He slowly pulled away.
“Tease,” I mumbled against his mouth.
“Think of me,” he purred. He stepped away, and I took a deep breath in an attempt to get my hormones under control.
He glanced at Virtus. “Look after my girl.”
I opened my mouth to tell him I wasn’t his girl, but I couldn’t say that at this point. I didn’t know what we were, but…
Vas lifted his eyebrow at me, his eyes heating when I didn’t deny it. A girl would ignore a lot of hesitations for that look from Vas.
“Laters, baby.”
15
VASSAGO
Get over here, Bael’s message said. Dread wormed its way into my gut as I took to the skies, heading back toward the tower. From the number of demons currently in the sky—all of them flying in the same direction—something big was going down.
Fuck.
I landed and stalked through the crowd, ignoring the onlookers. Sathanas strolled among them, confiscating the phones of anyone who was attempting to take pictures, and within a few moments, most of the humans were clearing out.
Bael met me in the lobby, his expression grim.
“Daimonion,” was all he said, and the dread turned to a burning ball of fury.
A demon lay in the doorway, now unrecognizable. “Who?” was all I managed to get out. Bael sighed.
“Newbie. Recently increased his power level and qualified for low-level guard duty in the tower. Name was Plegit.”
“What happened?”
Bael ran his hand through his hair with a dark scowl. “Daimonion attempted to stroll in here. No one expected it, but there was still a protocol in place.”
Of course there was. Bael took no chances. “Daimonion tried to walk into the tower?” I couldn’t understand it, yet the remains of the demon in front of us proved Daimonion had been here.
The assassin could use demon fire. But he hadn’t given Plegit an instant death, turning him to ash. No, he’d burned him slowly. Each moment of his death would have been excruciating. It also meant Daimonion had lingered.
“Yeah,” Bael said, ice-blue eyes cold. “Protocol was to allow him through. Get him away from any humans or other paranormals and allow him upstairs, where we would contain him. Instead, Plegit confronted him. Told him he wasn’t allowed through. Daimonion killed him, and the ward alerted us. Every demon within a few blocks headed toward this exact spot, but Daimonion fled.”
“How the fuck did he get away?”
Bael winced. “Created a ball of fire and flew over a group of humans. No one wanted to get too close.”
I let out a low curse. Bael was coldly logical. He would have considered the death of the humans worth it to take Daimonion out and remove him as a threat. Unfortunately, that would be a PR nightmare, and neither the underking nor underqueen would be pleased—both of them for entirely different reasons.
“I don’t understand,” I said. “Why the fuck would he come to the most secure location in Durham without even knowing for sure if I was here?”
“I have a theory. I need to check our library, and then I need to speak to Samael. If my theory is correct, I’ll be in touch.”
“We don’t have time for that.”
He opened his mouth, likely to remind me of all the centuries of experience he had on me. I shook my head at him. “I need to know any theories you have. If they turn out to be incorrect, we’ll deal with it.”
He sighed, running his hand through white-blond hair. Across the lobby, Azazyel nodded at us, obviously shamelessly eavesdropping.
“There are…legends,” Bael said tightly. “About a kind of demon fire. One that…if it doesn’t completely destroy when used on a target, can slowly eat away at that target’s body. Including their brain.”
