“We’re what, now?” Kyla looked up at her gorgeous demon towering over her, her entire body still like unset jelly as she looked into his green eyes.
Azazel struggled to keep a straight face at her shock. “The colours—they’re energy. It’s what binds the universe together, it’s what we work with to do what we’re able to do. Each colour has its own meaning, its own purpose, its own power. When you kiss someone and see all of them dashing around, like you did, it’s because you’ve met your soul mate. It means your energies are a perfect combination that recognise each other and melt you both together.”
Kyla was silent for a moment, her piercing blue eyes staring into space as she digested this information. “So, when we kissed, in Paris, and I had that explosion of colours in my mind…?”
“Yes,” he said, his voice low and quiet. “That was your soul recognising mine.”
“Oh.” Kyla’s head was swimming with this incredible discovery after the amazing sensation filled session they’d just had.
“It doesn’t mean we’re married, Kyla,” he said, picking himself up to get dressed. “So please don’t feel trapped by it.”
She couldn’t ignore the stab of pain that shot through her at his words. He wasn’t rejecting her, but saying she had a free rein if she wanted it, it was almost as if he wasn’t bothered if she stayed with him or not.
“I…I don’t know what to say. Where do we go from here?” She pulled herself up, covering herself quickly with her clothes to hide the growing embarrassment seeping through her cheeks.
“That’s entirely up to you,” he said, reaching for her hand. “What do you want to happen?”
“Well, I don’t know…” With a ghost white face, she stared at the floor as the whirlwind of emotions inside her attempted to settle down. “I thought once you’d gotten what you wanted, that would be it.”
He chuckled at her, shaking his head at her words. “Normally, yeah, you’re right, but you…”
His trailing sentence caused her to look up, her heart skipping with hope at how that sentence might end.
“But me, what?”
He faltered whilst debating his choice of words, unsure how much more he could drop on her before she ran for the hills. “I…have strong feelings for you.”
She raised an eyebrow with a quirky smile. “As in what?” Her gaze floated down to his groin, implying what her thoughts were.
“Not that kind of strong feeling.” He laughed, running a nervous hand through his hair.
“Then what?”
Feeling backed into a corner with no way out, a fleeting thought of rewinding time popped into his head before he shook it away, not wanting to take away the fantastic time they’d just had together.
“I…I don’t know how to explain it…”
“Yes you do,” she said, folding her arms across her chest. “You just don’t want to. Just spit it out.”
He took a deep breath before closing his eyes and saying the words that scared him the most. “I’m in love with you.”
A burst of adrenaline filled joy and shock buzzed around her body, her mind reeling with his emotional admission. In a rare moment, she was actually speechless.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, taking her hand from her chest. “You don’t need to respond to that…”
“It’s OK.” She let out a deep breath. “At least you’ve told me.” She managed a weak smile as he touched his lips to the back of her hand.
Still in a daze, she asked him to take her home. He agreed, playing the part of the gentleman to perfection as he tidied the cabin and walked her outside to the car. He wasn’t surprised to see Balthazar sitting against the car, his ankles crossed, arms folded, and an impassive look on his dark features.
“Well, hello,” he said, pushing himself upright. “Fancy meeting you two here.”
Kyla was open-mouthed in shock at the sight of him, wondering what on earth he was doing there.
“What do you want?” Azazel asked, stepping in front of Kyla in a protective manoeuvre.
“I see you got the girl,” Balthazar continued. “I had my suspicions that the whole Pompeii thing would work. Good play, brother. Good play.”
“What are you talking about?” Kyla asked, stepping forwards to question Balthazar.
“Oh come on,” Balthazar said. “You don’t think it was a little convenient that he spins you a sob story, and then you feel a sudden bout of sympathy which turns into sex?”
Kyla’s mouth fell open as she glanced up at Azazel who was motionless as he stood staring at his jealous brother.
“Are you telling me it wasn’t true?”
“Oh no,” Balthazar said, shaking his head. “It was all true. He only showed you to get you into bed.”
