“I hope he’s being a gentleman,” she continued. “I didn’t raise him to be anything less.”
Raise him? I shot Azazel a what-the-fuck look, and he returned it with a stern glance that screamed just-go-along-with-it-or-suffer-my-wrath.
I smiled politely at Bea. “It’s so nice to meet you.”
Her brown eyes twinkled. “Oh, call me mum, dear.” She tapped the side of her nose. “I’m sure we’ll be great friends. My boy has excellent taste in women.”
Okay, something was very wrong here, but Azazel was acting as if nothing was up.
“Have you got time for tea, sweetheart?” Bea asked.
Azazel looked apologetic. “Not today.”
Her face fell. “Oh.”
“But how about I walk you home, and you can tell me all about your week.”
She brightened.
“I’ll meet you at operations in half an hour,” Azazel said to me in his regular gruff tone.
Bea pursed her lips. “Isn’t your girlfriend coming with us?”
“No,” Azazel said. “I want you all to myself for a bit.”
This was obviously the right thing to say because her face broke into a huge smile, which she aimed at me. “Maybe one day, you’ll have a son that loves you this much.”
Azazel led her off down the street without a backward glance.
She thought he was her son, and he was allowing it. Why?
I didn’t get Azazel. Not at all.
* * *
I popped my head around the office door where the humans worked, and Jennifer and Thomas both raised a hand in greeting. Jennifer looked immaculate as usual in her pantsuit and blouse, hair up in a French braid while Thomas was rocking the jeans and cream tee vibe. There was no official dress code here, and they were free to be themselves, which at first glance looked like they were opposites. But over the past month, I’d gotten to know these two, and they were pieces of a whole waiting to slot together, not in a sexual way, although that would probably happen at some point too, but in an I-have-found-my-other-half way.
And yes, I recognized how ironic that sounded considering I was poo-pooing my own mark, but this wasn’t about a mystical stamp. It was about real connection. These two had it. It was a shame they didn’t realize it.
“You staying the night?” Jen asked me.
“Yep. You two want to pop over once your shift ends?”
“Can’t,” Thomas answered with a grin. “Got a date.”
Finally. “I knew you’d hooked up.”
Jen froze, and her cheeks went red, but Thomas simply looked confused.
Oops. Talk about grabbing the wrong end of the shit stick. “I mean, I knew you’d hook up with someone soon. Hot guy like you.”
Jen shot me a relieved look.
Great save, Fee.
Thomas shrugged. “You know, if you’ve got it, you’ve got it.”
“I actually have a date, too,” Jen said.
Thomas looked surprised. “You never said.”
“You never asked,” Jen retorted with a hint of tartness.
Thomas merely blinked at her. I could almost hear the cogs whirring in his brain. Yes, Thomas, other people do find Jen attractive. Look at her. Can’t you see it? Aha, yes, you’re jealous. I wonder why that is?
It was time to exit this weird revelatory moment. “Where are the reapers?”
“Kitchen,” Thomas said, but his gaze remained fixed on Jen.
I slipped from the room. Sometimes, it took a nudge for you to realize your feelings. Maybe knowing that someone was interested in Jen would make Thomas realize how he felt about her.
I headed down the corridor, past the control room, and to the kitchen at the back of the building. Dayna, my second in command for Deadside, had an espresso machine in there. Lesser demons had a thing for caffeine, it seemed, and I was totally on board with that.
Voices drifted through the wood. Annoyed, raised voices.
“Does she think we have nothing better to do?” an irate female voice demanded.
Instinct had me pausing outside the office door and slipping into eavesdropping mode. Piss off, guilt. This was about me, I was sure of it, and my inquiring mind needed to know.
“She’s reliant on the other Dominus for travel,” Dayna explained. “She’ll be here. I’m sure of it.”
“Oh, yes. A Dominus without wings or teleportation powers, how could I forget,” a male voice said sarcastically. “Here to do the fucking easy work while we bust our asses out there every fucking week, keeping the streets clean.”
“Nox,” Dayna admonished. “You don’t get to speak about your Dominus that way. Not in front of me.”
“Peiter was a Dominus. Vale was a Dominus. This demon raised as a human is a dud,” he snapped back.
“A Dominus is supposed to lead their reaper team,” the unnamed woman said. “Freya is injured because we didn’t have a Dominus with us last night. We’re a reaper down because this new Dominus can’t be bothered to return our calls. We can’t work like this any longer. We shouldn’t have to. There’s a fucking code. A fucking process.”
“Sariah …” Dayna sounded fed up. “I’ve explained that Fee is in training. She isn’t ready to be out in the field yet. Azazel won’t allow it.”
“Allow it?” Nox said. “Is she a Dominus or not?”
“Enough,” Dayna snapped. “Cut the attitude before I cut you. You don’t know her. She’s not like the other Dominus, but that’s not a bad thing.”
My heart warmed toward the demon who was defending me, but there was no ignoring the hint of doubt in her tone. The weariness at having to stick up for me. I cracked my shields and bit back a gasp at the cocktail of emotions that hit me. Anger, anxiety, fear, and doubt mingled to create a toxic atmosphere that was almost choking.
