by Cate Corvin
He was nothing that I’d expected from the heir to Satan’s throne. I’d anticipated cruelty, cunning, evil. Not a fallen angel I had more in common with than I wanted to believe.
Not the tentative hand of trust he’d extended to me.
“No, I’m not that stupid. Forget it, Azazel.”
The air in front of me rippled and Azazel reappeared in a cloud of smoke. He reached out and caught my jaw, stopping me in my tracks.
I swallowed hard, all my nerves singing where he made contact. When the Grigori touched me, he looked so hungry. He touched like he was memorizing my skin with his fingertips.
“If you need to fly, I’ll go with you.” He touched my lips, his gaze darkening as he watched my mouth.
I was struck with the sudden urge to touch his face, see what those hard planes felt like under my own fingers… but I’d cut off my own hands before I gave in to that nonsense. “I don’t need another keeper.”
I turned my face away and strode the opposite direction, anticipating his appearance, but the air remained clear.
“You’ll fly again, Melisande.” His voice echoed after me as I plunged into a random hallway, wanting to put distance between myself and the incorrigible Grigori. I was too angry to listen. “Just not… not now.”
Vyra hurried after me and directed me down the right hall. I didn’t stop until I reached the bedroom he’d established me in. It was near the center of Blackchapel, conveniently windowless.
“Melisande,” she breathed, closing the door behind her and leaning against it like she could prevent her brother from materializing inside at will. “Listen for a moment, will you?”
I yanked jeweled clips out of my hair. “Listen to what? Another jailer?”
Vyra darted over, batting my hands away from my hair with a wince. She forced me to sit down on the little velvet chair she’d insisted on having dragged in and took over the dismantling of my hairstyle.
“No, I mean listen to me for a minute.” She gently dragged her fingers through my hair. The touch was oddly soothing. “My brother has reasons for the things he does. Believe me, he doesn’t want to keep you locked up like Belial does.”
“I really find that hard to believe,” I said with a snort.
Vyra gently unwound a braid. “Believe this. Have you ever heard of the Dragon’s Brides?”
“No. I’m not from Hell, Vyra. I don’t know anything about it besides how to kill everyone living here.” Which was a bitter fact. There so many layers to Hell, and some of it even verged on being civilized.
I was a stranger in a land that continually turned upside down and shattered all my expectations like glass.
“Well.” Vyra gently pulled a brush through my hair. “I was almost one of them. When Satan didn’t die in the Apocalypse like all the prophecies said, we didn’t get a chance to start over. He started demanding sacrifices, and at first that was enough.
“But when he’d glutted himself on enough souls to last millennia, he grew bored. Then he saw a demon woman from the Second Circle, Lust. He realized he wanted her, and no one was willing to say no on her behalf.” Vyra’s fingers trembled against my scalp and she took a breath. “No one was sure why things changed. For a while there were rumors that Satan believed Lucifer had betrayed him, that he no longer saw him as a son and wanted a child of his own. But when Lucifer remained and none of the women his father took became pregnant, we knew it was just because he could.”
I watched her face in the mirror, the emotions that slid quickly from one to the next: sympathy, fear, anger.
“None of them come back. When their bodies are used up, he consumes them as a sacrifice of blood. I’ve lost so many sisters, Melisande. So many. And there’s nothing we can do except avoid him seeing us.”
“Then how…?” I whispered, my blood running cold.
“I was in the Eighth Circle when he saw me. I was seeing a card-sharp’s shade, he was banned from all the Circles above the Sixth, but I’d visit him there sometimes. I’d gone to find him when Satan passed me. He turned his face when I walked by, and I felt him mark me, Melisande. I felt the coldness of it on my skin. He gave me a black rose, and there was nothing I could do but take it. I was standing in the street, surrounded by thousands, and everyone was completely silent. He gave me three days of freedom before he’d come for me.
