worse, come hell or high water—” his eyes flashed at the word hell “—to be your...loving and...faithful husband, until death do us part.” He paused, and a weight settled between us. “This is my vow.”
It hadn’t escaped me how he’d stumbled a bit over the loving and faithful part. I narrowed my eyes.
The women’s “awwwww” drew me back into the moment. I took a deep breath and swallowed. This was it. If I said my vow, I’d be shackled to this grouch for—would that be eternity? What kind of lifespan did demons have? Would I now live as long as him?
And there would be no going back. I was sure divorce was not an option for this particular union. What kind of life would await me? How much pain and misery?
My stomach turned. I had to gasp for air because the weight on my chest wouldn’t let me breathe deeply. Spots of light danced through my vision, I swayed and—
A large hand closed around my upper arm like a band of hot steel. I jerked and met the demon’s eyes, the connection so raw, so vibrant, it stripped me of anything but the awareness of his presence, his power. My lips formed the words before my brain caught up.
“I, Zoe, take thee, Azazel—” speaking his name intensified the fiery connection of our eyes “—to be my lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, for better or worse, come—” I made a small sound of despair “—hell or high water, to be your loving and faithful wife, until death do us part.” My breath hitched on the last, fateful words. “This is my vow.”
Something snapped into place between us, hot and piercing, strong and supple, a tide of energy so fierce it would have knocked me off my feet if he hadn’t still held onto my left arm.
I couldn’t breathe.
His other hand took hold of my right shoulder, the contact searing, branding, while a storm raged in his eyes. Fine muscles ticked under the hard planes of his face, his cruel beauty like a blade, cold and cutting.
I was still choking on air.
“Now kiss!” The squeal came from somewhere to my right.
“Kiss, kiss, kiss!” The other women chanted.
I tried to draw in air. My lungs flat-out refused.
Dizziness crept in, the pounding of my heart a slowing drumbeat in my head. I fought it, but my eyelids slid down, my vision going dark—
The sizzling heat of his mouth on mine.
My eyes flew open. My lips parted without my doing, and his breath rushed into me. A firebrand, all the way down to my soul. My lungs started working with a jerk, I grabbed his shirt—my fingers finding purchase somewhere between armored plates—and held onto him for dear life.
He growled into my mouth, a sound as sensual as it was threatening, and then he licked over my lips, slipped his tongue between and touched mine.
And I was done for. The shudder that wrecked me was embarrassingly close to an orgasm. My entire body was abuzz with arousal.
I gasped as he let go and stepped back, keeping one hand on my shoulder to steady me.
“Woohoo!” The women hollered.
“Now that’s a kiss!”
“God, I wish someone would lay one like that on me…”
The others sighed in assent.
“Y’all are so cute,” the blonde said, a dreamy expression on her face.
I focused on her and the others, anything to avoid looking back at the demon who had just shortcircuited my system. My thoughts were still ajumble, and I refused to unjumble them.
Her brunette friend raised her glass. “To the happy couple!”
The other two joined in the toast.
“May you always cherish and love each other,” the black-haired woman slurred.
“May your marriage be full of joy and the right kind of excitement.” The blonde grinned.
“May God bless you and the home you build together,” the brunette said.
The black-haired woman leaned forward and held up a finger. “And may you never lie, cheat, or steal. But if you must lie, lie with each other. And if you must cheat, cheat death. And if you must steal, steal each other’s hearts, every day anew.”
Her friends gasped. “That’s a good one!”
“Right? It was in this movie with…”
I didn’t hear the rest of it because my entire awareness zeroed in on the male presence right next to me. He wasn’t touching me anymore, but he might as well have been. His energy was palpable, a tangible force that hovered so close, I expected to feel the physical touch of it any second. And that thing between us, the power that had snapped taut like a rope as soon as I’d spoken my vows, it hummed like an electric field, making the hairs on my arms rise.
“Ladies,” the demon purred, and it took all of me not to purr back, dammit. “Thank you so much for your assistance. You have truly made our night, but I’m afraid we must be going now. Big day tomorrow.”
I chanced a sideways glance at him and almost melted on the spot. He positively glowed with an inner fire, alluring, mesmerizing, his expression full of self-assured satisfaction. He exuded the quiet, confident power of a man fully in control of himself and in charge of the situation, a magnetic combination that was sure to attract any woman’s—and man’s—attention nearby.
And something about it rubbed me the wrong way.
