Chapter 29

CHAPTER 29

Zoe

I had a second of bewilderment looking at the scene in front of me—Lucifer and Azazel standing next to each other on the dais, seemingly…friendly? No torture involved? No threats or insults being thrown around?—before Azazel stormed toward me and enfolded me in a hug that shut out everything but him and the pulsing connection between us.

Inhaling his scent, I wrapped my arms around him and squeezed him right back, every cell in my body sighing in happiness at having him near again. Everything else fell away—the reason I was here, the tangle of emotions over what I’d learned, the utter astonishment and confusion about the state of this palace, the many questions that had piled up while I walked here from the gate. It was only him and me in this moment, our hearts beating in sync, our souls aligned.

Azazel pulled back and framed my face with his hands, planting a passionate, lingering kiss on my lips that spread tingles of heat all throughout my body.

“I’ve missed you,” he murmured against my mouth.

Before I could reciprocate the sentiment, something huge slammed into me from the side and knocked me over. The next second, three large tongues bathed my face in slobber, and wet dog breath fanned against me.

“Venny!” I squeaked. “Enough! Off! Get off me!”

My trusty hellhound let up and scrambled back a few steps, allowing me to stumble to my feet.

“Sweetie,” I said to her while I summoned a towel and wiped my face, “I’m happy to see you, too, but we gotta revisit our lesson about the licking , okay? I don’t like to get wet.”

Azazel made a choked sound next to me, and I rounded on him with a raised finger. “Don’t you dare.”

He looked utterly innocent except for the glint in his stormy eyes, the scoundrel.

I pointed at him. “No.”

My gaze flicked to the dais, where Lucifer stood watching us, casually cleaning his hands of what looked like blood. Come to think of it, the steps and the dais itself were covered in crimson, and there were smears on the floor that appeared as if someone had been dragged along bleeding.

Scanning Azazel for blood or signs of injuries, I frowned when I realized he seemed unharmed.

“What’s going on?” I whispered, leaning toward him. “Has he hurt you in any way?”

“No. Not at all.”

“Then what…” I trailed off and sloppily waved at the streaks of blood and the scarlet stains on the dais, then at him and Lucifer and the entire throne room.

“Uh.” Azazel seemed to be searching for words. That was new. He was always so unflappable, but right now he looked quite flapped. Rubbing the back of his neck, he said, “He’s been getting his house back in order.”

“Uh-huh. I’ve noticed.” Raising both brows, I gave an approving nod. “What brought about that change?”

“I might have yelled at him.”

With my lips pressed tightly together, I sucked in air through my nose, dread curdling in my stomach. “And now he’s keeping you hostage?”

“No…I’ve been helping him.”

I nodded slowly in sympathetic understanding. “Because he threatened you.”

“Because he asked .”

I tilted my head. “With a threat, right?”

“With an apology,” Lucifer said from the dais, his dark eyes glittering.

I glanced between the two of them. Back and forth, trying to figure this thing out. They both looked…noncombative. Calm. No trace of hostility.

Narrowing my eyes, I glared at Lucifer. “Is this a trick?”

He laughed. Laughed , the stupefying fiend. “Just like you,” he said, his gaze resting on Azazel. “Well matched indeed.”

My face scrunching up in confusion, it took me a good five seconds to realize there’d been no insult in that statement, Lucifer’s voice devoid of mockery. “You’re actually getting along,” I said eventually, half a question, half an astonished statement.

Azazel shrugged and shifted on his feet, but I didn’t sense any deception or dread down the bond.

“So, what—you’re chummy now?” I looked back and forth between them again, then threw up my hands. “I leave for a few weeks, and suddenly you’re best buds?”

“I find your surprise perplexing,” Lucifer said, his gaze on the blade with which he removed dirt from under his nails. “Weren’t you the one scolding me about not making amends?”

Azazel shot me a curious look.

“Yeah, but I didn’t think you’d actually listen .” I put one hand on my hip and gestured to Lucifer with the other. “For the longest time, nothing I said seemed to get through.”

“Well, it did now.” He waved the dagger in a lazy circle. “And I am not so far gone as to be unable to recognize the truth when I hear it.” Lifting his chin, his eyes on me, he tapped the blade against his thigh. “I apologized to him.”

I pursed my lips. “Would you like a medal for that?”

“Zoe,” Azazel said in warning, but there was a hint of a grin in his voice.

