Chapter 28

CHAPTER 28

Azazel

T here were a couple of things I’d always deemed impossible. God coming out of his millennia-long isolation. A minute on Earth without one human murdering another. Pineapple on pizza tasting good.

And me on the throne dais in Lucifer’s palace, right next to my grandfather, not to be humiliated but to stand at his side and join in his governance. Per his request.

I would have honestly thought the other impossibilities might come true before the latter ever happened. For so long, there had been so much strife between Lucifer and me that any change in the way we saw each other had seemed utterly unthinkable.

And yet, for the past two weeks, I’d been at his side, assisting him in cleaning up his house—because he’d asked me to. Respectfully.

To be fair, I would have done it even if he’d treated me with the same contempt as before, purely because making sure that his reign and position were secure was of supreme importance to Zoe’s safety. For her, I’d swallow my pride and grit my teeth and weather any scorn thrown my way.

Only, there’d been no scorn.

The entire first week, I’d been on high alert, my guard up, expecting Lucifer to revert to his old behavior toward me. By the second week, when Lucifer had welcomed an influx of my warriors and courtiers to temporarily step in and take over tasks and positions that had been abandoned, the adamantine wall of my emotional armor slowly started to crack.

Time and again, he involved me in decisions and jobs that required trust and appreciation. He almost treated me like his second-in-command. That position, too, had been abandoned for years, apparently, though Zoe had mentioned that Samael had claimed to have taken over.

Looking at the things Lucifer requested I handle, it seemed my grandfather disagreed. The duties I’d been carrying out for the past two weeks practically made me his right hand.

I had yet to mention that, as honorable as the position might be, it was incompatible with my being an archdemon.

I would stay and help Lucifer reestablish his authority and get his house in order, but I did have my own domain to return to and govern. I’d fought too hard for my position of archdemon to then relegate myself to being Lucifer’s right-hand demon. The little boy I’d once been might have dreamed of this, but I’d long grown out of that wish. I appreciated the independence and sovereignty my role as archdemon brought me far more.

For now, to be able to remain in Lucifer’s territory and assist him, I’d handed things over to my own second-in-command, whom I trusted to be able to run my estate and the day-to-day tasks of ruling an archdemonacy. Verrin was a highly capable seraph who’d served under me for nigh on a thousand years, following me in rank as I’d climbed the hierarchy, and she’d done a perfect job holding down the fort during the time I’d spent in Heaven recently.

With her at the helm in my home territory, I’d been free to aid Lucifer in the monumental task of tackling the mess that had become of his domain.

Because it wasn’t just his palace that had fallen into chaos and disrepair. The neglect had trickled down into other parts of his territory, with demons taking liberties without fear of punishment, the rule of law breaking down in some areas, and higher-ranking lords warring beyond what was proper. There had been annexations of land and seizures of resources that weren’t backed up by regulations, and the conflicts arising from that had thinned the ranks of Lucifer’s demons…because in spite of long-held traditions and laws, without anyone to rein them in, they’d started killing each other.

In response, Lucifer had indeed bathed in blood.

His wrath had cut through the lands, drenching the black soil in crimson, and by the end of the first week, he’d added dozens to both his wing collection and the rows of prisoners chained beneath the glass floor of his entrance hall. He’d also hunted down those demons who’d left their posts at his court, who’d taken Lucifer’s yearslong lethargy as permission to abandon their duties and simply pack their things and go somewhere else. It spoke to their lack of character that they’d run as soon as no one supervised them closely anymore.

Most of them, he was able to locate, and he dragged them back and painted the floor of his throne room with their blood before he demoted them to the lowest of tasks. A few, though, he wasn’t able to find, no traces of their whereabouts. It was like they’d vanished into thin air.

Notably, those were the demons who’d always been the most loyal to Lucifer.

With so many of his people either missing or having proved unreliable, there was a dearth of competent demons to fill important roles. In a show of trust and as testament to their age-old bond, Lucifer had accepted Daevi’s offer to transfer a good number of her own staff and warriors to Lucifer’s service, until younger talent could be nurtured and promoted from Lucifer’s own ranks.

For as soon as Lucifer had started taking back the reins, I’d not only sent out word to my own domain to set up management for my absence, but I’d also contacted Daevi to let her know that Lucifer had come out of his apathy. She’d arrived a day later with much of her senior staff, ready to give counsel and resources to her former lover and father of her child.

