by Nadine Mutas
“I should squash you like the bug you are.”
My mind was a white wasteland of fear.
“Lu.” A resonant female voice. “She saved your daughter’s life. You owe her a debt.”
The grip around my throat eased. My feet fully touched the ground, and I gasped for air.
On the dais, Lucifer turned to Lilith, his expression equal parts bewilderment and reproach.
“Lil,” he grated.
She cast him the best side-eye I’d ever seen. “I like this one,” she said.
“Why?” Lucifer looked like he’d sucked on two pounds of lemons.
Lilith’s eyes tracked to me. “She reminds me.”
“Of what?”
A small smile curved her lips. “What it was like to be human.”
Lucifer glared at Lilith for a long moment before he turned to me with the utter resignation of a man fulfilling his beloved’s whimsical bidding. If the circumstances were different, it’d have made him quite likable.
Noise from somewhere behind me drew Lucifer’s gaze. His eyes narrowed, and I dared a glance over my shoulder to see what was going on. My heart stopped, then launched into a wild gallop.
Azazel strode into the hall, flanked by two guards. He spotted me. His eyes widened. A tremor visibly went through him, and for a second, the beacon of his energy inside me pinged with a white-hot emotion.
Zoe, he said in my mind, are you—
His voice cut off like a disconnected phone call. The beacon of his energy faded away, as if muted.
“Ah, Azazel,” Lucifer drawled. “How fortunate of you to join us. It seems like you lost something.” He indicated me. “Or maybe that was deliberate? In the hopes an accident may befall her, to be rid of your unwanted wife?”
I jerked as if slapped. Lucifer’s words pierced something soft and raw inside me, scraped over old, festering wounds like claws, tore them wide open. I sucked in a sharp breath.
No. That wasn’t right. Azazel wouldn’t do that. Lucifer was just trying to needle me—however he knew exactly how to do that, I had no idea, but he was the devil for a reason.
I shook my head, trying to clear my thoughts. All the things Azazel had done for me, the way he treated me, it had to count for something. He walked back into his own trauma for me, for fuck’s sake. You didn’t do that for someone you wanted to get rid of.
And yet, I couldn’t shake that small, insistent voice in my head whispering that this was before I’d unwittingly humiliated him in front of Lucifer’s entire court and gave them the ammunition to mock him for at least the next century. Azazel had been so hurt after, so withdrawn, the cold edge with which he talked to me chillingly fresh in my mind.
What if my blunder, however much it wasn’t my fault, broke the fragile thing that had grown between us? What if it soured his feelings for me…such as he might have had? He’d never told me if he did. We hadn’t talked about what we felt for each other.
And now…now I feared the tender thread between us frayed, threatening to snap. Resentment wasn’t rational, defied best intentions, and found cracks to slip inside and wedge wide open over time.
While I wrangled with my sobering thoughts, Lucifer spoke once more. “It seems I owe dear Zoe here a debt. I’d hate to have it hanging over my head, so allow me to settle it. I have just the thing, perfect actually—” he pointed at me and Azazel with a smile that was edged with a razor “—for both of you. It will make all parties happy.”
Inwardly, I cringed. Knowing Lucifer, whatever he was about to propose would be a double-edged sword. I pressed my lips together, bracing myself.
“My offer, darling Zoe,” he purred, giving me his undivided attention, “is to annul your marriage to Azazel and send you back home.”
If a freight train had barreled into me, I couldn’t have been more shocked or keeled over. Home.
“You’ll be back in your old life,” Lucifer continued, “with your friends, your job…your family. It will be as if none of this ever happened. No one will remember that you disappeared. People will think you took a long vacation volunteering on a llama farm in Peru, or whatever you kids do these days. And you won’t remember any of this.” He leisurely waved a hand at the entirety of Hell. “No harm done, everything back to normal. A wish come true.”
I sucked in a sharp breath. Didn’t I wish for that? A way out of this nightmare, to go back to my ordinary, perfectly boring life, in a world that was familiar and safe…ish? Compared to Hell, at least. And to see my mom again…talk to her, touch her. My heart ached, and I rubbed over my breastbone.