“I came back here and told Azazel what had happened.” Her voice dropped, and her hands had stopped moving. “Azazel disappeared for those entire three days. I’ll confess, I considered the unbelievable: that he’d abandoned me.
“But he didn’t. He went down into the abyss, and he tithed a portion of his soul to Satan in exchange for my freedom.”
She met my gaze in the mirror, her rosy eyes bright. “He has a void inside him. He thinks, he feels, but there’s a gaping hole inside him where that piece of his soul should be.”
My jaw tightened, but I thought of nothing to say that could possibly comfort her. Instead I reached up and laid my hand over hers, lacing our fingers together when she didn’t pull away.
“Melisande, he’s not caging you. He’s protecting you. If you catch Satan’s eye- and you will, there’s only one other fallen angel here, and Satan already owns him- not even a portion of a prince’s soul will save you from that fate.”
She woke me at late noon, pouring a cup of herbal tea down my throat before dressing me in soft training clothes, a pair of pants that seemed painted on my skin and a shirt with straps that wouldn’t interfere with my wings.
Azazel waited for me in the cathedral. He’d shed his austere suit jacket for a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows, showing off muscular forearms.
Part of me was furious that Vyra’s story made me see him in a different light. He was cold, but he’d given pieces of his soul to save her life.
Gabriel had told us that demons were incapable of love. After the Apocalypse, we’d believed it.
Now I wasn’t so sure of that certainty anymore.
“We have six hours, little angel.” He closed the space between us, and my breathing shallowed. The heat coming off him touched my skin, warming me in the cool air. “Enough time to push you to your limits.”
I swallowed, but sooner or later I’d have to face the power lurking inside me. Better to do it where Azazel could heal me with a touch of his hand.
“You won’t enjoy it, but I will not let it consume you. You have my word.” He held out his hand, just as Lucifer had done last night when he’d asked for my trust.
I placed my trust in Azazel and took his hand. His palm was warm and rough against mine, and when his fingers closed around my hand there was a flare of possessiveness in his eyes.
“Reach for your magic,” he instructed.
I closed my eyes, already grimacing as I anticipated the taste of ash and misery.
His fingers tightened, and when my magic coiled through me, there was no burning pain or cinders in my lungs. It felt like velvet, tasted like cool water and crushed petals.
“This is what it feels like when you stop fighting.” Azazel’s low voice cut through my amazement. “As long as you fear it, it will try its best to eat you.”
Then he released my hand and I choked. The crushed petals turned to ash in my mouth.
“Stop fighting it, Melisande. Open your eyes and destroy the shadows.”
Black fire tingled in my fingertips. I forced my eyes open and jumped back as a pitch-black void shaped like a man slumped past me. The cathedral was full of them, milling around me.
Then one looked up, and another.
They had no eyes, but they were staring at me.
They rushed forward and I clawed at them, driving the magic into the shadows. They burst into a thousand pieces of smoke and vanished, but several other shadows became aware of my presence at that moment.
I lost myself in a rush of adrenaline, thrusting my hands into the shadow-creatures one after another until sweat beaded my face and chest. They never stopped comi
ng, gathering themselves from bits of smoke and re-forming into new shapes.
A glittering mist moved among them, and when I slashed my hand through the last of the shadows, a tendril of the mist reached out and jabbed at me.
So Azazel wanted to play this game. I’d use the twisted magic to tear him right out of that mist.
I brushed the next tendrils aside, cutting right through it with my fingers. My magic snapped and bit like a rabid animal, thrumming through me every time he vanished and reappeared elsewhere.
Once he looped a tendril of smoke around my ankle and yanked me off-balance, and I felt hands at my waist as I jumped to my feet. Fingers brushed my hair, tickled my cheek, even touched my lips as I reached for him, my magic always trying and just failing to find him.
It was maddening, the game he played. Sometimes he wasn’t visible at all, not so much as a hint of his starry presence in the cathedral, and I wondered if he’d left me there.
