by Nadine Mutas
As I walked back into the bedroom and glanced at the nightstand—which held the same candle I’d set on it in my apartment, something I hadn’t noticed earlier—a thought struck me. A horrible thought. Downright mortifying.
Oh God. Please tell me he didn’t—
I bolted over to the nightstand, pulled open the top drawer...and covered my mouth with one hand to stifle my squeak. There it was, lying all innocently atop a pack of Skittles and my assortment of chapsticks. A single girl’s best friend, the battery-powered answer to the disappointment of today’s dating scene, the reason I usually went to sleep with a smile on my face.
Said face promised to be tomato red by the rush of blood to my head and the heat in my cheeks.
Good Lord. He’d touched this. Or maybe one of his people did. I didn’t know what was worse. He—they—must know what it was.
It wasn’t that I was ashamed of my sexuality. I had needs—and wants—and I didn’t hide them. But it was one thing to be fairly progressive and open about sex, and another thing completely to have your toys spotted—and touched—by virtual strangers.
Suddenly the prospect of never seeing him again didn’t seem so bad.
I showered and got dressed with the burn of embarrassment still heating my skin, then wolfed down the breakfast—waffles with syrup, some fruit, orange juice.
And coffee. Lovely, invigorating, smelling-like-heaven coffee that promised me we’d achieve all the things together today. Beautiful liar.
Okay, Demon Dork got more points for providing the elixir of life, aka the magic bean juice.
Still didn’t balance out his Mr. Rochester performance.
Thinking of which, I got up and examined the door again. Heavy-looking metal, sturdy frame, and there wasn’t even a keyhole underneath the handle. At least not from this side. It truly looked like a prison door.
I cursed and crossed my arms, pondering. I couldn’t fathom being able to move this door from this side without, say, explosives, or maybe a troll. The Wolf’s Head from Lord of the Rings would do it. I tapped my lips.
Right now, my best bet would be to try and make a run for it when food was delivered. Depending on who was delivering it, I could maybe either skip past them or incapacitate them somehow.
Of course, that would mean he’d soon know I was out and about. The better option would be to sneak out when no one noticed, but that required either opening this door by myself, or maybe digging a tunnel out of here, neither of which seemed really feasible at this point.
The rooms didn’t have windows either, so doing the old-fashioned knot-your-sheets-together wasn’t possible. Crud.
All right, so the hard way it was.
I placed my hand on the plaque next to the door. It lit up for a second, then turned off again. Okay. Time to wait.
Not two minutes later, sounds from outside filtered through the door. I stepped back just enough to allow it to open, my heart thumping at a record pace.
The door swung inside, and a group of the little house demons filed into the room. Three of them immediately busied themselves with gathering the dishes from the breakfast, while two of them stood in front of me, hands on their hips and a scowl on their gnarly faces.
I took a deep breath, smiled at them—and dashed right past them through the open door. Skidding to a half stop, I pulled the heavy metal shut behind me before running on. Maybe closing the door would stall them for a few seconds, give me enough of a head start to get away.
The hallway outside loomed wide, the ceiling high above me shrouded in darkness…that seemed to move. I stumbled a bit while looking up there, disconcerted by the glimpses at writhing shapes in the gloom.
A commotion behind me. The sound of the door opening, little footfalls and surprisingly vicious snarls.
Keep running.
I was glad my sneakers had been among my things brought to the rooms. They certainly came in handy now when I sprinted over the stone floors.
Ahead of me, the hallway took a turn. Maybe I could find a niche to hide in until the demon underlings passed. I could explore at my leisure later, once I wasn’t being chased anymore.
Something snagged at my ankles, jolting me to a stop. My upper body hurled forward with the momentum while my legs skidded back. I barely avoided a full face plant with my arms thrown out. They broke the fall, and something nearly broke inside them.
I yelped. Bolts of pain shot through my hands, wrists, and arms, reverberated in my shoulders and chest.
Fucking hell.