But was it still? A nightmare, that is. However this started, hadn’t it become something else since then?
Before I could answer that question, Lucifer turned to Azazel, a glint in his eye. “Wouldn’t that be a gift for you as well? To be able to divest yourself of this unbidden burden, to rid yourself of this problem. Isn’t that what you’ve wanted?”
My breath got stuck in my throat. Every aching part of me hovered on the precipice of a great fall, painfully tense.
His gaze steady on Lucifer, Azazel said, “Yes.”
I never knew a single word could shatter my heart.
I gasped, my shoulders slumping. A thousand shards cut me on the inside, opened those barely scabbed-over wounds Lucifer just poked at earlier, and I bled, bled, bled. Whatever little belief I’d had in Azazel’s intentions crumbled to dust, along with any fledgling hope for something more.
I struggled to breathe. Pain flared in my chest, rapacious and furious. He couldn’t have hurt me more if he’d taken one of those daggers and thrust it straight through my heart.
I mentally grasped for my walls. Where were they when I needed them, when I’d rather close myself off than break apart in public? They’d served me so well in all the years past, but I’d taken them down for Azazel, and now I couldn’t seem to raise them again.
Azazel’s voice snapped my attention back to him. “But,” he said, still looking at Lucifer, “it’s not what I want anymore.”
Lucifer pressed his lips into a thin line, and his expression darkened.
Azazel caught my gaze, a storm of lightning in his eyes. “I want you to stay. You’re mine, and I’m claiming you.” He took a heavy breath, his voice harsh as he added, “You’re not a burden, not a problem to be rid of. You’re the reason I’ve smiled more in the past few weeks than I did in the last decades. Getting to know you is the best thing to have happened to me in a long while. I want you down here with me, as my wife.” A pause, then, softly— “If you’ll have me.”
Instant, crushing relief rushed through me with enough force to make me sway on my feet. I raised a trembling hand to my mouth, my eyes prickling hot. It should have scared me, how much his words meant to me, how fiercely I felt that breathtaking sense of relief and utter joy. And maybe it did, a little.
My walls, I guessed, had kept me from this, from feeling this deeply, from handing someone the power to hurt me. Because when you showed someone the vulnerable parts of yourself, you gave them the knowledge where exactly to cut to make you bleed.
As Azazel had given me. He told me of his scars, let me see the parts of him that were raw and hurting, gave me the knowledge to eviscerate him.
And it was because of this, as I stood there staring at him, that I knew what his declaration cost him, knew how much he risked. Not Lucifer’s scorn, not the mockery of the court, no.
My rejection.
He laid his heart at my feet, told me he wanted me to stay, when I was just as likely to go back to Earth as I was to remain here. Azazel couldn’t know how I felt. How would he, when I’d just figured it out myself?
He’d just sliced himself open and handed me that most vulnerable part of him, the piece that was battered and bruised by his father’s abandonment—who didn’t love him enough to stay in his life.
And I could hurt him just as badly now, if I chose to accept Lucifer’s offer and went back to Earth, with my mind wiped of every mem
ory of Azazel. Gone all the moments we shared, the joy, the pain, the laughter, the sex…the love.
Heart aching from the choice laid out before me, I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. When I opened them again, it was to see Azazel waiting patiently for my answer.
And I found it wasn’t really a choice at all. My heart had known all along.
“Yes,” I whispered. “I’ll stay.”
His smile was sudden and blindingly bright, his eyes holding the hint of welcome surprise. He really hadn’t known. He’d been prepared to receive a crushing rejection and watch me walk out of his life.
Never, I vowed silently. Never would I give him up. He was mine, and I’d claim him as he did me.
I turned to Lucifer, who’d watched our exchange with a sour expression. His lip even curled.
“Your Grace,” I said. “As much as I appreciate your generous offer, I have to decline. I’d rather stay in Hell.”