Shame heated my cheeks because the reapers were right. I needed to be out there. I was a Dominus, and it was time to act like one. I slammed down my shields and stepped into the room.
All eyes zeroed in on me. Dayna was leaning against the sink, clutching a cup of coffee, and three other demons sat around the small, round table where the staff took their lunch.
The female had a crimson mohawk and horizontal pupils in her yellow eyes. Sariah, no doubt. The two guys had almost identical features, except one had obsidian horns that curled like a ram’s, and the other’s horns rose up like a stag’s. All three demons’ skin glowed with strange silver symbols, tiny symbols that covered their arms and necks. And all three demons glared at me.
No point pussyfooting around. “I heard everything you just said.”
Sariah paled. One of the guys cursed softly under his breath.
“Look, Fee,“ Dayna said. “They didn’t mean any offense. They were just venting. It’s been tough out there. Reapers rely on their allocated Dominus for a host of things and … It’s nobody’s fault.”
Wait, did she think I was pissed off? “Whoa. I’m not disputing that. I get it. This is on me.”
The reapers exchanged confused glances.
“I’m new at this, and I’m learning, but I want to do this well. I want to be there for you. I want to be out on patrol with you.”
“Then maybe return our calls?” the guy with the stag horns said.
“I didn’t get any calls. Hell, I didn’t even know I was meant to be patrolling.” It sounded like I was making excuses. That wasn’t what I wanted. “That’s not your problem. I need to get my shit together, and I promise you, I will.”
They traded looks again, then the demon with the stag horns nodded. “Fine. In that case, you’ll come on patrol with us tomorrow night?”
Excitement and fear swirled in my stomach, and then assurance and power rushed through my veins. It was my Voralex and this place. It was with me, telling me I wouldn’t be alone out there.
I smiled. “I’ll be with you.”
“No, you won’t,” Azazel said from the doorway.
The demons, my reapers, looked to me for a r
Conah, Azazel, Mal, they made my decisions for me. They spoke for me. And yeah, I was new at this, and there were inherent risks that were specific to me, but I’d allowed it to happen. I’d given up my voice because I was afraid and unsure. Because I was so out of my depth. But every new role in life came with a learning curve, and I was damned good at anything I set my mind to.
I turned to face Azazel. “I don’t need your permission to do my job.”
No one owned me. Not Conah, not Mal, and not Azazel. I was bound only by the limitations out of my control, like the fact I couldn’t get from the Underealm to the human realm. I was beholden to them because of that simple fact. But I didn’t need their permission to do my job. The scythe chose me for a reason.
I was worthy.
“You’re not ready,” Azazel said.
But I was. I was as ready as I would ever be without any actual practical experience, and he knew it. I could see it in his eyes. This wasn’t about me. It was about the minute amount of risk that presented itself every time I left for the human world. The risk that I might die in some unknown manner and activate the curse to fuck up Lilith.
But a vampire couldn’t drain me dry because Dominus blood sucked for them. It could tear open every artery and hope I bled out, but I’d fight back. A mouth could attack me, but without a Dread to finish me off, it was unlikely it would be able to maim me enough to incapacitate me before the scythe did its thing and healed me. And, yes, there was a dagger out there, but the hooded figures that had it had gone to ground. As for Lilith’s minions finding me now that I’d been stripped of the shielding Azazel had placed on me, well, they could do that anywhere, but to be honest, with all the unrest in the Underealm, Lilith had better things to do with her time and resources.
Based on those facts, I was pretty damn invincible.
“You’re not ready,” Azazel repeated, but he didn’t sound so convinced now.
Probably because I was staring at him with a blank look while I processed all the ways I was fucking ready.
I gave him a closed-lip smile. “We’ll just have to see, won’t we?”
Chapter Ten
Yay to me for standing up to Azazel. Then why was my stomach trembling with nerves? Because this was me going at it alone. Jumping into the deep end as team leader.
It would be fine. It was like any other leadership role, except I had to kill monsters and heal my team if they got hurt. Yep, my scythe could heal them. News flash to me.
“Are you all right?” Dayna asked.
I stared at the empty doorway where Azazel had just stood. He hadn’t argued any further with me. Instead, he’d given me an undecipherable look and then turned on his heel and left.
Left me with no ride to the Beyond.
Left me stranded.
Point taken, big guy.
Shit, I hadn’t thought this through. Okay, pull it together. “I need you to sort my comms so I can get messages from my team. I then need you to take me to the wounded reaper.” I looked at my team. “I’m going to need one of you to be my designated ride.” The stag-horned demon was the biggest. “You can have that privilege.”
He arched a brow. “You want me to carry you?”
I stared at him levelly. “I don’t have wings or teleportation, so, yes. I’ll need you to get me in and out of the Underealm. You’ll need to come pick me up whenever I call. Can you do that?”
Sariah answered for him. “Yes, Dominus. Nox will do it.”
The stag dude nodded. “Yes, Dominus.”
“And you can quit with the Dominus shit. My name is Fee. Use it.” I flicked my wrist, and my scythe bloomed to blinding life in my hand. “Okay, how do I pick up these souls you have for me?”