And then they were on me. Snarling, the demon underlings swarmed me like a pack of feral toddlers raiding my pockets for candy. Tiny hands grabbed me from all sides, turned me around. My arms still hurt like hell, but I flailed anyway, trying to dislodge them. I wanted to move my legs, found I couldn’t. One look down confirmed some form of lasso thing held them together at the ankles.
Great. I’d been brought down by a group of miniature demon cowboys.
“Let me go,” I growled.
They growled right back and grabbed me even tighter, the fiends.
Next thing I knew, they bound my wrists in front of my chest with the same rope that secured my legs.
“Hey!” I yelled.
With barely a grunt, they lifted me up. Held above their heads, I watched the hallway walls bounce by as they carried me back the way I’d come. No, no, no.
Seriously? I was going to be bested by this horde of grumpy goblins? Not even a full-grown demon like Azazel? I’d have accepted him throwing me over his shoulder to dump me back in the room, what with him being a scary-ass demon almost twice my size and all.
But this? How fucking humiliating.
“Oy!” someone called out.
Someone not me.
The gremlins stopped as one, and I almost bit my tongue from the abrupt halt.
“Now what do we have here?” a female voice purred from behind me.
I tried to crane my neck to see who was talking, but all I managed was to pull a muscle.
“Set her down.” The voice moved closer.
Unceremoniously, the goblin goons dumped me on the floor. Ouch. I’d barely avoided hitting my head.
The group of tiny gremlins shuffled back, bowing low, almost prostrating themselves. Okay, whoever had arrived was someone high-ranking like Azazel then.
The click-clack of heels on the stone stopped right next to me. Twisting my neck, I peered up...at the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. Flawless golden cream skin, auburn hair tumbling about her shoulders in waves that seemed natural and artistically layered at the same time, not a strand out of place. Sensual, full lips, pert little nose, elegantly swung eyebrows, and those eyes...I’d seen that exact color before.
“Well, hell-o,” she crooned. “I knew he was hiding something.” She waved her hands, and the bonds around my wrists and ankles turned to ash. “Come on, darling, let’s get you up and talking.”
Leaning down, she offered me her hand. I stared at it for a second. There was no doubt she was a demon like Azazel. One who knew him. And walked freely in his house. Was it safe to chat with her?
Was it safe not to?
Biting my lip, I took her hand, and she pulled me up to standing completely on her own, with a move so smooth and easy, it spoke of leashed strength and power. Still holding on to my hand, she leaned in, sniffed at me.
“Hmm.” Her eyes roamed my face, dipped lower. “So fresh and alive. Gorgeous. What’s your name?”
“Z-zoe.”
She made a sound of delight. “How fitting. Now, Zoe dear, come, come, I want to hear all about how you got here.” She pulled me along the hallway toward the open door to my rooms, snapping her fingers at the tiny terribles. “Disperse.”
They scrambled to get out of her way.
“You see,” she said, leading me back into the room, “when I received the report from my gate master, I knew he was lying, so I poked him a bit, and wouldn’t you know, he suddenly had this interesting story about
how my dear brother came back from Earth—with a human. He couldn’t tell me who—apparently Az was quite secretive—only that it looked like a woman, and that he forbade them to speak a word of it under threat of torture. Threatening my people, can you believe it?”
She tsked and sat me down on one of the sofas, settling in next to me and propping her head up in her hand, elbow on the backrest, luminous lightning gray eyes focused on me.
“To think he actually thought he could order my guys to keep this from me.” She flicked her hair over her shoulder. “The nerve.”
My mind had snagged on one detail she’d mentioned. “You—you’re Azazel’s sister?”
“Oh!” She slapped her hand over her chest. “Where are my manners? How rude of me not to introduce myself. I apologize ever so much, darling. Yes, I’m that big buffoon’s sister, Azmodea.”
She held out her hand again. Hesitatingly, I shook it, still processing this new piece of information. I had a sister-in-law. A demon sister-in-law.