He bared his teeth. “I will not have this debt hanging over my head. It needs to be settled now.”
I blinked. “That sounds like a you problem.”
“Zoe,” Azazel hissed.
I startled, clapped a hand over my mouth, and hastily bowed. “My apologies, Your Grace. What I meant to say was—I mean—”
Think, think, I urged myself. Propose something else.
“I want powers,” I blurted.
“Powers.” Lucifer regarded me like one might a yipping chihuahua. “What kind?”
The gears in my head turned in overdrive. What kind, what kind… Flying was out of the question.
Or was it?
I squinted at Lucifer. “Wings?”
He rolled his eyes. “How utterly predictable.” Crossing his arms, he added, “No. I can’t turn you into a demon, and I can’t give you wings.”
Well, it was worth a try.
“Healing,” I said after thinking on it for a few more seconds. “I want to heal as fast as a demon.”
“Obviously,” Lucifer muttered.
“And summoning!” I added with a raised finger, having thought of this one just now.
He sighed and casually waved his hand. “Done.”
A tingle ran through my body, and I inhaled sharply. Was that it? So easy? I raised a brow and scratched my arm hard enough to draw blood—just to watch the fresh wound begin to close almost immediately.
“Do you doubt my word?” Lucifer asked with quiet menace.
I jerked my head up. “No! Of course not, Your Grace. I would never, I swear. I was just—I mean—there was an itch—all that glitter—”
Azazel’s hand closing over my mouth effectively cut off my babbling as he pulled me to him with his other arm around my waist. “She meant to say thank you, Your Grace. The debt is paid, and we’ll be going now. If you’ll excuse us.”
And with that he lifted me and whirled around, already striding toward the doors to the lobby.
“Wait!” I yelled, reaching back to the dais. “My dagger!”
I’d be loath to leave that beautiful stabby thing here, lodged as it still was in the chest of the demon I’d stuck with it. The insurgent in question had woken in the meantime, along with his comrade, though they’d been smart enough not to scream in Lucifer’s presence.
Azazel growled and turned back around, just as Lucifer strolled down the dais, grabbed the dagger and yanked it out of the demon. The guy didn’t even wince. Then again, the move probably barely registered over the pain he must be in from his severed limbs.
“This one here?” Lucifer asked, weighing the blade.
“Yes,” I squeaked weakly.
“Hmm.”
With a move too fast for my eyes to follow, he threw the dagger right at me. It thudded into my shoulder with enough force to thrust me back against Azazel’s chest. Pain exploded in my upper body, and I screamed.
“To test your new healing skills,” Lucifer purred.
Azazel snarled, his energy vibrating so violently, it crawled over my skin and let the air shimmer around us. His wings unfurled with an aggressive whoosh.
“Careful, boy.” Lucifer clucked his tongue. “I’m in the mood for blood. You should take your leave as long as you can.”
Azazel glowered at him, but I tapped him on his arm around my waist.
“Let’s just go,” I whispered as I pulled the dagger out of my shoulder, cringing at the fresh pain.
With a rough exhale, Azazel tucked his wings back in. Hefting me up in his arms, he pivoted and marched toward the doors.
A push and pop in my head, but instead of Azazel, it was Lucifer who spoke directly into my mind. Oh, and Zoe?
The intensity of his energetic presence made me tremble.
Not a word about Naamah, he went on. To anyone. Including your brooding husband.
My lips parted. That was—no. Azazel needed to know. I couldn’t do that to him.
If you want to leave here, Lucifer said, his mental voice a threat wrapped in silk, I’ll need your binding vow not to reveal what you know about Naamah.
Your Grace, I stammered. Please.
Vow it.
I looked up at Azazel’s achingly beautiful face, his features drawn tight as he carried me, and I closed my eyes.
I vow not to reveal what I know about Naamah.
Good, Lucifer crooned. This is your friendly reminder that vows are binding, and breaking them has consequences. A heavy pause. You do not want to find out what they are.