* * *
Transfer of souls from reaper to scythe was pretty easy. I touched them with the blade, and it sucked out the souls they were carrying. Simple. It took less than five minutes, and then the glyphs that had glowed on their skin dulled and vanished.
“Celestial ink,” Dayna explained. “Bloody painful process.”
Her skin looked clear, but she was a reaper too. “Do you have them?”
“Yes, although being promoted to Deadside means I don’t get to use them any longer.” She handed me back my comm. “It’s all set so you can receive communication from your team now.” She pressed her lips together. “It looks like someone put a block on the messages.”
No prizes for guessing who. “When do we patrol next?”
“Tomorrow night, south side,” Sariah said.
“I’ll pick you up from the quarters,” Nox said. “It will be late afternoon, Underealm time.”
“And the injured reaper?”
“You can’t help her now,” Dayna explained. “There’s a window of time that you can heal a reaper with your scythe, half an hour after injury.”
“Shit. I’m so sorry. Please, tell her to get well soon and take as much time as she needs to heal. I’m looking forward to meeting her.”
Nox almost choked on his coffee.
“What?”
His brother, Nix, who wasn’t a twin, slapped him on the back.
“Well fought and well scarred is what we say,” Sariah explained.
“What you said intimates that she’s weak,” Dayna explained.
Sariah smiled, and the hard look in her yellow eyes ebbed a little. “But we understand what you mean. I’ll tell Freya you await her return.”
I looked to Dayna. “Is there anything else I need to know?”
She sighed. “Now that you’re asking …”
I was a reaper down for my Necro team. But there were other teams, several more that patrolled other regions and all reported to me. It was my job to pick up the souls they collected. It looked like the Dominus guys had been covering for me.
Not anymore.
As soon as I got back to quarters, I’d be having words with them. This was my job, and I intended to do it.
Except now I needed a ride to the Beyond.
Dayna caught the thread of my thoughts from my expression. “Shit, Nox won’t be able to take you to the Beyond. If he gets close to the portal, it’ll fry him.”
“It doesn’t like lesser demons,” he said bitterly.
“No, because we don’t have enough celestial blood,” Sariah added.
But I did, because of Samael. Although the guys hadn’t known what lineage I was at the start, they must have known I had enough celestial blood to get into the Beyond. Otherwise, why would the scythe choose me … shit, that’s what worthy meant to them. Celestials measured worth based on celestial bloodline. Conah had been telling the truth about it not mattering if you were of Lilith’s bloodline, though he just hadn’t clarified the rest.
“Shit.”
“Never fear, Malachi is here.” He sauntered into the room, looking pleased with himself.
Relief and anxiety tugged at my insides. I crossed my arms defensively. “Here to help or lecture me? I assume Azazel called you.”
“You assume correctly, and I’m here to be your chauffeur to the Beyond.”
I arched a brow, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
His expression sobered. “Are you sure you’re ready?”
“Yes.”
He smiled. “About fucking time.”
Huh?
“I told Az to go easy, to give you some slack. I told him you needed to be out there two weeks ago, but I was outvoted.”
“Conah sided with Azazel?”
Mal shrugged. “I think in your world they call it alpha male bullshit; in ours, we call it looking after the little woman.”
“But Lilith is a woman, and no one tells her what the fuck to do.”
Dayna made a choking sound, and Sariah let out a bark of laughter.
“Lilith is a queen,” Mal said. “Lilith is the beginning, and everyone knows messing with your origins could get you undone.”
In other words, do not compare yourself to Lilith. “I’m done with the alpha bullshit. I do my job, my way.”
Mal nodded. “Fine. Then I’ll back you. If you need anything, you know you can come to me.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Wait, did we just become friends?”
“Don’t push it,” Mal said. But the twinkle in his eyes belied his words.
* * *
The path to the Beyond was via the rickety lava bridge, and Mal took a river straight to the other side, which meant no need to float across the bridge. Thank goodness.
Mal didn’t speak as we walked into the darkness that led to the portals. One to the Underealm, which I still had yet to explore, and the other to the Beyond. The light from the portals drifted down the path, providing enough illumination for us to see the path ahead.
His silence was disconcerting because he usually had something to say, however frivolous or inflammatory it was. I was tempted to crack my shields and read him, but somehow, that felt like a violation of his privacy. Now that I knew I could feel others’ emotions, using the ability felt like an invasion. I’d use it only when absolutely necessary.
Right now, I needed to break the silence because it was making me entirely too uncomfortable.
“Why can’t you cradle me like Azazel does?” It was the first thing that popped into my head.
Stupid mouth.
Mal gave me the side-eye. “Seriously?”
Got to stick to my guns, and now that I’d asked, I was curious. “Seriously.”
He pouted and then smiled. “It’s about the distribution of weight and the power of the wings, and please do not force me to admit that Azazel is stronger than me. That would insult my delicate masculine sensibilities.”
“Now that I’ve pissed him off, he’ll probably drop me next time he has to carry me. Just as well, I have Nox to ferry me about now.”
“Utilizing resources, handling the team. Good call, but I suspect it’s exactly why Az didn’t hook up your comm correctly.”
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