Demon Kissed (Cursed Angel Collection)

by Michelle Madow

  “Right.” My cheeks redden at yet another slip-up. “Zeke.”

  “Much better.” He smiles. “Now, do you plan on staring at me all night, or are you going to take a look through the telescope? Not that I would mind the first option, but I did position these so you could see the planets at this specific time, so I think you should at least take a peek.”

  And so, I do.

  As promised, each telescope points toward something different—a moon, a planet, or even a cluster of stars that make up another galaxy. He tells me information about each sight we observe, and I’m more impressed by his knowledge with each passing minute.

  “I take it you enjoyed this?” he asks after we finish looking through the final telescope.

  “Do you even need to ask?” I tease, and I’m surprised when his eyes flicker with uncertainty. Does he truly not realize how much I appreciate what he did for me? “Of course I enjoyed myself,” I tell him. “Tonight has been incredible. Better than incredible. It’s been perfect.”

  “I believe you.” He lowers his hand on top of mine, gazing down at me with an intensity that takes my breath away.

  The next thing I know, his lips are on mine, his arms around me, and we’re kissing with more passion than we had time for in those few stolen moments in the alley. Because here, under this dome, it’s like we’re in our own private world. And I realize that tonight, he’s truly no longer Ezekiel to me.

  He’s Zeke.

  The man who saved my life and gave me the stars.

  Chapter Forty-One

  I toss and turn that night, replaying the date with Zeke in my mind. After kissing in the observatory, he walked me back to my room and said goodnight, like a true gentleman.

  But a voice in the back of my mind reminds me that he’s not a gentleman. He’s a demon.

  I know this. I’ve witnessed this. But it’s like there are two sides to him. Ezekiel the demon, and Zeke… the man I fear I’m falling in love with.

  The man I’m not sure I could ever bring myself to kill.

  These feelings… they’re treasonous. I shouldn’t be having them. If I don’t kill Zeke, then I’m dooming myself to fall from Heaven—to become a demon myself.

  I can’t let myself become that. I won’t let myself become that.

  But I also don’t know if I’ll be able to kill Zeke.

  Because I want to love him. And I want him to love me.

  The thoughts swirl in my mind, tormenting my conscience and making it impossible to sleep. I need to talk about this with someone. Someone who understands. Someone who knows who—and what—I truly am.

  So, first thing in the morning, I have Carlos drive me to Teresa’s house.

  “I know you’re supposed to be with me everywhere I go,” I tell him as we walk the path to the house. “But do you think you can wait outside while I’m with my sister?”

  “Is there some big secret you don’t want me to hear?” he asks.

  I still, and my heart feels like it stops beating. Is Carlos onto me? Does he know what I’m up to? Does he know Teresa’s involved, too?

  “Just kidding,” he says with a smile. “Of course, I—along with the entire continent—am curious about how your date with Ezekiel went last night. But I’ll give you your privacy.”

  “Thank you.” I let out a long breath, but quickly get ahold of myself and continue the act of being Adriana. “The date was incredible, and I’ll tell you more about it later… but there are certain details that should only be shared between sisters, if you know what I mean.”

  “I do.” He chuckles. “I have two sisters of my own, so I know how you girls are. Take as much time as you need. I’ll wait for you outside.”

  Teresa opens the door and eyes Carlos. “Adriana!” she says, smiling brightly and pulling me into a hug. “We have so much to catch up on. I can’t wait to hear all your stories from the Watchtower.”

  “And I have so much to tell you.” I plaster a similarly bright smile on my face. “Carlos has graciously agreed to wait outside so we can catch up in private.”

  “How kind of him.” Teresa smiles at him and then refocuses on me, ushering me inside. “Spare no details… especially when it comes to your date with Ezekiel!”

  She shuts the door, locks it, and mutters a string of Latin under her breath—a spell.

  “We can speak freely now,” she says, her tone switching from gossipy to business. “I just cast a soundproof spell—no one outside the house will be able to hear a word of our conversation.”

