“Az.”
“Hm.”
“Whatever you're thinking about doing,” she says, very evenly, “I want you to know that I mean it when I say I don't care about Thomas. He's irrelevant to my life.”
“Of course,” I say.
“I'm not asking you to do anything.”
“I understand completely.”
She lifts her head to look at me.
I smile at her.
“Az.”
“You should sleep, little fairy,” I say. “Leander will be awake in two hours demanding to be fed, and you need rest.”
Her eyes narrow on my face in the dark. She's very perceptive, my consort. She can read me in ways I'm not sure I'm entirely comfortable with.
“If you do something,” she says finally, “I don't want to know about it.”
“There's nothing to know about.”
“Az.”
“Sleep.”
There's a long pause. Then she puts her head back down.
Her breathing evens out within minutes, and I stay perfectly still until I'm certain she's asleep.
All the while, I’m planning.
38
ASMODEUS
The next day, I leave Simone and Leander in Naamah and Astarea’s company, materializing in my brother’s great hall alone.
“Asmodai,” he says in greeting, the corners of his lips curling very slightly. With a stretch of the imagination, it might even be called a smile. His consort is changing him slowly, like the tide changes the shore.
“You’re alone?” I remark, looking around for her.
“Lana is on a mission with the rest of her team,” he says, waving his hand in a way that lets me know he believes the task is menial. “They are trying to uncover pockets of Andras and Belial’s followers.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Have they tried looking in Belial’s territory?”
Ashtaroth grins, and it’s not a pleasant sight at all. “There are some… constraints from the Council. Which you would know if you bothered to attend meetings since your return.”
It’s my turn to smile. “I’ll get to it. But I have something more important to do first.”
My brother tilts his head, and a lock of dark hair falls over one of his amber eyes. “Oh?”
“Yes. Would it be possible for Aim to join us?”
He doesn’t say anything, just regards me in silence. A moment later, the spymaster appears, buttoning leather pants over his beautiful dick. For the first time since our first encounter, I don’t feel the urge to partake.