Then I’d catch a smudge of smoke and find him again.
I stalked around a column and caught a breath of air that smelled like herbs and salt, and the faintest twinkle of a star.
No smoky limbs reached for me. I gathered all the magic in my hands and lunged forward, intending to shove him right out of his ephemeral state.
I passed right through the mist.
Solid shackles gripped my wrists and I went flying backwards, landing on the floor with a thud that knocked the breath out of me.
Azazel coalesced overhead, his hands pinning my wrists to the ground.
“Much better,” he breathed. “You almost caught me.”
My poor lungs felt bruised. My chest heaved as I finished gasping, and Azazel’s gaze flickered over my face and down to my breasts. I was glistening with sweat, but his lips tightened, and his grip around my wrists was almost painful.
I’d been so concerned with not dying from lack of air that I hadn’t realized he was practically laying on top of me, his thigh between my legs, the hard length of him pressed against my hip.
The moment stretched between us, and I bit my lip. He wasn’t as horrible as I’d wanted to believe, even if I was still angry with him.
He brought another kind of fire to my veins, tentative and shy, but threatening to consume me in a different way.
With his hands around my wrists, I wasn’t going anywhere. He could do whatever he liked with me as long as I was bound.
Goosebumps ran over my skin and he watched my teeth sink into my lip. “Do you like this, angel?”
I hesitated a fraction of a second too long before shaking my head.
A hint of a smile touched his mouth. He shifted forward, driving his leg further between my thighs. The friction against my aching pussy made me draw a hissing breath between my teeth, the rest of me straining against his hands.
Azazel made a noise low in his throat and ducked his head, his tongue licking a trail along my throat. My hips rolled forward, heat exploding in my abdomen. I felt his cock grind against me and gasped.
The tolling of bells filled the cathedral and my entire body froze. Twilight. Had six hours really passed so quickly?
Azazel growled against my throat, sucking my skin between his teeth and biting down as the bells stopped. He released me and gazed down at me, frustration clear in every line of his face, but before I could say anything to soothe the rage flickering in his violet eyes, the clattering of hooves on stone filled the cathedral.
“Where’s my angel?”
Belial had come for me.
17
Melisande
His deep voice rumbled through the building, bouncing off stone walls and echoing back until it sounded like thunder.
And he was about to find me trapped under Azazel.
As much as I might’ve liked to see the two of them get into it, I was too damn tired to be caught in the middle.
I tried my hardest to wriggle out from under Azazel, but he still had my wrists clasped in an implacable grip. “Let me up!” I hissed, and the anger in his gaze became a cool, smoldering ember.
“What are you so terrified of, angel? Afraid to disappoint your master?” He ran his tongue over the tender flesh he’d just bitten, sending a shiver down my spine despite his taunting.
“That’s none of your business.” I glared at him, daring him to call me a sparrow again, but as the clanging sound of the horse’s hooves grew louder, he set his lips and got up, pulling me to my feet.
The red warhorse’s hooves struck sparks off the stone. Belial wore his black armor like he was ready for battle, dark hair spilling down his back.
I remembered the look of regret on his face when Azazel spirited me away.
That was gone now. His expression was cold and hard, aqua eyes glittering. They swept over me, taking in the rumpled hair, the sweat on my skin, and lingered on my throat and the mark Azazel had left.
“She’s safe and in one piece, Belial.” Azazel readjusted his shirt sleeves, looking as cool and collected as if he’d just been lolling against a pillar the entire time. “There’s no need to storm the castle for your princess. We were just preparing to return to your Circle.”
I swiped my fingers across my clavicle and neck like I could erase the evidence of Azazel’s teeth on my skin. Belial watched the motion, tracking it like a predator.
“Did he catch sight of her?” He never took his gaze from me, but the question was directed at Azazel.
The Grigori straightened up, his lips pressed tight. “Do you really believe I’d be that idiotic? Don’t insult me, Belial. I gave her every care I would give one of my Watchers.”