  “Where’s Marco?” I ask.

  “He’s working today,” she says. “The beginning of the month is the busiest for him, since he has to collect all the taxes from those who didn’t pay last month.”

  “Of course.” I nod, since it makes sense. Gold men, after they’ve married, can take on positions as tax collectors. It allows them to spend more time with their families. I was hoping to speak with both, but I’m here now, so I’ll have to trust Teresa to relay everything to Marco.

  “So?” She sits down on the sofa, and I take the armchair across from her. “Have you found out any more information about the location of the Flaming Sword?”

  “No,” I say, and my heart hurts at the mention of the sword—the weapon I’m supposed to use to kill Zeke.

  “Oh.” She frowns. “So why are you here? Shouldn’t you be getting as close to Ezekiel as possible, to get him to trust you and tell you where he keeps the sword?”

  “That’s the problem.” I take a deep breath, not knowing how to begin. Teresa will never understand. But isn’t that why I’m here? To get her to talk some sense into me?

  I just have to go ahead and spit it out.

  “I feel much closer to him after our date last night,” I say. “And I think he does with me, too.”

  Teresa looks at me blankly. “And that’s a problem because…”

  “Because there’s a whole other side to him—one I didn’t expect when I started on this mission,” I say, speaking faster as my true feelings spill out. “He’s not all evil. Yes, I know a large part of him is evil, and I would never say otherwise. But when he’s with me—when it’s just the two of us—he’s a completely different person. A good person. A person I don’t think I can kill.”

  “What?” Teresa’s eyes widen in disbelief. “You’re not falling for his tricks, are you?”

  “I don’t know.” I pick up a pillow from the chair next to me and place it on my lap, running my fingers over the tassels. “It doesn’t seem like he’s tricking me. But maybe he is? I just… I really don’t know.”

  “Did you sleep with him?” she asks, her tone laced with horror.

  “No!” I drop my hands from the pillow. “We kissed, but nothing more.”

  “Then I think what he’s doing is obvious,” she says. “He’s buttering you up to get you into bed with him.”

  “I don’t think he needs to do that.” I balk. “He’s a demon—the demon king of the entire continent. If he wanted me in that way, wouldn’t he just take it?”

  Like he did with Maria, I think, although I don’t say it out loud.

  “Who knows?” she says. “Like you said, he’s a demon. It’s probably some sick, twisted game of his to toy with your emotions. He’s been known to do things like that with his concubines in the past.”

  “Things like what?” I ask, dread filling my stomach.

  “Make them fall completely and utterly in love with him,” she says. “Then he gets bored and kills them. There was one girl a few years ago—a Silver—who fell head over heels in love with him. He appeared to love her, too. Right after the clock struck midnight on New Year’s Eve, he kissed her, and she said that her heart was his forever. So he yanked her heart out of her chest, held it up so the entire crowd could see it, and announced that now her heart truly would always belong to him, because he would keep it on display forever.”

  “He wouldn’t…” I start, wanting to say that he wouldn’t do that to me. But I can�
�t. Because like Teresa said, he’s a demon. He’s capable of anything.

  But I truly can’t imagine him doing such a thing to me.

  “Yes, he would,” she says, her eyes hard. “He has.”

  “I know,” I say. “I do. I just wish… I wish these feelings I’m having for him would go away.”

  “It’s the curse,” she says simply. “It must be.”

  “How so?” I ask. “The curse is greed. And I’ve been fighting it. Otherwise, wouldn’t I be traipsing around from store to store with the rest of the girls, spending my coins on everything I could get my hands on?”

  “Greed manifests in many ways,” Teresa explains. “A greed for material wealth is common. So is greed for power, or for fame. But tell me, Rebekah—have you ever been in love?”

  “No,” I say quickly. “Well, not in love, in the way humans experience. Like all angels, I love God and everything He creates. And He loves me, unconditionally.”

  “Unless you break one of his rules,” she says. “Then he’ll toss you out of Heaven, curse you to life as a demon, and damn you to Hell for all eternity.”