“What?” I flipped my hair over my shoulder. “I’m not giving accolades for the bare minimum.”

“Noted.” His dark eyes glinting, Lucifer twirled the blade in his hand. “What was it you wanted to speak with me about?”

I could virtually hear the screeching tires of my thoughts as his question made them do a one-eighty at full speed to return to the subject I’d actually come in here to talk about, before the wholly unexpected reconciliation between Lucifer and Azazel had sidetracked me.

My pulsed ramped up, my hands got clammy, and I sucked in a bracing breath. “We should be alone for this conversation.”

Without missing a beat, Lucifer snapped his fingers and said, “Court dismissed.” Nodding at me and Azazel, he turned and strode from the dais toward a small door to the side.

Cocking a brow at me, Azazel fell into step as I followed Lucifer, but he didn’t press me on what this was about. I grabbed his hand and squeezed, sending him a wobbly smile.

The room Lucifer led us to was smaller than the throne room by far, though it could likely still comfortably hold a gathering of dozens of demons. Soft-looking chairs and sofas were grouped around low tables, and a fireplace added a bit of cozy ambience—it certainly wasn’t necessary for heating the space.

Lucifer sank into one of the armchairs and gestured for us to sit as well. Vengeance plopped down on a big couch that promptly broke under her weight, which didn’t seem to bother her in the slightest. With a purely doglike chuff of contentment, she rolled onto her back, crunching the furniture debris underneath her, and stretched her legs into the air.

My butt hadn’t quite made contact with the plush cushion yet when I blurted out, “I found her.”

Everything stopped.

The fire in the grate froze as if someone had pressed pause. Venny’s grunts of happiness went silent. Even my own breaths seemed to still, and I couldn’t move a muscle, caught in a state of paralyzed awareness.

And in that second of disquieting inertia, I swore I saw a flicker over Lucifer’s form, the whisper of silver-white wings behind him.

Before panic over my paralysis could set in, time resumed normally, and I drew in a sharp breath, blinking rapidly. Vengeance huffed and twitched her legs, and on the chair next to me, Azazel shifted, clenching and unclenching his hands.

Power thick in the air, Lucifer pinned me with a gaze of abysmal darkness. “Tell me everything.”

So I did. Wringing my hands, I explained how I’d spotted Lilith’s reincarnation on that playground, I described the pull I felt toward her, her reaction to my invisible presence, and how I’d ordered her followed and then came here.

When I finished, silence pulsed heavily between us. Even Vengeance’s breaths had grown quiet, as if she, too, felt the weight of this revelation. Azazel’s power was a potent buzz near me, and through the bond, I felt his shock and the whir of anticipation. I’d bet he was already running a million scenarios through his mind and calculating all the implications of what this meant.

“Shemya—” I broke off and corrected myself. “Someone will be by and provide her exact location.”

With a wince, I realized I’d completely forgotten that Lucifer didn’t know about my entourage. I’d even mentioned that I’d had a demon follow the girl without stopping to think that this would imply it wasn’t Haniel. And that it would raise questions as to why I was in the company of other demons in addition to him.

“He knows,” Azazel murmured, leaning closer to me. At my questioning look, he added, “You don’t have to fret about hiding your guards from him. It’s not an issue.”

“Oh. Okay.” I sat up straighter. “Well, in that case… She has a small security detail with her right now, but I think we should beef up those numbers.”

I didn’t add my unruly thought of We don’t want a repeat of the last Lilith incident , but I didn’t really need to. It was an unspoken awareness, a given. Of course, Lucifer would do everything in his power to make sure the girl would be protected not only from earthly dangers but from supernatural threats as well. It wasn’t a stretch to assume that there were still rogue demons—and probably angels—around who would jump at the opportunity to strike at Lucifer by harming Lilith’s reincarnation.

I had no doubt that Lucifer would send his best people to guard her—and on the heels of that thought came another.

My brows drew together. “I know you’ve been cleaning up the mess here, but do you even have enough demons you trust to watch over her?”

“I can detail some of my warriors to the task,” Azazel said, his voice a deep rumble at my side. Catching my gaze, he explained, “I’ve been supplying a number of my people to replenish the thinned ranks here in the palace and the greater territory.”

I raised both brows. And Lucifer was just…fine with that? I still had trouble processing this tectonic shift in their relationship.