Somewhere in the back of my head r
ang a warning bell, some hindbrain part of my consciousness raising the alarm.
The women virtually fawned over him as he said our goodbyes. I had the distinct impression that if he’d winked at them, he would have sent them sliding off their chairs.
“Come.” His hand pressed into my lower back, and goosebumps broke out over my arms. “Let’s go home.”
It hit me then.
That warning bell...it was the realization that the tables had turned.
Up until this point, I’d had a modicum of power. All the things I’d managed to make him do, like letting the priest go, finding someone drunk to witness, treating me with an illusion of respect, they’d only been possible because I’d had leverage. As long as I could still break the covenant and damn him and me to the consequences—consequences he wanted to avoid at all costs—I’d held a bargaining position. It hadn’t fully leveled the playing field, but it had given me some semblance of power when facing him.
That sliver of power was now gone.
He’d gotten what he wanted. I’d agreed to the marriage, and by doing so, I’d given up the only piece of leverage I’d had. He basically owned me now. He had no more incentive to treat me well, or even with an iota of civility. The covenant probably spelled out that he couldn’t kill me—probably—but other than that? He could very well be free to do whatever he wanted with me.
And given how much I’d aggravated him all night, the likelihood of me ending up roasting above a pit of hellfire for the next hundred years now loomed over me in stark contrast to the bravado I’d sported earlier.
Shit, shit, shit.
I knew one day my mouth would get me in trouble. Of course, I’d thought it would be the kind of trouble like saying the wrong thing to a cop during a traffic stop or something. Not putting me at the mercy of a demon with a cruel glint in his eye.
I hadn’t noticed how we’d walked away from the bar, had rounded the corner into a smaller street. Out of sight of the bar’s patrons and the occasional passerby on the larger street, the demon let his hand fall away from my lower back and turned to me.
I would not squeak. I would not squeak.
Not meeting his gaze, I shifted on my feet. His energy vibrated over my skin, pulled on the thing between us. My breath seemed to echo in the narrow street, the night far too quiet for a city this large.
A rustling sound startled me a second before my eyes caught the explosion of flame-licked feathers in my periphery.
I squeaked and darted back.
The demon’s wings rose behind his back, caressed by fire, a thing of primal beauty. He spread them once, the tips almost brushing the buildings’ walls on either side, and then shook them before resting them in a half-folded position.
He closed the distance to me, grabbed my waist when I wanted to scoot away again. “Hold on.”
“What?”
“Do you want to be a human pancake?”
I stared at him in confusion.
“That’s what will happen if you let go.”
With those words, he stepped even closer and hefted me up with one arm under my knees, the other around my back. Instinctively, I slung my arms around his neck, my heart pounding.
I had a second of thinking, Good God, he’s going to fly, and then he lifted off.
Air rushed around me, the wind whipped my hair into my eyes, and I didn’t dare loosen one hand from my death grip at his neck to clear my vision. All I saw were glimpses of lights spreading somewhere beneath us, a half-clouded sky that was way too close, and slivers of flame dancing over onyx feathers. The thump of his wing beats drowned out the whoosh of air.
He banked, and my stomach rolled over. I screamed.
“Quit that,” he growled.
Excuse the fuck out of me for shrieking in your ear when you’re flying in loops worse than the most terrorizing rollercoaster I’ve ever been on. That’s what I wanted to snap back at him. Of course, all I got out was another panicked scream.
The demon made a sound between disgust and frustration, and when he banked again and the next helpless shriek wanted to claw its way out of my throat—it got stuck. The sound wouldn’t come out.
My guts roiled, nausea crawled up into my mouth, but for the life of me, I couldn’t get a sound out.
That bastard had done something to my vocal cords.
My hands were in the perfect position to close around his throat and squeeze, and for a second there, I considered it. But, alas, my sense of self-preservation won out. Trying to strangle the guy who held me a thousand feet in the air would have topped any Stupidest Thing I Ever Did list.
I settled for cursing him silently.
With the next swoop, the wind and flight movement pushed my head against his shoulder, and my face landed in the curve of his neck. The skin-to-skin contact jolted me, a sizzling connection I felt all the way down to my toes. His wing beats became irregular for a second, and his arms flexed around me.
So close, I had no choice but to inhale his scent—leather, bonfire, and something invigorating, some sort of spice. My lips parted against his skin, and—involuntarily, as if in trance—I slid out my tongue and tasted him.