When I’d later offered to lend him some of my staff and warriors as well, he’d accepted, much to my surprise.

With the support of two archdemons, Lucifer had brought order back to his territory in the span of two weeks. Repairs on the palace had started. Resources had been reallocated. There was a buzz in his halls, a new sense of purpose, woven through with threads of fearful respect.

They were, once more, afraid of him, displaying the kind of dread and deference that powered empires.

And the most subservient of all, the most eager to please and prove himself, was the demon who currently strode into the throne room, trailed by two chained prisoners.

Samael went down on one knee in greeting to his father, his silver-white hair sliding forward as he bowed his head. When he rose again, his gaze tracked to me for a moment, and with a flash of darkness in his blood-red eyes, he inclined his head.

My nostrils flared slightly. “Bow,” I said succinctly before he could utter a single word.

It wasn’t the first time he’d shown me disrespect by not greeting me properly. As an archdemon, I outranked him, and a simple incline of the head was not a sufficient show of deference. I’d run into him twice in the weeks that I’d been here, and each time, he’d tried to get away with a veiled insult delivered in the greeting.

Hell would freeze over again before I’d let that slide.

Muscles feathered along Samael’s jaw as he stared at me for a second, then he sketched a shallow bow.

Not enough.

“Lower,” I purred. “Or do you have a back condition?”

He sucked in a sharp breath through his nose, his teeth clearly gritted hard. But he did bow lower, all the way to the angle that was appropriate given our difference in rank.

Oh, how it must have galled him.

And how it stroked all the parts of me that still bore the emotional scars from the way he’d sneered at and mocked me when I’d been but a youth at Lucifer’s court, Samael a full-grown adult. He’d been one of the worst. Merciless and relentless in his cruelty. He’d been an up-and-coming demon, a favored child of Lucifer’s, who’d made it a sport to pick on the powerless scapegoat of the court.

I would never tire of making him bow before me now.

Even with the head start he’d had of being older and further up in rank, I had surpassed him, had reached the position of archdemon, while he remained a seraph under another’s command. Petty it might be, but I lived for those moments when I was able to rub my success and triumph in his face.

“Father,” Samael said in greeting, and with an audible grumble, he added in my direction, “Your Highness.”

Lucifer paused in ripping out the feathers one by one from the demon kneeling before him, a punishment for illegally having dealt in souls pilfered from one of Lucifer’s pits. The demon would be forced to walk around with his wings out, plucked free of his feathers until they healed and regrew, a visible reminder and public shame for the crime he’d committed. And once all feathers had grown back in, Lucifer would likely summon him back to pluck them all over again, repeating the procedure as many times as he pleased in order to get the point across.

“Samael,” Lucifer said, shaking his hand free of feathers. “What have you got for me?”

Rising to his feet, Samael gestured to the two demons behind him, who remained on both their knees, their heads bowed. “I caught these traitors to the crown. They left their posts a year ago and have been in hiding since. Would you like to punish them yourself, or shall I?”

“Eager, are we?” Lucifer muttered. “Pity that your enthusiasm to ingratiate yourself to me by taking work off my hands didn’t extend to making sure no one left their posts to begin with these past years.” He resumed plucking feathers from the sobbing demon in front of him.

I arched a brow and barely hid my smirk.

“With all due respect,” Samael said with a demure tilt of his head, “any inaction on my part was because I did not wish to overstep or infringe upon your authority. In the absence of instructions from you?—”

“A capable demon of appropriate rank,” Lucifer cut him off, “angling for the position of second-in-command, would have known how to keep a court from disintegrating.” He shot Samael a dark look. “Instructions or no. Do not justify your inadequacies with a lack of guidance.” Before Samael could reply, Lucifer waved him off. “Go ahead and punish them as you see fit. They are yours to play with.”

Samael gave a sharp nod. “Yes, Your Grace.”

And with a snap of his fingers, he bid the kneeling demons to follow him outside the throne room, leaving me with Lucifer and his current bearer of penance. Other than the three of us, there were few demons in the throne room, mostly a few courtiers milling about and watching the show, as well as the guards flanking the walls. And Vengeance, two of her heads playing with the plucked feathers floating through the air. The third was snapping at her own feet.

