Not exactly my friend, but I said nothing as Azazel muttered something unflattering, took my arm in his hard grip, and pulled me out of the room. A few minutes later we were out in the dark streets of the strange city, emerging on a lower level from the restaurant near a black, fast-flowing river. Earlier, in what had passed for daylight, the city had been shrouded with shadow. Now it was pitch-dark, and I was suddenly ready to drop. Had it been only this morning that I’d been packing for a trip to the Great Barrier Reef and bright, endless sunshine? And now I was in some strange, colorless universe, once more a prisoner, and the fight went out of me as exhaustion swept in. All I wanted to do was find some quiet place to figure out what the hell I was going to do.
“We haven’t far to go,” Azazel said, and if it had been anyone else, I might have thought he had read my exhaustion and was offering respite. Both things were impossible—he didn’t care what I was feeling, and he would never volunteer comfort. He was my enemy, and I couldn’t afford to forget it.
I didn’t say anything, letting him steer me down the street, past the gray inhabitants with their soft voices and disinterested eyes. I had no idea what Beloch wanted him to do, and I didn’t care. As long as I could collapse in a bed for twenty-four hours, I’d be just fine. I stole a glance at my hard-eyed companion. He’d leave me alone, wouldn’t he? In the past he’d wanted nothing more than to keep his distance, as if I were unclean.
But he hadn’t released my arm, and I made no effort to break his hold as he guided me along the street, back toward the brownstone we’d exited a few hours earlier. There was a strange, perverse comfort in his touch. He was my enemy.
But he was the only familiar thing in this strange world. And for that reason, I wasn’t willing to let him go.
C HAPTER S EVEN
AZAZEL KEPT HIS PACE MEAsured, determined not to give in to the fury that had swept over his body. He despised Beloch and always had, and the feeling was mutual. It wasn’t simply that Beloch was one of the strange, quasi-mortal inhabitants of the unknowable world of the Dark City. Azazel routinely disliked all of the inhabitants—they were like the Nephilim without the appetite. Empty, unreadable creatures, not human nor Fallen nor sanctified, and Beloch, as ruler and high mayor of the Dark City, was the worst of them.
But his power was undeniable for all that it was incomprehensible. He was the one to deal with if you needed to use any of the Dark City’s unpleasant assets. Such as the Truth Breakers. The Truth Breakers were the only beings in existence who could extract the truth from anyone, though their methods ranged from painful to shattering. The most stubborn never survived, and Azazel had seen more than one body explode into countless pieces as the process reached its conclusion, and the memory still haunted him.
He had survived his own encounter with them countless years ago, and so would the Lilith. She was too epic and powerful a demon to be destroyed by them, no matter how brutal the Truth Breakers were. They would extract the truth from her, and he could leave her here in this bleak, empty world, where she could do no harm and he would never have to see her again.
The Dark City had existed for almost as long as Azazel could remember, a mysterious, floating place of supposed sanctuary and peace, though in truth he had no knowledge of who and what came here. He only knew that those who’d been brought were usually broken in the end. But he expected most of them had been human, unable to withstand the rigors the place offered. He’d been called there centuries ago for both punishment and questioning, when he’d refused Uriel’s demands one too many times. He’d survived. Just as she would.
Beloch oversaw the Truth Breakers, as well as everything in the Dark City, and he’d always taken special pleasure in the more brutal methods his underlings employed. He sat in his quarters looking like a kindly wizard while he engineered atrocities that sickened Azazel, who had seen the worst that the creatures could offer.
He was convinced Beloch had wanted to take the Lilith immediately, and he’d known an odd regret. Azazel would have forced her to admit the truth eventually, without turning her bones to jelly and her skin to flakes of mold. He could only hope it wouldn’t have to go that far. Physically she was just a girl. Evidently she could no longer shift into the ancient forms she’d once used, of Lamia, the snake woman who devoured children, or the wind demon with raptor’s talons. No matter how hard he’d pushed her when he first took her to Australia, she’d stayed in this form, even facing death. Clearly she no longer had the gift of transformation. Because she was physically as frail as most humans, she would give up her secrets quickly. He could have gotten them out of her, but in bringing her to the Dark City he had no choice but to do as Beloch commanded.