Understood, I whispered.
See you around, kid. His voice dripped with wry amusement.
The next instant, his mental presence receded, leaving me alone with a terrible secret and a heaping amount of guilt. But what choice did I have?
I wrapped my arms around Azazel’s neck, careful to keep the dagger away from him, and buried my nose in the curve of his neck. Clutching me tighter, he hurried on.
I shared in his urgency—I didn’t want to spend one minute longer than necessary in this palace. I still couldn’t believe we were getting out of here at all.
We were just crossing the lobby, when a shout made Azazel pause.
“There you are!” Azmodea called, descending one of the staircases. “I’ve been looking for you all over. Are you okay?”
She shook off what looked like a tiny reptile that had sunk its teeth into her right calf, and picked something out of her hair that fluttered away on leathery wings, before she joined us on the floor of the lobby.
“I’m fine,” I said. “We’re leaving.”
“Oh, thank Hell. This place is the worst.” She patted my cheek. “So glad you’re in one piece, darling.”
Falling into step with us, she gave me a once-over, her eyes lingering on the bloody dagger in my grip. “So, what’d I miss?”
“Later,” Azazel said.
I released a rough exhale and laid my head on his shoulder, glad for the delay.
Because I had no idea how to explain what happened without mentioning Naamah.
We didn’t speak again until we entered Daevi’s territory. The moment we flew over the border—marked by patrols and a line of fire on the ground—Azazel’s shoulder muscles lost some of their tension under my hands.
Azmodea took her leave soon after, promising to come over later to compare notes—after a thorough shower, as she said, to wash off any vermin residue and persistent glitter.
We flew on, the harsh landscape of Hell zooming by underneath us.
Can you hear me? Azazel’s voice in my head.
Yes! What happened earlier—it felt like you were cut off.
Lucifer. Azazel’s mental voice held a growl. He blocked me.
Such a cock-block.
Azazel barked a laugh, and warmth bloomed in my chest.
I love hearing you laugh, I whispered.
You’re the reason I do.
I smiled into his neck, the happy warmth spreading to every part of me.
Did you get him? I asked after a moment. My dad?
I hadn’t had a cha
nce to check in with Azazel earlier, to see if he’d made it. I’d been out of commission during most of the mission, thanks to the forced nap time after I drank the amrit.
Yes.
My next exhale was perilously close to a sob, relief making me tremble in his arms.
Thank you. I kissed his neck. Thank you. His jaw. Thank you. The corner of his mouth.
You can thank your way down my body later if you’d like.
Don’t worry. I grinned. I’ve got lots of gratitude left over.
Hmm. The corner of his mouth kicked up.
I raised my hand and traced the curve of his lips, my heart painfully open. He caught my finger and nipped at the tip.
I’m sorry, I said. About earlier.
He frowned. What?
I swallowed past the lump in my throat. When Lucifer made me drink the amrit. The things I said—
That wasn’t your fault, he cut me off harshly.
I know. I curled my hand in his shirt. But still... I’m so—
He snapped his wings tight to his body, making us plummet at neck-breaking speed. The scream that wrenched its way out of my throat could have woken the dead.
There we go, he murmured in my mind.
“Stop it! Azazel!”
Of course, he did nothing of the sort. Instead, he rolled us in the air so we torpedoed like a damn bullet. I screamed and screamed and screamed.
Azazel laughed, the fiend.
“Stoooooop,” I yelled, and then, when he ignored me like the brute he was, I added, “How unbecoming of an angel!”
“That’s it,” he said. “I’ll drop you.”
“Don’t you dare!” I clutched him tighter than a Black Friday shopper at Costco did the last iPhone on sale.
He pinwheeled across the sky, alternated between powerful, ascending wing beats and sudden, stomach-dropping free falls, until my screaming turned to whooping laughter, and he kissed me breathless.
I only noticed we were close to home when he landed on the balcony outside his suite. Not even pausing to set me down, he shifted my weight and unlocked the door with the sigils, then briskly walked inside.