“So?” Kyla snorted. “At least he didn’t rape me.”
Azazel smirked as Balthazar’s face clouded over with a burning rage. His dark eyes flashed with anger as he bore a hole straight through her.
“Be very careful, young lady.”
Kyla snorted. “Don’t threaten me. You don’t scare me, although after what I’ve just seen, you probably should. What kind of a monster are you?”
“You know nothing about what went on,” Balthazar replied, stepping towards her. “Don’t act like you’re an encyclopaedia on our life just because you’ve seen a twenty-minute snippet of it.”
“I don’t need to see any more. You raped your brother’s wife. There is no more to be said.”
Balthazar’s stare flickered across to Azazel. “I suppose you think you’re clever now do you?”
“No, brother.” Boasting a victorious grin, he let out his new secret. “I am thinking more along the lines of being happy I’ve found my soul mate.”
Balthazar’s face dropped, his eyes flashing with uncertain shock as he took in Azazel’s words. Despite all their magickal gifts, no being was able to sense when another had found their soul mate—a little trick of nature and the universe allowed at least something to be kept private between two souls.
“What’s up, Bal?” Azazel chuckled, slapping Balthazar on the back. “Cat got your tongue?”
Kyla remained silent. Balthazar’s dark fury mixed with his paleness at this unexpected news. He ignored the searing pain digging its way through his heart, the ache deep inside burning through him at losing another girl who he had fallen head over heels for.
At least this one was still alive. An ugly, jealous goblin reared its head in Balthazar’s mind, his envy and hurt at his brother’s find overpowering any sense of reason he usually possessed.
“Have you told her?”
Azazel’s arrogant look fell in an instant, a wave of dread hitting him in the chest with the force of a thousand bricks. His features darkened as he growled at Balthazar.
“Told me what?” Kyla touched her handsome demon’s arm, giving him an inquisitive look as she began to accept her new status as his soul mate.
“Nothing.” Azazel never moved his blackened eyes from his brother’s grinning face. His deep purple veins slowly pulsated their way through to the surface as he readied himself to silence Balthazar.
“Is it nothing?” Balthazar asked, an ironic smirk passing over his red lips. “I would have thought, brother, nothing or not, it would be something that you would share with your soul mate.”
Azazel shot forwards, grabbing Balthazar around the throat. He slammed him back into the car which bent around his broad form like a piece of paper around a rock.
“Shut up,” he said, digging his fingers into his brother’s flesh. “Now.”
Balthazar laughed, not caring about his disadvantaged position. “Oh, I’m sorry. Did I let the cat out of the bag? He appears to have my tongue too…”
“What’s going on?” Kyla said, walking straight up to the two demons without a moment’s hesitation. “What hasn’t he told me?”
Her heart pounded as a million possibilities flashed through her mind, tears springing up from somewhere as she fought bac
k her recent memories of their intimacy.
“Are you telling her or am I?” Balthazar asked, cocking his gorgeous head to one side as he stared at his infuriated brother.
Azazel responded by lifting Balthazar up and crashing him back into the car with such force it split the expensive metal in two ragged parts, each half sprawling its way across the narrow dirt road before finding trees and bushes to settle in.
“Azazel!” Kyla screamed, hot tears now streaming their way down her paling cheeks, washing away any heated embarrassment that seated itself there only a few minutes ago.
Balthazar didn’t even bother putting up a fight as Azazel pounded him down onto the cool earth. He knew there was no point—Azazel would lose her the second the words left his demonic lips.
With a malicious laugh, Balthazar managed to splutter out, “He killed your father.”
Chapter XXVII
As the words left Balthazar’s cruel mouth, Kyla exploded into a blubbering mess as the once meek, mild mannered demon cackled at her misery. Azazel flew into a fit of fury and shattered his brother’s face into a million pieces with one single punch. His dark form was out in all its might as his sheer fury ruled his actions.