Now he almost wished Beloch had taken her, gotten it over with. The old man’s sadistic alternative made him furious. He despised the Lilith for the vicious, murdering creature she was, for her power and her wickedness, her cruelty over millennia. But Beloch was right about one thing. He despised her most for the prophecy that held them both, and until he could let go of that rage, a rage he refused to call fear, she would still have power over him.
She’d stopped with her infernal questions, at least for now. She was silent as he force-marched her down the street, no more whats or wheres or whys. He would take her back to the house, shove her into a bedroom, and proceed to get drunk. Beloch had thrown down a challenge, but he was in no hurry to pick it up. And in no mood to test himself.
He loathed the Dark City. It was depressing. Not that that surprised him—not much in creation didn’t depress him nowadays. The raw, screaming pain of Sarah’s death had dimmed to a constant ache, and when he thought of her, which he did often, he did his best to let go of her. She’d hate his mourning. He’d known her so well—if she’d lived out her life normally, she would have had time to prepare him for her loss. Instead, she’d been ripped away by the Nephilim, and Raziel’s wife had taken her place.
At the thought of Raziel’s wife, cold anger stirred inside him. There was nothing he could do about it, and he knew that what had happened wasn’t her fault. He’d even gone so far as to accept blood from her, though he’d refused to use her wrist, insisting that one of the healers remove the blood from her body first. He’d been starving, close to death, when he’d finally returned to Sheol. He would have welcomed eternal darkness, but that wasn’t his fate. Once he died, he’d continue in everlasting torment, judgment for the sin of falling from grace, for loving a human woman.
Over the thousands of years, he’d often regretted that first impulsive reaching for what he wanted. But not since Sarah had appeared in his life. Sarah had made everything worth it.
And this … this thing walking beside him. It was foretold that she would take Sarah’s place by his side, in his bed, to be his consort and wife and rule the darkness with him. But the prophecy was wrong.
She was trying to ensnare him, he knew that much. He could feel the power of her sexuality, the sexuality that had crept into good men’s dreams and seduced them, the sexuality that had filled the beds and pallets of a thousand demons. She was the Lilith, irresistible to most, and it was no wonder he looked at her and thought of sex. No wonder he’d given in to temptation and kissed her when he’d left her in Brisbane. It wouldn’t happen again.
Beloch underestimated him. Azazel had been the Alpha since the fall until Raziel took over seven years ago, and as such he’d chosen the Source, the woman whose blood sustained those who had no wives. He had never thought about finding the perfect mate. When the time came, the right woman had always been there. He’d recognized them, taken them, mated with them, ruled with them. And when one died, he’d simply choose another, loving each one as best he could.
But Sarah had been different from the very beginning. He wasn’t going to think about her, he reminded himself. He just needed to remember that he’d bedded countless women, icy ones, shy ones, hot-blooded sexual ones. He’d performed as he’d needed to, as he wanted to, with tenderness, with passion, with love; but n
ever had one of them held any power over him. Not until Sarah.
The Lilith would hold no power either. He would prove to Beloch and himself that her body was simply a tool he could use and discard, that he would never fall prey to her siren’s lure. He had for a brief moment. He never would again.
The house was just as they’d left it. He hadn’t bothered to lock the place—most of the inhabitants of the Dark City steered clear of him. He frightened them, he knew it. Presumably they looked at him and saw garish color and eternal damnation, and they wanted neither. The denizens of the Dark City worshipped truth and moderation, attraction rather than desire, appetite rather than hunger. He and his kind were anathema to the curbed needs of the Dark City.