  “Loving God means respecting his rules.” I hold her gaze, as if by doing so, I can will her to understand. “Respect and love go hand in hand.”

  “Right, right.” She brushes it away, as if it’s unimportant. “So you’ve never been in love. But… do you want to be in love? To experience that unconditional, all-consuming love for one special someone who returns that love for you and you alone? A love like I have for Marco, and he has for me?”

  “Angels aren’t allowed to love anyone more than God,” I repeat. “Especially not a human. Falling in love with a human is forbidden. Angels have been cast from Heaven for far less than that.”

  “You didn’t answer my question,” she challenges. “I’m not asking what’s allowed. I’m asking what you want.”

  I think back on the date last night—about how special I felt when I realized that Zeke planned the whole date around the stars, because he wanted to make me happy. It worked. Because last night, I was happy—not happy for someone else, but happy because of something that someone did for me. Because of something Zeke did for me.

  Last night, I felt cared for… possibly even loved.

  “You don’t need to answer,” Teresa finally says. “Your face says it all. There is something you’re greedy for—you’re greedy for love.”

  Chapter Forty-Two

  “Greedy for love?” I question, as if testing the words aloud. “From Zeke?”

  “You have pet names for each other?” Her face twists with disgust. “This is worse than I thought.”

  “It’s what he asked me to call him,” I say quietly.

  “Then call him that to his face all you like,” she says. “But don’t think of him like that. Because he’s not ‘Zeke.’ He’s Ezekiel. A demon who cursed everyone on this continent so he could control them and be their king. You can’t forget that. You need to fight the curse. You wouldn’t have been sent here to kill him if you couldn’t.”

  “I was sent here to break the curse,” I say, an idea forming in my mind. “What if there’s a way to break the curse without killing him?”

  “Do you think the other witches and I haven’t been trying to do that for decades?” Teresa asks, exasperated. “Nothing we’ve tried works. This curse is stronger than our magic.”

  “You can’t have tried everything,” I say.

  “You’re right.” She looks me dead in the eye. “We haven’t been able to kill Ezekiel. We’ve tried—believe me. But he’s impossible to kill. He just killed us instead—it’s why the few of us who still survive are forced to live in hiding. But now you’re here, and you told me yourself that you were instructed to find the Flaming Sword and kill him. Those were your instructions, correct?”

  “They were,” I say, even though I wish it weren’t true.

  Teresa doesn’t say anymore. She just allows the truth to sit in. Finally, she says, “I know the curse is hard to fight. It embeds itself in the heart and mind, so people don’t know the difference between their own desires and what they’re being driven to desire by the curse. But you can’t forget who Ezekiel truly is. He incinerated a girl because she fell while dancing. He threw a knife into a girl’s heart because she was slurping her soup. And it hasn’t even been a week! He’s going to pick you all off, one by one, until there’s no one left. Then he’s going to find ten new girls to take the brunt of his wrath. You can’t let it get to that point. You have to kill him first. You must end this curse once and for all.”

  “I know,” I say, remembering each murder as she speaks of it. I need to get a grip on myself.

  Straightening my shoulders, I sit up, determination filling my soul once more.

  “You’re right,” I say. “These feelings I think I’m having for him—they must be the curse. I need to fight it. Because demons aren’t capable of love. Demons aren’t capable of caring about anyone but themselves.”

  “That’s my girl.” Teresa smirks. “I’m glad you’re thinking clearly again. Now—do you have any leads about where he’s keeping the Flaming Sword?”

  “No.” I sigh and lean back in my chair. “The Watchtower’s huge. And I can’t just ask people if they’ve seen Uriel’s Flaming Sword lying around. Not like Ezekiel would just leave it lying around, anyway. I’m sure he keeps it somewhere safe and guarded.”

  “Okay.” Teresa rests her hands on her legs. “I see what you mean, but this isn’t hopeless. Because there’s something I can work on that will help. A potion.”