“Thousands of years of studying and leading at my side,” Lucifer murmured while he ripped feathers out with gusto, “only for him to fail so utterly when the time came to prove his mettle.”

I raised my eyes from reading the missive a staff member had brought me and arched another brow at Lucifer. “I thought he was your favorite.”

Lucifer paused, his gaze on the ruined wings that were weeping blood. “You know who my favorite is. And why she wasn’t here to step into the role she was perfect to fill. None of this would have happened had your mother been well enough to remain in Hell. She would have held things together with more aplomb than Samael could ever aspire to.” He went back to plucking the feathers. The demon whimpered in response. “In fact, she would have put a stop to my bout of miserable self-loathing long before the situation turned as dire as this.”

I opened my mouth to say something just as Lucifer added, “Much as you would have, if given the chance.”

With my mouth still agape, I lowered the missive and stared at him.

“Don’t look so puzzled.” Lucifer plucked the last of the feathers and shook them off his fingers. “If you had served directly under me in Samael’s stead, that backbone of yours and your penchant to speak your mind would have made you talk sense into me much sooner than you did just now. And given the way you’ve successfully been leading territories of your own for millennia, you would have stepped up to keep things running rather than lean back and laze around as Samael did.”

I still didn’t know how to handle this. Genuine compliments and appreciation for me coming out of his mouth, without a hidden agenda or being followed up by some slight or backtracking insult. Two weeks of this, and it still made me uneasy.

While it also, word by word, and despite my best attempts at keeping myself detached, continued to heal wounds I’d thought long set and scarred.

“Crawl off now,” Lucifer said to the demon sobbing at his feet, his wings a ruin of bloody sinews and mutilated flesh. “And keep those wings out for everyone to see.” Leaning in, he grabbed the poor sod by his hair and lifted his head. “I will know if you don’t. And whatever restraint I showed you this time will not be available should you defy me again. Now get out of my sight.” With a push, he let him go.

Crying quietly, the demon crawled off the dais, his butchered wings dripping blood as he went.

Lucifer summoned a wet cloth and cleaned his fingers. His gaze, pulsing with unnerving darkness, met my own. “Tell me I’m wrong about you.”

I shook my head, conceding his point. “Part of my bewilderment,” I said, tapping the rolled-up letter against my thigh, “stems from how well you seem to be taking this in stride. I assumed any critique leveled at you would be met with a blade, or at least a tantrum of some sort.”

He chuffed a laugh. “Tantrum.” His voice sobering, he added, “Both you and Zoe have told me what I already knew to be true, deep inside. I was just too caught up in my own head to see it clearly. And there weren’t enough people left to be so blunt with me as to not couch the truth in flowery flattery.”

“Partly your fault for not keeping a good counsel of trusted advisers.”

He leveled a dark look at me.

I raised both hands. “Just being blunt. The quality you appreciate, remember?”

One side of his mouth tipped up, and he shook his head, his gaze on the floor. “I see it more and more now.”

“What?”

His eyes, when they met mine, shimmered with hints of light in their dark depths. “Your mother’s cleverness, mirrored in you.”

I shifted my weight, sudden discomfort making me clear my throat.

Vengeance stopped snapping at feathers and lifted all three of her heads—one of her ears turned inside out—and uttered a deep woof .

The doors to the throne room clanged open, and a staff member stepped in, sinking to one knee and announcing, “The lady Zoe has returned and seeks to speak with you, Your Grace.”

Lucifer whipped his head around, and my heart jumped to my throat when I beheld Zoe entering the throne room behind the female demon. Mere weeks I hadn’t seen her, yet my body and soul responded as if it had been years again. My breath stalled. Every part of me homed in on her, the center of my universe, the reason I’d truly learned, after thousands of years of existing, what it meant to lose oneself in another.

What it felt like to be drawn to someone as if they alone held the answers to all the mysteries of life.

Her gaze met mine, and even over the considerable distance between the dais and the doors, I felt the jolt of that connection, her nearness giving me a rush of her emotions down the bond between us.

Surprise, relief, happiness…and a frayed kind of excitement, spiked with nerves.

I didn’t wait for permission. Didn’t care about proper decorum.

Flicking the letter I still held to the side, I strode down the dais and was in front of her within seconds, and then she was in my arms, and all I could feel, smell, and sense was the woman I loved with every beat of my damned heart.