He had never stopped to question who and what populated this drab and sorrowful place. It was Beloch’s kingdom, a place out of time, and the shadows who moved here seemed more like lost souls than human or demon. He didn’t care. They were no threat to him or his kind—not even the Truth Breakers or Beloch’s police force, the Nightmen. They couldn’t leave this place; they simply existed. But even here they couldn’t touch him. They could only touch her, because he’d brought her here for their cruel services.
He could smell her. He’d known her scent the moment she’d walked out her apartment building door that morning, the subtle fragrance of her skin. He wondered if she emitted a mating scent, if that was how she’d doomed so many. If so, he was mostly immune to it. He looked at her and wanted her. He knew that. Beloch must think him a fool not to have accepted that simple fact. Everyone should want the Lilith, even a dried-up husk of a man such as Beloch.
But while he wanted her, he hadn’t been tempted to touch her or take her, and he could have, so many times. It would go no further than desire, not action. He wanted her and he ignored it, as he ignored so many of his appetites. Beloch was a fool to think he’d be no match for her or his own needs.
He pushed the buttons on the old-fashioned wall switch in the front hallway, turning on the dim lights that only made the shadows deepen. She looked around her nervously, as if worried about what might be hiding in the shadows. She was foolish. The only thing she had to fear was standing right next to her. At least, until he handed her over.
“Go to bed,” he said gruffly as he released her. His fingers felt warm, almost stinging.
He expected her to scamper away, and indeed, she moved back, out of his reach. But then she paused, and he groaned inwardly. “What did Beloch mean? Why should you be frightened of me?”
“Do you think I’m frightened of you?”
“Of course not,” she said, sounding annoyed. “I’m depressingly harmless. Still, he made it sound like there’s some history between us.”
“There isn’t,” he said, only half a lie. “Until last year we had never spoken, never met. Most people think you are the stuff of myths.”
“Like demons and the Nephilim.”
He glared at her. She was so very different from what he’d expected. Her protective coloring hadn’t fooled him when he’d first taken her, but even in her real form, she was a far cry from a sex goddess. Her breasts were on the small side, the curves of her hips subtle; her chin was stubborn, her mouth tight, her eyes filled with either anger or fear. He’d known sirens—demons and humans, creatures who tried to lure any man into their clutches—and he’d even given in a time or two, for the sheer pleasure of it.
But the Lilith was like no siren or demon he knew. Her clothes were plain and baggy, her face free of paint; she wore no adornment of any kind. It was almost as if sex were simply not a part of her life.
But he knew otherwise. He knew that beneath her drab exterior the heart of a raptor existed, a predator who was ready to claw a man to pieces once she’d mated with him. Lamia, cursed shriek owl; Lilitu, the wind demon, monster of storms. And he was drawn to her anyway.
“Your bedroom is at the end of the hall,” he reminded her. He needed her gone. The scent of her was maddening, elusive, bewitching.
“I’m not tired anymore.” She moved into the formal parlor, taking a seat and looking at him out of those warm brown eyes. “I want to know what Beloch meant. What kind of test is he expecting you to perform?”
He let his eyes drift over her, slowly. He knew what Beloch was ordering, challenging him to do. He wanted Azazel to touch her, taste her, bed her. Azazel was supposed to fuck her and then prove he could walk away from her, turn her over to the shattering destructiveness of the Truth Breakers and then celebrate the destruction of one more demon.
He could no longer fool himself. They would destroy her. She might have demon blood, but she no longer had the ability to change form. She had the frail human body of a woman now, one that would break under the Truth Breakers’ hands. And he would have no choice but to give her to them.
He looked at her and his body stirred, and he despised her—and himself. Every reaction was a betrayal of who he was. He could tell himself it was simply her wiles, her powers, that were doing this to him. But he wasn’t asleep, he wasn’t drugged.
And he wasn’t going to do it. Not tonight, when need vibrated through his body and he wanted to shove her up against a wall and take her. By tomorrow he’d be back in control. By then he could take her to his bed and then walk away, untouched, unchanged. He could expose the demon the only way possible, through the act of sex. And she could no longer pretend she didn’t know what she was.
