Zach cupped his cheek before kissing him gently. “Are you sure?”
Drew smiled, and it almost broke Zach’s heart at how damn resilient his boyfriend was. “I promise.”
Turning back to Andras, but keeping Drew tucked under one arm, he said, “Leave now, before you really piss me off and I bring the true death to your door.”
Andras held up his hands in a conciliatory gesture. “Now, now, don’t be hasty,” he said, his eyes darting from side to side. None of the demons near them were paying them any attention, used to disturbances and fights breaking out regularly. “Maybe you could hear me out?”
“And why would I do that?” Zach demanded. “You threatened Drew, hurt him, and tried to blackmail me into helping you.”
His shoulders slumping, Andras deflated. In a small voice, he said, “Zachariel.Please.”
That shocked Zach, as he could count on one hand the number of times he’d heard Andras use the wordpleasebefore, and they’d all been whilst begging for Zach to fuck him harder. He’d never heard it in this tone of defeat and desperation. Whatdidn’tshock him was Drew turning to look at Zach with large, pleading eyes. “I think he needs our help. It wouldn’t hurt to listen to what he has to say, would it?”
Zach sighed. Despite being a world-class snark champion, Drew had a heart of gold and would never turn his back on someone in need. He was more of an angel than Zach could ever be. “Fine,” he grumbled, and gestured at the table. “You have ten minutes.”
Pulling Drew down onto the bench next to him, Zach sat. He noted that Leila was looking at him with slightly less disdain than usual, so he must have scored a few points with the distrustful familiar. He couldn’t bethatupset about it, though. Zach was rather grateful that she was looking out for Drew’s best interests, and if that meant he had to prove to her he was trustworthy, then so be it.
Andras was openly staring at the hen, who had placed herself on top of the table between Drew and the demon. “Whatisthat?” he asked again.
Zach arched a brow. “Use your brain, Andras. You know what she is.
Those pale grey eyes shot to his, wide in awe. “How? It’s been said there’s only been a handful in existence.”
He continued to steadily hold Andras’s gaze, allowing him to draw his own conclusion. Andras glanced over at Drew—gentle, unassuming, and awash with power—and he flinched a little as he realized exactly who he’d been threatening. “Uh, sorry about the scratch,” he said, gesturing at his own cheek.
Drew shrugged. “It’s okay. You’re scared and not thinking straight.”
“Scared?” Andras snapped, affronted. “I’m notscared!”
“It’s okay to be scared,” Drew assured him. “It happens to all of us. Maybe we can help with whatever is scaring you.”
“Nothing is scaring me!” Andras insisted, his pale cheeks flushing red with agitation. “That’s preposterous.”
“So, you decided to threaten me in order to blackmail Zach into helping you with a totally non-scary, benign, completely A-okay scenario?” Drew clarified.
“Yes!” Andras yelled, but then paused. “Well, I mean, maybe notentirelybenign. From certain angles, the situation could possibly be considered, when looking at it in a certain light, um, a little bit lethal.”
That got Zach’s attention. For all his blustering that he’d deliver Andras into the hands of the true death, he’d not really have done it. Not to Andras. He might be a demon, but he wasn’t one of the truly evil ones and rarely left catastrophic death and destruction in his wake. There was a reason Zach had been able to connect with him enough to have beenin a relationship with him for over two hundred years. “Andras, what happened?” he asked.
The fight went out of Andras, and he slumped down onto the table, crossing his arms on the wood and dropping his head onto them. Leila clucked in annoyance as she was shoved backwards, and she flew over to settle on Drew’s shoulder instead. “I’m being pursued by the Shadow Blades,” he said in a heavy voice.
Zach’s blood ran cold at that. “What did you do?” he demanded.
“Nothing!” Andras asserted, his pale grey eyes large and imploring. “It’s all just been a big misunderstanding!”
“A misunderstanding? It must be a little more than that if the damned Shadow Blades are after you!”
“What are the Shadow Blades?” Drew asked, looking confused.
“The Shadow Blades are Lucifer’s personal army,” Zach explained. “To have them hunting you means you’ve done something truly unforgivable in the eyes of the Prince of Hell. They don’t just hunt you down and kill you, they torture you until you’re begging for death.” He turned back to Andras. “So I’ll ask again. What did you do?”
Andras huffed. “Fine. So, a few weeks ago, a fluke of circumstances saw me gain an invitation to the palace for the Soul Festival.”
Drew opened his mouth, presumably to ask what the Soul Festival was, but Zach halted him with a gentle hand to his arm. He didn’t want to give Andras any opportunity to slither out of answering the question. “How did you wrangle that?” he asked instead. “Those are only for upper management and the royal houses.”
Shrugging, Andras said, “Right place, right time, and right company I suppose. I was meeting with a client who was interested in having me acquire a relic for them when the messenger from the palace arrived with the invitation. We hadn’t concluded our business as yet, so the client asked me to accompany her as her plus one. I wasn’t dumb enough to turn that down, since I would never have gotten an invitation otherwise.”
Zach sighed. He could understand what an opportunity it would have appeared to Andras. While he was considered a higher demon, he wasn’t all that up there on the social scale, and gaining an invitation to the palace’s Soul Festival celebration would give him the chance to network and make connections he otherwise wouldn’t have had. Andras was a freelance asset relocation specialist who liberated goods from ownership oppression. In other words, a thief for hire. He did legitimate retrieval jobs as well, but they didn’t pay nearly as well as the more . . . morally questionable acquisitions. Given that the upper echelons of Hell made their fortunes in being morally questionable, but didn’t particularly like getting their own hands, paws, or claws dirty, his skill set was in high demand. If he could get on the books of a handful of rich, powerful demons who paid handsomely, Andras would be able to pass on the lower paid, more dangerous contracts.
