I’d listened as he murmured to the other demon a few minutes ago, before sending him into the bathroom. Now, Garadiel stood over me, silent as he obviously attempted to decide which approach he would take.
I knew him. Would bet that his eyes were currently hard, his mouth a thin line of disapproval.
“Did you ever think maybe Agates wanted to die?” he finally asked. “That maybe he simply needed to see you, get to know you, before he finally escaped the hell his own father had trapped him in for so many years?”
I ignored him. Flecks of dust danced in the beam of sunlight. I focused on the way they floated through the air.
“I know you’re mourning. Grief… it can feel like it’s strangling you sometimes. Can feel like each breath is cutting into your lungs like blades. But you don’t have the luxury of giving into that grief right now.”
I wanted to ask him how he knew what my grief felt like, who he’d lost, but the curiosity disappeared within a microsecond.
“Lucifer is pleased.”Garadiel’s voice floated with the dust over my head. “His spies told him how you can’t even get off the bathroom floor.” A long pause. “You have work to do. Things you swore to do with that ring on your finger. Agates was communicating with the rebels. With those of us who still have hope. Your father promised you would save us.”
I went still.
The words were like a hand clamped around my windpipe. The more I tried to ignore them, the harder they squeezed.
Garadiel cursed and stalked toward the door. “He’d expect better from you, Danica.”
Your father promised you would save us.
Why? Why had he made that promise? I was only good at getting the people I loved hurt, or worse.
Kyla was all wolf—would likely never come back. My father was dead.Dead. Keigan… even after everything he’d done, my chest hurt at the thought of him wasting away in the darkness.
Your father promised you would save us.
I tasted salt from my tears and my whole body went hot. He’d had no right to promise anything to the people who’d already suffered for so many years. Those people were suffering right now, too. In mines, in dark rooms, in ballgowns and in rags. Throughout this realm, they suffered.
I mouthed the words silently to myself. “Your father promised.”
Silence.
I owed him this. Owed him enough to try. Owed him everything.
So get. The fuck. Up.
* * *
SAMAEL
I sneered as I flew over Hope Valley, my wings aching from flying such long distances in such a short period of time. We’d slaughtered every bubak in the seelie forest. Since they hunted humans, Vas was more than happy to make them hurt as they died.
I could practically smell the fae, could almost hear them contacting each other to whisper about thedemonin their territory.
The seelie’s mansion demonstrated slightly better taste than most in the neighborhood, although why anyone would choose to live in the suburbs of any realm was beyond me.
I landed, and the greenery crept toward me. I shot one of the vines a vicious look, and Aubrey opened the front door. The vine froze.
“Samael. What can I do for you?”
I gave him a slow smile I was sure didn’t reach my eyes. “We both know you’ve been keeping up to date with every move your king makes.”
His expression was inscrutable, and he glanced at the maid who walked past him, her gaze curious.
“I think you should come in.”
Ivy curled threateningly toward me as I stepped inside his home. I snarled at it, catching Aubrey’s lips twitch as he turned to walk up the stairs, also lined with poisonous vines.