“Daevi will likely volunteer to send some of her soldiers as well,” Azazel continued. “I’d be surprised if she didn’t consider the task of guarding the girl her own responsibility, too. She was very close to Lilith, after all.”

I sat back with a sigh of relief. Knowing Lilith’s reincarnation would be well protected took a weight off me that I hadn’t been aware of carrying. “That’s great,” I said. “We should definitely?—”

“I release you from your bonds.”

Lucifer’s soft remark made me break off mid-sentence. Eyes wide, I turned to stare at him.

There it was again, that version of him that was an eldritch horror that had crawled here from some dark and creepy dimension. Gone was any warmth, any light, anything remotely appearing like the human-looking demon I’d come to know.

Oh, he still had the same form as before, he hadn’t corporeally shifted into anything else, but there was no mistaking the energetic shift that somehow changed the perception of his appearance as well.

The hairs on my arms rose with the tingling awareness that I was sitting in the presence of a power that wore the face and figure of a humanoid being—as one would wear a costume. An optical illusion, barely concealing the fact that something truly other hid behind this uncanny mask.

Next to me, Azazel’s power gathered like an impending storm, and over the bond, I felt his unease, the adrenaline pumping through his system. He, too, sensed the difference in Lucifer.

“What do you mean?” I whispered, my eyes fixed on the eerie goth version of the first fallen angel.

“I hereby transfer my claim over you to Azazel,” Lucifer said, his voice carrying the echo of deep, dark tombs. “You are forthwith part of his domain.”

A prickle of magic coursed over my skin, sank into my bones. The new bond settled between Azazel and me with a pulse of power, and I felt the shift of allegiance like a small tremor through my soul.

Heart slamming against my rib cage, I glanced at Azazel, whose face didn’t betray the shock that I felt in him through our connection. He was just as blindsided by this as I was. Neither of us had seen this coming.

Sure, Naamah had said that Lucifer had promised to release me once I’d found Lilith, but this soon? Not even five minutes had passed since I’d told him the news.

“Leave now.” Lucifer stood, and even that small movement was imbued with such swiftness and grace as was beyond even the most elegant demons and angels. “I would seek solitude.”

I opened my mouth, ready to argue with him that he most definitely should not be alone when in this mood, but a flick of his hand had both me and Azazel forcibly raised to our feet and gently shoved toward the door at our backs.

Azazel’s power sparked like a firecracker about to go off in response to the telekinetic manhandling, but to my surprise, he reined it in, and when I wanted to turn back and stay with Lucifer, he grasped me by my upper arm and steered me out the door instead. Vengeance trotted after us as we exited into the throne room.

A few staff members bustled about, but other than that, the great hall was empty while we strode away from the room.

I craned my neck to glance back. “Don’t you think we should?—”

“No.” Azazel kept guiding me forward.

“But—”

“He told us in no uncertain terms that he wants us to leave,” he muttered, not breaking his stride, leading me toward a side door, “and I will not argue with him when he’s like this. There are moments when he is amenable to listening. This is not one of them. We’ll check in on him later. For now, the administration of the territory is well taken care of, and the governance of the palace is running smoothly again. Both my and Daevi’s people are still here, and all of them are well versed in managing an estate and ensuring security. Lucifer can take a moment to himself without everything crashing down around him.”

“Okay…” I chewed my lip. “I just think?—”

“Zoe.” Azazel stopped in the middle of the corridor we’d entered, pulling me to a halt as well. Grabbing my chin, he leaned in until our breaths mingled, our power entwining in the small space between us. His eyes held churning storms of lightning as he pinned me with a look that made me shiver. “You. Are. Mine. Now. I have waited for this moment for eight fucking years, and I will not wait to take you home, where you belong , for one moment longer.”

Grabbing my hand, he pulled me along again, and I was so stunned that I stumbled a bit to keep up. Heart thumping madly in my chest, it took me a few seconds to parse my thoughts, but when I did, I dug in my heels and yanked on his hand to stop.

With a raised brow and a questioning look, Azazel paused and turned to me.

“We haven’t really talked about this,” I began, “what with everything that happened, but…am I your subordinate now?”

“What?” He looked almost comically confounded.