Without a second thought, he reached his purple veined hands out towards the depths of the forest, commanding thousands of shards of wood to bless Balthazar with an Azazel style acupuncture session.
Balthazar’s howling laughter turned into roars of pain as the tiny pieces of wood shredded through his smooth skin. They splintered inside him, ripping through his defined muscles, and flooding his jumbled mind with nothing but pain and sadness.
His face, already healing its broken bones, now contorted into excruciating agony as the shrapnel burrowed through his entire being. Azazel dragged them out the other side of his body, punching ugly exit wounds through his brother’s lithe frame. The hundreds of tiny holes would take days to heal.
“I suggest you do not come near me for a considerable amount of time,” Azazel said, his heaving chest matching the animalistic glow radiating from his black eyes.
Balthazar said nothing as he curled over onto his side, reeling in the fact of what he’d just done, and that for the first time in history, his brother’s wrath had outweighed his own. He feared he had pushed him too far this time.
“Kyla,” Azazel breathed, rushing to her side as she sat collapsed on the ground, her shaking hands clutching at the cold, loose earth.
Focusing on a tiny beetle crawling its way through the dirt, Kyla said nothing, her mind reeling with this new revelation. It was when Azazel placed his hands on her that she lost it, erupting into a fit of mixed emotions.
“Get off me!” she screamed, her face burning new shades of red. She jumped up, backing away from the monster she had just allowed inside her, and not only physically.
“Kyla, please…” He held his hands out towards her, wanting to hold her, to tell her it was a long time ago, it’s not what it seemed.
Sapphire eyes met his scared features, filling with tears as she asked the inevitable question. “Did you? Did you do it?”
He faltered with a response, unsure what to say. “It’s not what it looks like…”
Her inner fury released itself, a gust of wind howling through the air as she yelled, “Did you do it? Yes, or no?”
Surprised at her sudden eruption of elemental control, Azazel nodded, a whispered, “Yes,” escaping his throat.
Kyla remained silent as she soaked in this news. Her tears were still streaming a path down her pale skin. “Why?” Her voice was breathless, her chest rising in ragged motions.
“It was a long time ago, Kyla, baby, please…”
“Don’t you baby me!” Another gust of wind tunnelled through the trees, whipping up the loose earth into a flurry for a few mesmerizing seconds.
Azazel backed up a couple of steps, holding his hands up in a sign of surrender as he noticed the powerful, colourful glow resonating from Kyla’s aura.
“I was six years old!” she said, stepping forwards. Her eyes were blazing with vehemence as she kept her stare pinned on the demon before her. “What did you do to him?” Her memories of her mother’s description of a car accident were thrown from her mind as she became aware that if Azazel was involved, it was going to be grisly.
Azazel glanced down at the floor. “I didn’t know it was you until I drank from you…I promise.”
“Is that why you bought me flowers?” She continued to close the gap between them, her pretty face hardened with scorn as she advanced on him.
“No, not at all. I wanted to tell you, I just didn’t know how. I’m sorry.” He dropped his gaze to the floor as his shoulders sagged.
From behind him, Balthazar managed a chuckle as he pulled himself to his feet.
“Don’t you start,” she said, pointing her finger at him. With a sickening crunch, she snapped Balthazar’s neck in a millisecond. He crumpled to the floor with a dull thud—out of his misery for the time being, at least.
“Whoa, Kyla. Calm down,” Azazel said, holding his hands up again. “I think we need a chat.”
For the first time in a long time, he felt out of his depth as her raw emotions flushed out her natural powers. A powerful witch could be more than a match for the brothers, let alone a lesser demon. It was God’s little attempt at irony, giving natural powers to ‘normal’ people, to balance out the powers that Lucifer gave to evil souls. Every spot of black had its white partner to counteract it.
“Tell me,” she said, her voice raspy and raw as she clenched her hands at her sides.
“It was stupid, OK? It was just a bar fight that went wrong.”