  “What kind of potion?” I balk, but then get ahold of myself. I hate the idea of using anything created by witch magic—especially a brewed potion—but I need to get over this prejudice I have toward them. Because like Uriel told me, I need to accept help from witches to succeed in this mission.

  And helping Teresa and Marco with the locator spell wasn’t as terrible as anticipated. Maybe this won’t be so bad, either.

  “A truth potion,” she says. “But creating it is complicated—if I’m able to do it correctly, it’ll take at least a month.”

  “A month,” I repeat. “I can manage to keep Ezekiel from killing me for a month.”

  Hopefully I’ll be able to keep him from killing the other remaining girls as well, but after how quickly he murdered the first two, I know that’ll be impossible.

  “You need to do more than just keep him from killing you,” Teresa says. “The potion works best when it’s administered by someone the person already trusts. While I’m making this potion, you need to gain as much of Ezekiel’s trust as possible. Because the more he trusts you, the stronger the hold of the potion will be.”

  “And the more likely it’ll be that he’ll spill the location of the Flaming Sword,” I say.

  “And the less likely it’ll be that he’ll suspect anything was amiss once the potion wears off.” Teresa smiles, and just like that, we’re back on the same team. “I’ll get started on the potion immediately,” she says. “And you need to get back to the Watchtower. Because you have a demon to seduce.”

  Chapter Forty-Three

  As suspected, I can’t keep the other girls safe from Ezekiel’s wrath. Since speaking with Teresa nearly a month ago, three of them have disappeared. Two of them Greens, one of them a Red.

  I also haven’t seen Ezekiel nearly as much as I would have liked. It’s as if whatever connection existed between us that night in the observatory was severed. I’m always seated by his side during major meals, but he pays me no more attention than he does the other girls. There were a few moments when I felt that spark between us again, but each time it happened, he snapped out of it, asked someone else a question, and ignored me for the remainder of the meal.

  He visits Maria’s bedroom multiple nights a week—I know this because she never fails to brag about it the next morning—but he has yet to ask me on another date. In fact, from what the other girls have said, I’m the only one who hasn’t spe
nt the night with him.

  Luckily, their experiences with him haven’t been nearly as rough as what Maria describes. I’m not sure if she’s exaggerating, or if he just likes to take out his aggression on her. Judging from the bruises that constantly pop up on every imaginable place on her body—the ones she tries to cover with thicker and thicker layers of concealer—I suspect the latter.

  Perhaps he senses my inexperience in such matters, which is why he’s avoiding me. Or maybe he simply lost interest.

  But if he doesn’t want me anymore, wouldn’t he just kill me like he did the other girls?

  I don’t see what would hold him back.

  Despite his reasons, I’m certainly no closer to gaining his trust—or to finding the Flaming Sword.

  “Are you eating that?” Elizabeth asks during breakfast, pointing to the untouched strips of bacon on my plate.

  “No.” I push the plate in her direction. “You can have it.”

  She picks up a piece, nibbling thoughtfully. “Are you nervous for today?” she asks.

  “What’s there to be nervous about?” Maria butts in. “It’s the Day of the Dead—my favorite holiday of the year! It’s Ezekiel’s favorite holiday, too. He told me last night.”

  It takes all my strength to resist rolling my eyes at her obvious attempt to brag. “Of course I’m not nervous,” I say instead.

  “Then why did you barely touch your breakfast?” Elizabeth asks.

  “Maybe she wants to fit into her dress.” Josefina eyes the bacon in Elizabeth’s hand. “Perhaps you should consider doing the same.”

  Elizabeth narrows her eyes at Josefina and takes a defiant mouthful of bacon. I bite the inside of my cheek to stop myself from laughing.

  A second later, I worry that Josefina might have a point. Elizabeth has taken to wearing loose tops recently, and she has been eating more than the rest of us. I think back to the way she looked on audition night—her cheekbones more prominent, her collarbones more defined—and I remember what Gloria said about how Zeke doesn’t like his concubines to gain weight.