Apigeon cooed in my ear. My eyes flew wide. Heart hammering, I struggled to make sense of my surroundings. Darkness filled a room that smelled achingly familiar, like the scent of fire after a storm. A sense of calm settled over me when I realized where I was.
Az’s room.
He’d taken me here after I’d passed out from my stab wound.
I sucked in a sharp breath and flipped back my shirt. My skin was mottled and bruised, but the stab wound was…gone. There wasn’t even a scar from where the dagger had sliced through me. Heart thundering, I thought back to what Serena has said just before I’d passed out. Az had healed me, hadn’t he? I might feel like shit right now, but I would live.
Groaning, I climbed out of bed and padded into the living room. Az was on the sofa with an open book propped in his lap. The sight of him clenched my belly. He looked so normal like this. So non-threatening. And yet I knew he would rip apart an angel just to keep me safe.
“Az,” I said.
He glanced up, and his eyes stormed across me. For a minute, I could do nothing other than stand frozen beneath his gaze. Thatzingwent through me again, hot and sharp. Every single part of me felt bared before him. And he accepted it all.
“I’m glad you’re okay, Mia,” he murmured before patting the sofa. “Come sit. We need to talk.”
My stomach flipped over. Talk? That sentence never ended in anything good. Especially when it came to relationships. Of course, Az was a demon. He was above the stupid games of mortal men. Probably. Unless I’d read him totally wrong. His fury toward Rafael had made it seem like he cared for me as far more than just a fake girlfriend, but what if I’d jumped to conclusions? Maybe he didn’t see me as special at all.
But he ripped up our contract…
I shuffled over to the sofa and settled down beside him. When he stared into my eyes, another shot of thatzingwent through my core. Surely he felt that, too. Didn’t he?
What did it mean?
He ground his teeth and glanced away. “Rafael is a bastard, but he was right about one thing. As long as I’m in your life, you’ll be in danger.”
I stiffened. “He was just saying that to scare me. It didn’t work, Az.”
“No.” He shook his head. “Angels don’t lie, not even fallen ones. Anything he said to you was the truth. Look at what you’ve been through in the few weeks you’ve known me. You’ve almost been killed. More than once.”
My heart squeezed tight. Tears filled my eyes, and I glanced away. “Yeah, but as soon as you take care of Noah…Rafael, I mean…all of this will be over. I won’t be in danger anymore.”
“Mia,” he said with a hollow sigh. “Rafael and Michael are on their way to Hell. They’ll tell Lucifer about all of this. You can’t be near me when he comes to New York.”
“You think he’ll come here?” I asked in a small voice. Despite everything I’d said, the idea of Lucifer waltzing through New York City made my gut twist into knots. He was, you know,Satan. What was to stop him from outright killing people in the streets? As far as I could tell, nothing but that stupid game he was playing for souls.
“Most certainly,” Az said, catching my hand in his. Shivers stormed through me. Even while he said I needed to stay away, he pulled me in. “It will take a week for Rafael and Michael to reach Hell, and then another week for them to return. Lucifer will want to see what me and my Legion are up to with his own eyes. And if you are in my life when he gets here, he will want to dissect you. What kind of human would motivate Asmodeus to destroy a soul contract?”
I loosed a shuddering breath. “Okay, well. We’ll figure that out when it happens. Two weeks, right? That gives us some time.”
“No, Mia.” He pulled his hand from mine. “We have enough time to stop the soul sacrifices, but after that, we need to go our separate ways just as we originally planned. We might even need to draw up a new contract. One I don’t destroy. It might trick Lucifer into believing me.”
Pain ripped through my heart. “But you said angels don’t lie. So, anything they tell him, he’ll know it’s true.”
“I might be able to convince him that they were mistaken and nothing more. As long as we have a real contract in place.” He closed his eyes. “I didn’t want to have to do this again, Mia. Another contract. It means your soul will be on the line.”
“Not if I fulfill my part of the bargain,” I whispered to him. “And I will, Az. I’m not going to walk away from this now.”
“After the ball, you’llhaveto, Mia.”
“Why?” I fisted my hands and pushed up from the couch, irritation boiling in my gut. “Because I’m human and too weak? Because you don’t think I’m brave enough to face Lucifer? All this time, it seemed like you saw that I’m more than that. After everything I’ve been through, I have a skin of steel. You said it yourself. And now you want to throw me away like…”
Like it meant nothing.
He stood with flickering eyes. “I think you’re brave as hell, Mia, but you don’t know what you’re asking to face. You know what he will do to you? Do you have any idea? He will peel your skin off your bones and feast on it while your heart still beats. He will find every single soul you love, and he will do the same to them. Right before your eyes. You think you know about demons because of me. Because of Caim and Phenex and the others. But you haveno idea.”
Shuddering, I took a step back. Images flashed in my mind. Tormented souls screaming. Bright gleaming eyes full of hate. Az was right. I kept thinking of Lucifer as someone like him. Dangerous and violent when provoked…but kind and heroic beneath all the shadows.
“But you’re nothing like that,” I finally said. “None of you are.”