“Pleasure to meet you,” I murmured, dumbfounded.
“Oh, the pleasure is all mine.” She turned my hand over and kissed the back of it, lingering there with her lips brushing the skin, her gaze on me warm and sensual.
Clearing my throat, I gingerly withdrew my hand.
“So,” Azmodea said without missing a beat, “what’s the story? How come Az brought you down here? You’re not a damned soul. You’re very much alive.” She perused me from head to toe, her eyes hooded. “Very much.” She licked her lips and focused on my face again. “So what’s the deal, love?”
I hesitated. How much should I tell her? What was I allowed to say? Given that Azazel had explicitly ordered those other demons not to inform his own sister of my coming here, it was a safe guess that he wanted to keep this whole thing under wraps. And I didn’t know exactly what kind of relationship the two had. Being family didn’t always mean you were close—my own family being a prime example of that. I had two half-sisters I’d never met, had no desire to meet...and now would never meet, it seemed.
And yet...what loyalty did I have to Azazel? He was my husband in name only, he’d made it clear he had no intention of living up to that title and he’d locked me in here fully accepting that it would break me to live alone for the rest of my likely eternal life. He knew I’d go mad, and he didn’t care.
So then, why should I?
I was willing to roll the dice.
Sitting up straighter, I said, “I’m Azazel’s wife.”
Azmodea blinked. “Come again?”
“We’re married.”
For a moment, she stared at me, eyes like quicksilver. Then her mouth twisted into a grin. “You’re pulling my leg, aren’t you? I like a good joke. Good for you for having a sense of humor. You’ll need it down here. So, tell me, why are you really here?”
“I’m his wife, and he brought me down here because the contract said we’d have to live together, but he can’t be on Earth, which means I had to come to Hell.”
Silence. I had the impression Azmodea wasn’t usually quiet for more than a few seconds, but now she eyed me with her mouth hanging open as if I’d struck her mute.
“What contract?” she finally asked.
So I told her. How I’d summoned Azazel when I was thirteen in what was supposed to have been a mock séance, unwittingly somehow activating a contract I didn’t understand and locking myself into a covenant with a surly demon, to be fulfilled twelve years later. How he’d appeared in my living room last night, how we ended up getting married in front of three drunk women, after which he took me down to Hell and basically put me in storage.
Azmodea had grown increasingly excited during my tale of woe, and was now bouncing on the sofa, her eyes sparkling.
“Oh,” she cooed and clapped her hands, “this is so delicious. This is the best. I can finally get him back for that hellhound he stole. He will never live this down.”
“Um…”
“You know, he’s always so high-and-mighty, so bloody serious, it’s atrocious, really. I’ve been trying to find something to needle him with for ages, but he’s so—” She wrung her hands in a motion reminiscent of squeezing someone’s neck.
Ha, I could relate to that!
“Now don’t get me wrong, darling, I love my brother, despite the fact his sense of interior design is stuck in the Dark Ages—” She glanced around the room with an expression of mild disgust “—but by Lucifer, he needs something to shake him up a bit. And him getting hitched to a human by mistake is just perfect. If I believed in those things, I’d say he’s reaping some wonderful karma right now.”
Her grin showed fangs.
My mind was still playing catch-up with all the new information bombarding me. Just the fact that Azazel had family was enough to send me spinning. Because that opened up a whole new level of Pandora’s Box called “in-laws from Hell.” Quite literally.
I cleared my throat. “So, um, who else is there?”
“Hm?”
“You’re his sister, and I assume he has other family members too?”
Chances were I wouldn’t get this information from Azazel himself—given that he’d told me in no uncertain terms he didn’t plan on showing his face here again—so I might as well probe his conveniently present sister about my new relatives-by-marriage.
“Oh, you know.” She waved her hand. “There’s Daevi, our grandmother on our mother’s side—she’s the archdemon of this territory—and then there’s Mammon, my son—you’ll love him—and then, oh, just half a dozen uncles and aunts on both sides, with scores of cousins of all stages removed…”
I gulped. One of my favorite movies was My Big Fat Greek Wedding, but I never thought I’d end up in my own—albeit demonic—version of it.