The tension between them was palpable. The warhorse snorted, pawing the floor and sending up another spray of white-hot sparks. “He did,” I said quietly.
Belial just held out his hand.
I stepped forward and laid my hand in his, and his gauntleted fingers closed around mine, surprisingly gentle. He lifted me up onto the warhorse’s back, settling me in his lap and wrapping his arms around me. His spicy scent surrounded me in a cloud.
My lungs reflexively took a deep breath, inhaling as much of that scent as possible.
“Until the next sixth day, then.” Azazel was leaning against a pillar now, a dark look on his face. I didn’t pull my gaze away even when Belial wheeled his warhorse around to the open doors.
I raised a hand in farewell.
Azazel hesitated, then mimicked my gesture, his long fingers already glimmering with transparency.
He faded from sight, blending into the shadows of Blackchapel, and then the cool wind of the sky above Limbo hit me. Belial tightened his arm around my waist as the horse trotted to the edge of Blackchapel’s courtyard.
“Belial, what-”
My heart jumped into my throat, but the horse broke into a gallop over open air. Flames licked its hooves as it rode down over the fields below.
Several shades looked up at the scarlet horse racing through the sky, but lost interest quickly, turning their attention to sifting through the gray grass.
Instead of cutting straight across Dis like Azazel had, the horse leveled off several hundred above the Second Circle, following the massive curve of the Nightside tier. Brilliant lights winked from the shadowed high rises below.
“Belial.”
He ignored me, his face set in a frown and focused on the city ahead. The only sign he gave that he heard me was the pressure of his fingers against my waist, dimpling my skin.
“He didn’t hurt me, Belial. He followed your orders to the letter.”
Irritation rose in me. I exhaled, my breath torn away by the wind sweeping past us, and touched his face. His skin was silky and hot under my fingertips, and I flattened my hand to cup his cheek, laying my sigiled palm against him.
His gaze flicked down to me, surprise glimmering in the brilliant depths.
“Look, angel,” he said, nodding towards the Circle far below.
I leaned forward and saw that a massive lake had been set in the obsidia
n, still cast in the shade of the dark side of Dis. Pulsing white lights floated at the bottom, distorted by the water, but the shadow of a creature large enough to eat a ship floated over them. Its shape was amorphous, but the lights illuminated pale green fins like sails.
The horse snorted in displeasure when I resettled myself against Belial, and I cast a jaundiced look at the back of its head.
Soon, horse. Soon.
“I didn’t realize you had a flying horse,” I said lightly, hoping to dispel some of the tension radiating from Belial. “Perhaps you’d be interested in a bet.”
His hard expression didn’t soften, but his lips seemed a little less tight. “You know my weakness.”
“I bet that I could beat your horse in a race across the sky.”
That got a tiny quirk of his lips. “Arcturus is the fastest of his kind.”
So the scarlet beast had a name.
“I’m fast, too.” And my wings desperately needed stretching.
“What would you bet with?” A lock of Belial’s dark hair whipped across my face, catching my mouth. I peeled it away from my lips, wrapping the silky lock around my finger.
“Well… I would bet a kiss.” I tugged lightly on the strands of his hair. “One very willing and enthusiastic kiss.”
“Would you, now.” The purr was finally coming back in his stern tone. “Only one?”
I stroked my thumb across his cheekbone. “Only one. You’re not the Prince of Avarice, so don’t get greedy.”
“I could storm the Fourth Circle and become the Prince of Avarice.” He had a dimple when he smiled. It was faint, but I touched the shallow divot in his cheek. He might’ve been pleased, but his shoulders were still squared under his armor and his arm defensively wrapped around me.
His dichotomy was unnerving. Here was a demon who could smile while resisting the urge to tear off someone’s head. “I think you have enough on your hands with one Circle, Belial.”
I wondered what a fight between Belial and Azazel would look like. Probably as glorious as the archangels in combat.