What it was. “Go to bed,” he said gruffly. “Or you’ll wish you had.”
She simply raised an eyebrow, the foolish creature. It was unwise to underestimate him. He could squeeze the life out of her in moment, break her neck, end her as he’d come so close to doing, more times than he could remember. He could end this farce.
She must have read some of the violence in his eyes. She rose, shoving her hair away from her face, and sighed melodramatically. She came up to him, pausing in the doorway. “I’m not afraid of you.”
“You should be,” he said. Just a taste, just a warning, he told himself through a haze of desire. So she knew what was coming. And before she knew what was happening, he shoved her up against the door and slammed his mouth down on hers.
I FROZE, IN SHOCK, OUT of necessity. His hands were on my arms, imprisoning me. His body crowded me against the doorjamb, and his mouth was hard, angry, punishing.
I would have kneed him in the balls, but he was too close, trapping me between his hard body and the wall. I kept my mouth shut, wondering whether I could bite him hard enough to draw blood, wondering why my breath was coming fast and my heart was racing. It wasn’t fear. I’d told the truth—I was no longer afraid of him. I remembered his kiss from the dockside, the rush of desire that had suffused my body.
As it did now. My pulse raced, my skin heated; I was wet and ready. I thought, Fuck it, and opened my mouth for him, taking the sweet invasion of his tongue with a shock of pleasure, and I knew I’d been waiting for this, longing for this without knowing it. Longing for him, my enemy.
His hands slid down my arms to the hem of my loose T-shirt and then up underneath, cupping my breasts in the thin bra I wore. I could feel my nipples harden at his rough touch, and I hated it, hated that I wanted him, that I needed him so badly my legs shook and my hands trembled, and he was hurting me. …
And then, just as I was about to struggle, he gentled, and the kiss became a sweet wooing, a delicious temptation, and his long fingers slid beneath the flimsy bra, pushing it up and out of the way, and I wanted to gasp with the sharp pleasure of those fingers against my pebbled flesh.
He brought his hands up to cradle my head, as impossibly the kiss deepened, and I wanted my clothes off—now. I wanted to strip him naked and feel him inside of me, pulsing and thrusting. I could sense it, anticipate it, feel the thick push of him, and I cried out against his mouth as a small climax startled me.
And then I was shoved away, roughly, and I almost fell. My legs felt weak, rubbery, and I wanted more, wanted to reach out and beg him, want
ed everything wicked and impossible and glorious. For the first time in my memory, in any of my twisted memories, I wanted sex and darkness and lust. His push had knocked my head against the doorjamb, but I hid it. I stared up into his eyes and saw the contempt and hatred there, and the desire, the need, vanished. I wanted to shrivel up and die.
“Quite lovely,” he said in an acid voice. “You have the reserved-virgin thing down pat. If we wanted to kick it up a notch, you could try to summon the Nightmen and I could disappear, but I don’t think they’ll come. You have no choice.”
I stared at him. He was doing a damned good job of controlling his breathing, but I had felt him against my stomach, hard. I wasn’t going to look at his crotch, I wasn’t going to look anywhere but his hard, furious face, and his coldness reached into me so that I wanted to shake and shiver. I pressed back against the wooden doorjamb to keep my body still, lifted my chin, and found a cool smile to answer him with.
“No choice?” I echoed, taking the salient phrase from his biting attack. “No choice in what?”
“You are a whore,” he said. “You exist to corrupt mankind.”
I didn’t flinch. It was another of his lies. My memory might be damaged, but my body had known with Rolf—known the frustration, the emptiness. Sex was a necessity for men and a trial for women. “But you said you’re not a man,” I shot back, uncowed. “Therefore you’re incorruptible.”
“That’s what Beloch wants me to prove.”
“Prove that you’re resistant to my so-called wiles?” I laughed, just slightly shaky. “You’ve already proven that.” I ignored the memory of his erection against me. “It’s hardly a great accomplishment. I’m no great beauty, no seductress. It should be fairly easy to resist me.”
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