“A bar fight? You killed my dad in a bar fight?” Her voice became high pitched as she struggled to comprehend the stupid situation.
“I was different twenty-five years ago, Kyla. I was more…temperamental.”
She quirked one of her eyebrows up at his ironic remark. “Really?”
“Yes. Look, I’m sorry OK? I should have told you as soon as I knew.”
“Too right,” she said, her anger starting to cool slightly. “How did you kill him?”
Azazel winced at her question. “Do you really want to hear this?”
“I wouldn’t have asked the question if I didn’t!”
He took a deep breath, sweeping his gaze across the floor as he forced his mouth to utter the words. “I stabbed him in the neck with a broken bottle…” His voice trailed off hinting that there was more to it than that.
“And?”
“And that was it.”
“Don’t lie to me,” she said. The wind picked up once again, and a few spots of rain started to drizzle through the air.
“It was over a woman, that’s all.”
“Are you saying my dad was unfaithful?” The rain began to fall harder, the wind turning cool and whipping her red hair up in a seductive way.
Azazel sighed, not really wanting to go down this road. He closed his eyes as he folded his arms over his chest with a sigh.
“Yes, Kyla. He was unfaithful. Whenever he went away on business trips, he was sleeping with whatever he could—”
“And you killed him because you wanted the same woman as him?”
Azazel smiled as his memories dragged him back to that night. “We’d had a few run ins before that, me and your father. It seemed we both liked frequenting the same bar. This particular woman had an interest in both of us, which proved to be a little too much of a deadly game…”
“So you killed him?” she said, shrugging her shoulders. “Just like that?”
“He threw the first punch. He started it. It’s not my fault I’m a more skilled fighter than he was.”
Kyla began to laugh a hysterical laugh as she took in his words. “And there we go,” she said, turning serious after a minute or so. “The normal Azazel we all know and love. Arrogant, egotistic, and a woman always at the centre of his actions.”
“Kyla…”
“Don’t!
” she said, slicing her hand through the air. “I can’t believe I was stupid enough to sleep with you. I should have known it was all just a façade. Well, more fool me. To think I actually nearly believed all your bullshit!”
“Kyla—”
“Did he suffer? When you killed him? Did he die straight away?”
Azazel closed his eyes as his face scrunched up in pain. “No.”
“What happened? Tell me everything. NOW!”
“I really don’t think you want to hear this—”
“I’m a big girl, Azazel. I think I can decide for myself what I do and don’t want to hear. Tell me.”
Drawing in a big breath, he exhaled slowly before telling her the gory details.
“He threw a punch at me so I punched him back. He grabbed an ashtray and hit me around the head with it, so I grabbed a bottle and smashed it on his head. Before I knew it, the broken piece in my hand was embedded in his neck. He still kept coming at me, obviously high on adrenaline and alcohol. He produced a knife from his jeans and tried to stab me with it.” He stopped before he rushed through the next bit. “So I took it off him, cut his head off with it, and stuck his head on the weathervane on top of the roof.”
Kyla blinked a few times, unsure if she’d heard correctly. “You cut my dad’s head off and stuck it on a weathervane?”
Azazel nodded as he waited for her blast of energy, bracing himself as he looked at her collected features.
“I can’t process all of this,” she whispered, her anger simmering away as everything overwhelmed her.
The rain stopped, along with the wind, and a warming peek of morning sunshine streamed through at last. The eerie quietness coating them raised hairs on Azazel’s neck.
“I’m sorry,” Azazel said, stepping forwards, taking her calmness as an open invitation.
“Don’t touch me,” she said, pushing him away from her. “Stay away from me.”
“Well, let me take you home at least?”
Kyla looked around her, remembered the torn car, and realised she was stuck here. Then an idea struck her.
“No,” she said, fishing her phone from her pocket. She turned her back on him as she dialled a number, waiting patiently for the ringing to be answered. “Hey,” she breathed. “I’m in a spot of bother…”
Sex, Lies & Demon Ties (Dark Desires #1) Page 13
