Chapter 22

CHAPTER 22

I t wasn’t until long hours later, as we were chilling on my bed, limbs wrapped around each other and our skin cooling from our latest bout of mind-melting sex, that I remembered to tell Azazel about the attack on me and what had followed.

Predictably, he went near ballistic.

I fanned down the flames that rolled out from him, now finally able to control fire thanks to my rigorous training with Lucifer, and sent him a dark look. “Oy! This room is already half in ruins. Don’t you dare incinerate it any further.”

His eyes glittered murderously. “Who was behind the attack?”

He didn’t say it out loud, but the tacked-on question of Who do I need to kill? was written all over his face.

“I don’t know.” I worried my lower lip. “All the assailants died thanks to Vengeance, so we didn’t even have anyone left over to question.”

“That was a targeted hit.” The muscles in his jaw clenched hard. “Someone ordered it. I would bet my wings on that.”

“But why? I’m not that important.”

A calculating gleam entered his eyes. “To Lucifer, you are.”

I frowned and shook my head. “Okay, but why would that make someone want to kill me?”

He studied me as he considered that for a moment. “Perhaps because they fear you’re having a good influence on Lucifer.”

I raised my brows and barked out a laugh. “Me? A good influence on the Devil? Surely you jest.”

Settling back against the headboard, his abs rippling deliciously in the process, he said, “He’s been passive for years, apathetic and withdrawn, and then you show up—personally claimed by him—and suddenly, for the first time since returning from Earth after Lilith’s death, he leaves his quarters.” He leaned forward and said with emphasis, “ To walk your dog .”

I almost choked on my spit. Clearing my throat, I muttered, “If you put it that way…”

“Whoever ordered the hit on you,” Azazel said, easing back against the headboard once more, “is likely interested in keeping the status quo or making the situation worse, namely Lucifer’s decline and the continuing negligence of his duties and authority.” He jerked his head at me. “And they probably think you’re standing in the way of that.”

Well, shit. I gulped, a ball of anxiety forming in my stomach.

Azazel’s eyes held a hard glint. “So, Lucifer hasn’t deemed it necessary to provide you with a protective detail after that attack?”

I shook my head. “But he’s been training me.”

“Training you?”

Rather than answering, I raised my hand and wove my fingers in the air. The pillow next to Azazel lifted, carried by my power, and then struck him square in the face.

It plopped down onto his lap in the next second, revealing his expression, which was somewhere between dark and amused.

“Are you telling me you’ve been having pillow fights with my grandfather?” he drawled.

“Ew! No!” I made a face and flailed my arms as if to physically ward away the mere suggestion of it.

Azazel’s low laugh and the mirth rolling down our bond clued me in to his joking intent. He sobered again an instant later. “He’s been showing you how to manage your power?”

“Yes. I had no idea what to do with all that strength, but we’ve been working on honing my skills of using it in a fight.” I sat up straighter, a proud note to my voice. “I can actually handle my shit now.”

His eyes flicked to my chest—still naked from our bed sport earlier—and lightning flashed in their depths. His power deepened with appreciation. Reaching out, he ran a finger around one nipple, eliciting a shudder from me. His tone, though, was all business when he spoke.

“I will send you guards.”

“Excuse me, what?” He was still playing with my breast, which distracted me something fierce, so I slapped his hand away. “I just told you I’ve been training and can now hold my own in a fight, and your first impulse is to assign me bodyguards?”

His glowing eyes lifted to mine, his voice smooth as silk as he said, “No, my darling. My first impulse was to raze this entire palace and everyone in it to eliminate the threat against your life. But that would be impractical.”

I narrowed my eyes. “You don’t say.”

“I have told you before, and I will tell you again,” he said with the hint of a bite, “your safety is my first priority.”

“And you don’t think I can keep myself safe?” My nostrils flared. “I have the power of an archdemon now, and with my training, I know how to use it, too.”

He gave me a look of indulgence that made me grit my teeth. “Even archdemons travel with an entourage to other territories, especially to those where there might be peril. It’s only within our own domains that we can move without guards because we control the territory. And considering that Lucifer doesn’t have a handle on the general security in the palace anymore, his own territory must be regarded as perilous, and therefore, you should have an entourage.”

Fine, maybe he did have a point. I wasn’t so naive that I would deem myself invincible and forgo protections that even archdemons availed themselves of.

But mulling it over, my brows drew together. “I don’t think it will go over well if you send a bunch of demons from your domain to follow me around.”

It could be considered an infringement of territorial rights because it was close to stationing his own troops in Lucifer’s domain.

“Seeing as Lucifer doesn’t seem to give a shit about much of anything going on in the palace anymore, I don’t think he’ll even notice.” He shrugged. “You don’t have visitor restrictions anymore, do you? Just say they’re your friends and visiting you.”

“Babe, have you met me?” I laid a hand over my heart. “I don’t have that many friends.”