His flight pattern faltered. We dropped, and my stomach rose to meet my throat. I wrenched my mouth away from his skin. Closing my eyes, I let my mortification heat all the parts of my body that had grown cold and numb from the chill in the air.
I had just licked him.
Licked. Him.
What the hell was wrong with me?
“Other parts of my body,” he murmured in my ear, his voice humming with barely concealed mockery, “are even more delicious, if you’re hungry.”
Ugh. That smug ass. I so wanted to shoot him a snarky reply, but—oh yeah, my vocal cords were still disabled thanks to His Douchery. Also, I wasn’t sure anything would have gotten past the embarrassment currently making my heart pound so loud it drowned out the wind.
He banked once more, and this time the lights in my peripheral vision moved closer. My stomach confirmed we were in a landing maneuver. His wings beat the air in more forceful strides, slowing our descent. I held on all the tighter, lest I drop the last few hundred feet.
He landed in a fluid, graceful motion that seemed impossible given his size and the impetus he still had from his flight. Loosening his arms from around me, he let me slide down his front. He probably intended for my feet to hit the floor, which totally would have happened, had I not kept my death grip around his neck. As it was, I sort of dangled there, having come full circle to be the grotesque piece of human jewelry I’d quipped about earlier.
I didn’t do it on purpose. I just couldn’t pry my fingers apart. Somewhere between the cold from the flight and my terror of falling, my muscles had locked in this position.
“You can let go.” His voice rumbled against my cheek, which was pressed against his chest.
I cleared my throat. Oh, look, my vocal cords were back! “Yeah. Um. I can’t.”
“Getting attached so quickly?”
Arrogant jerk.
With a sigh of suffering patience, he reached behind his neck and dislodged my fingers. I stumbled to the ground in a graceless thump.
My fingers touched grass and dirt. I glanced around me. We were in some sort of park, lawn stretching out behind me, a cluster of trees in front. Lights shone in the distance, not strong enough to illuminate the darkness of this corner of the park.
“Where are we?” I scrambled to a stand, dusting myself off.
The demon had turned his back on me, his enormous wings half obscuring his body. “The gate in the East Bay.”
“Gate?”
“To Hell.”
I swallowed. On instinct, I scanned my surroundings, my gecko brain looking for an escape. Shit was getting real. This was it. After what I’d seen tonight, my mind didn’t even doubt the fact there was a gate to Hell here, and that once through it, I was well and truly fucked.
My pulse sped up, sweat broke out on my skin. Maybe I c
ould—
“Don’t,” the demon said, his voice bored. He didn’t even bother to turn around, just kept on making weird gestures in the air.
Drawing, I realized. He was drawing signs. The symbols he wrote lit up for a second before fading again, and I squinted to make out what they looked like. Runes? Some version of ancient hieroglyphs? It was hard to tell.
With a start, I realized that if I really vanished through whatever portal to Hell in a minute, I wouldn’t be able to say goodbye to my friends and family. Not that saying “goodbye” was a feasible idea to anyone who wasn’t in the know about what was actually happening here. The only person who’d understand was Taylor. I’d promised to call her when I was safe.
I almost laughed. Safe I was most definitely not. But I had to let her know, had to give her something.
I took out my phone, opened it to messages, and stared at the screen with the last texts we’d sent each other earlier today, when spending my birthday alone had been the biggest of my worries.
My throat knotted together.
Tay, I began. The priest didn’t work. He caught me. He’ll take me with him in a minute. If you don’t hear from me again…
I paused, my eyes burning.
...please know I love you. Thank you for being my friend.
I hit Send and immediately opened the messages to my mom. My text was simple, the only thing I could write, the only thing that mattered.
I love you.
She’d see it in the morning, and when she next tried to call me, she would only get my voicemail, or a disconnected signal. She’d wonder, worry, call again and again, call my work, where I hadn’t appeared, and then the horror of it would dawn on her. I imagined what losing me would do to her, and my heart broke, its shards piercing me in a million places.
A sob tore out of my throat. Through the tears clouding my vision, I saw the demon turn around, the blurry outlines of a doorway glowing behind him.
I pressed my hand over my mouth, tried to hold in the pain, but it escaped nonetheless, in the tears flowing hot over my cheeks, in the sobs wrecking my body.
“Stop that.” I couldn’t make out the demon’s features anymore, but his voice held an edge I hadn’t heard before.