“Sounds like a large family,” I squeaked.
“Eh.” Azmodea shrugged one shoulder. “We’re not very fertile by nature—nothing like humans—but we are immortal, which makes for very long lives unless someone kills us, and over thousands of years, there are a few kids bound to pop up.”
I leaned forward, gobbling up all the info. I was going to milk this for all it was worth. Who knew when I’d next get a chance to gather some knowledge about demons?
“So you don’t die of natural causes?”
“Nope. We don’t get sick and we don’t age past our prime.”
“But you can be killed?”
“It takes a lot, though.” She smirked. “Even in a fight with another demon—or angel—there are rarely casualties.”
Good god, there were angels too. Well, of course. If demons and Hell existed, it was only logical their opposite wasn’t a myth either. I was getting just a bit dizzy.
“How old are you?”
Azmodea blew out a breath. “Let me think…” At my undoubtedly baffled look, she added, “Well, it gets a bit hard to keep track after the first millennium…”
Good thing I was sitting already.
“I think it must be two...two and a half thousand by now?” She squinted in thought, her lips pursed. “You’d have to ask Az, he’s always been better at remembering our birthday.”
“You two share the same birthday?”
She laughed. “Well, yeah, that’s how it usually is with twins.”
“You’re twins?”
“Not that you’d know it either by looks or personality.” She rolled her eyes. “He used to boast with the fact he’s three minutes older, but honestly, that just means he came out too early and left all the charm behind for moi.” Pressing her hand on her chest, she batted her lashes at me.
“Obviously,” I said, unable to hide my grin.
She clucked her tongue. “Oh, you’re adorable. Look at you, with all that dark hair and—let me see your eyes—” Leaning closer, she took my chin in her hand and peered at my eyes. “—oh, that’s a beautiful hazel right there. He’s lucky, you know. Stumbling into this marriage may not have given him much choice, but you’re exactly his type.”
“So, how was it?”
“What?”
“The sex,” she said, her tone making it clear I was a bit slow. “I’m surprised you could walk, to be honest. He’s known for being demanding, and even his demon lovers often spend the next day recovering. Given that you’re human, I’d have thought you’d be flattened on the bed.”
I choked on my own breath. Azmodea patted my back as I coughed, my eyes tearing up.
“Are you all right, darling?”
“Fine,” I croaked. “I’m fine.”
My burning face of course painted me a liar.
“Come now, don’t be embarrassed. Shame is a human invention. We don’t do that down here.”
I made an undignified sound in response.
Azmodea tilted her head, narrowed her eyes and sniffed the air. Gaze snapping back to me, she drawled, “Now wait...don’t tell me he hasn’t devoured you like a scrumptious buffet yet.”
I didn’t even want to know what shade of red my face was at this point.
“How curious,” she murmured. Then her eyes lit up. “Ah. You told him not to touch you, then?” She snapped her fingers. “That would do it. He’s not the sort to take what isn’t offered.”
“Uh, no. I didn’t… He didn’t…” I scratched at my neck. “He just dumped me here and left.”
“Oh.” Azmodea stared at me with her mouth rounded into a cute little O. “Well, never you worry,” she said after a second. “I’m sure it’s not because he doesn’t want you. I mean, you’re obviously a snack.” Her gaze caressed me from head to toe. “You’ll see, soon he’ll be bursting in here, ready to ravish you with all the pent-up passion of a demon suppressing his basic desires.”
The door flew open with a bang that rattled my bones. I almost jumped off the sofa. A dark shadow filled the doorway, a writhing mass of stygian smoke, solidifying before my eyes. The mist of power receded to reveal Azazel’s face, even more achingly beautiful for the fury refining his features. Eyes sparking lightning, he advanced into the room.
Chapter 5
“Brother!” Azmodea called, her voice all chirpy.