The corners of his mouth twitched upward, but his tone was serious. “This is nonnegotiable, Zoe. I will not stand by and leave you without necessary protection. You’ve been attacked once already, and while Lucifer might still believe you’re safe enough through his word alone, and that your training should suffice to defend yourself, he operates from a place of authority that he doesn’t have anymore. The demons in his court aren’t loyal enough any longer that they’ll respect his decree, as the attack on you clearly demonstrated. That means you’re basically living in hostile territory, and even an archdemon would surround themselves with guards in a situation like that.”

I blew out a heavy breath. “Okay. I just hope this won’t cause trouble for you.”

“If it does,” he said with the kind of unshakable confidence of which I wished I had even a slice, “I’ll handle it.”

Azazel departed again for his territory to deal with some archdemon business, leaving me well pleasured and glowing in the renewed certainty of his love for me.

With the buoyancy of that good mood, I made my way to Lucifer’s room. Hopefully, he wasn’t asleep this time.

He bade me enter after just one knock, and I stepped inside with new determination.

As usual, the lone candle battled the darkness, the chill in the air making my breath steam. Rubbing my arms, I approached the sofa where Lucifer lounged, a glass of amrit balanced on the armrest. Nearly visible weight pressed down on his form, everything about him seeming subdued and dull.

“What is it?” he asked in a hollow voice.

I cleared my throat and fished in my pocket. “I thought you might like to see this.”

Pulling my phone out, I unlocked it and opened the Photos app. Stepping closer, I turned the screen so he could see it.

When his gaze caught on the photo, all of him stilled. He didn’t even breathe anymore, his energy suspended in the air like a bated breath. Infinitesimally, his eyes widened, the image of Lilith reflecting off the shiny onyx of his irises.

Without a word, I swiped the screen, showing him the next picture. Lilith yet again, caught in the moment when she clapped her hands, a delighted expression on her face. I’d just shown her the selfie mode on the camera.

Another swipe, and a video played. Lilith smiled widely, her eyes sparkling with joy.

“This is most marvelous,” she said. “Such magic, made by humans. Who would have thought that one day you would be able to capture a moment in moving pictures, to be replayed over and over? And with sound!”

She laughed then, like a lovely tinkling of bells, and before me, Lucifer trembled as if shaken by fever.

“There are more,” I softly said and handed him the phone. “More photos, and videos, too. I took them during one of her visits, and I just recently remembered. You can keep the phone for a while. Look through them all. The passcode to unlock the phone is 1-8-7-2-3-0.”

His power seeming as fragile as glass one touch away from shattering, he carefully swiped through the pictures, his expression ravaged. After a moment, he raised his gaze to me, bewilderment bleeding into his mien. “Why would you do this?”

“Take her pictures? Well, she seemed so interested in the technology, and I thought it would be cool?—”

“No,” he interrupted me roughly. “Why would you give me this?”

Oh shit, had I overstepped? Did this have the opposite effect of what I’d intended? My stomach fell to the floor.

But before I could utter the apology that sat on the tip of my tongue, he added, “Why give me this gift?”

I let out a relieved breath, then shrugged and bit my lip. “Because it’s the kind thing to do. You were so sad, talking about how you didn’t have much to remember her by, and I realized I had these images and videos, and so I thought it’d be nice for you to see them.”

His throat worked as he swallowed, his energy hovering around him like an invisible cloud of agitation, and he lowered his gaze back to the device in his hand.

“Anyway,” I said, taking a step back, “the phone is yours for now. I mean, at some point I might like to look at my mom’s pictures again, but until then, you can have it. Oh, and maybe don’t look at the pics before hers. There are some…um…private things Azazel left me in there.” I grimaced, realizing that I should have pulled those images into a separate album to avoid them being seen by unsuspecting eyes.

Better yet, I should have gotten a whole new phone and transferred Lilith’s images and videos over. That way, I wouldn’t have had to hand my own phone over. Ugh, hindsight was twenty-twenty. I’d been so taken with my idea that I hadn’t thought this through.

I was already halfway to the door when Lucifer’s voice stilled my steps.

“She spoke of you, you know.”

I turned around, raising my brows. “Oh?”

Sure, yeah, it would have been logical to assume that Lilith would have talked about me with her boo, what with how fascinated she’d evidently been with me. On the other hand, I’d figured she might not have, quite simply because the topic of moi had seemed to be a tad controversial with Lucifer, which was why it wouldn’t have surprised me if she’d skirted the subject altogether, apart from telling him to leave me the fuck alone.

The black of his eyes was unfathomably deep as he caught my gaze. “She held you in high regard. Spoke of you with a fondness she hadn’t expressed in a long time. She truly valued you.”

I swallowed past the knot in my throat, my eyes yet again damningly hot and wet.

So low I almost didn’t hear him, Lucifer added, “I’m beginning to see why.”