“I mean”—I waved my free hand around—“this is different from our situations before. When I was a human, we were married, which made us kind of equal in rank, and then when I was in Heaven, you were higher in the hierarchy, but you never enforced rank, and we also weren’t part of the same territory, just like all this time that I’ve been here in Hell as a demon, but now… Lucifer transferred me to you. Technically, I’m in your service now.” I swallowed, my brows scrunching together. “I’m under your command, aren’t I? Like, theoretically, I’d have to follow your orders. So, when you say that I’m yours…that holds a different meaning now, too. Doesn’t it?”

Sparks of silver erupted in his eyes, and within one breath and the next, he had me pressed against the wall, one of his hands flat on the stone next to my head, the other cradling my cheek.

His voice was an intimate murmur, the heat of his body sinking into mine. “What did I tell you when you greeted me for the first time in Heaven?”

I licked my lips, my legs trembling. “You don’t ever bow to me,” I quoted him in a whisper.

“And what did I say when you jokingly addressed me by my title just recently?”

His thumb was stroking my cheek, and it distracted me quite a bit because that soft touch sent out waves of sensation that traveled all the way down my body.

“That if I ever call you that in front of others,” I said a little breathlessly, “you’d have to spank me later.”

He hummed in assent, his eyes intent on mine. “And what does that tell you, love?”

“That I’ll definitely address you as Your Highness in public quite often?” I fluttered my lashes at him and sent him a coy grin.

His chuckle let his power vibrate over mine, and it caused exquisite shivers down my spine and into sensitive areas of my body. “Your kinkiness notwithstanding,” he purred, “the message received should be that I do not consider you my subordinate. You are not beneath me.”

“I am in terms of rank,” I interrupted him. “Officially.”

He paused for a beat, his eyes shrewd as he mapped my face. “Then I shall change that.”

I snorted. “You can’t just?—”

“How did Lilith get her rank?”

I grimaced. “That’s different.”

“Oh? How so? She and Lucifer were not even married. They were bonded, not unlike what we have now. She received her standing because Lucifer willed it so. Because he enforced it. She was never his subordinate; she was his equal, by choice and by practice.” His gaze burned down to my soul, to where the pulse of our connection beat in sync with both our hearts. “As you shall be mine.”

“So,” I said, my voice a bit rough, “basically, it’s the same as before, when I was human? I’m of the same rank as you despite not having earned it? That’ll go over well with others.”

He shook his head. “The difference is that now you do have an enormous amount of power to back it up. Courtesy of our bond, you’re almost on par with me in terms of strength, and”—he lifted a finger to cut off my imminent protest—“even without our bond, you’d be nearly a seraph now.” He tapped that finger against my breastbone. “Because of what you carry within yourself naturally.”

“And thanks to Lilith,” I muttered. At his questioning look, I added, “Lucifer said the kernel of her power might have helped my strength develop much faster than it would have without it.”

“Quite possible, yes.” He nodded. “All of this to say, you’ll actually be respected and accepted as my equal much easier than Lilith ever was as Lucifer’s. With the exception of the seven archdemons, seraphim are the fewest among us. You’d outrank most of Hell already even without our bond.”

The unease in my chest loosened bit by bit as the realization of my new reality truly sank in.

It wouldn’t be like it had been before, when I’d had to endure the sneering condescension and thinly veiled scorn from demons around me in response to my perceived “shortcut” to a higher rank. After all, since I’d entered Hell as a newly made demon, it had already been different. The only open contempt I’d encountered had come from Samael, and I’d quickly and successfully put him in his place with my new demon power and thereby confirmed my rank.

It would be okay. Closing my eyes, I breathed out a sigh of relief, my shoulders relaxing.

Gone was the dichotomy of being a lowly human of artificially elevated rank. Gone the constant feeling of not measuring up, of being a fraud, a liability. That old fear of mine, risen in response to Azazel’s promise back when I’d been human that he’d enforce my rank through war and bloodshed, that anxiety of perhaps losing him on his climb to the top to protect me, it all finally dissolved in a sigh.

“You will rule at my side,” Azazel said with gentle conviction, his hands cupping my face once more. “And when I say that you are mine, I mean it in the same way that I am yours. My heart, my soul, my body, all of it belongs to you. My every waking moment, every minute of rest, it is yours. My dreams, my hopes, my fears, I place them all in your hands. You will stand next to me, never beneath me. I will turn to you for counsel, for guidance in not losing myself in the ravages of time and power, because you are my better half. You are my lodestar.”

My throat closed up, and hot tears flooded my eyes. The deep, aching love that filled my chest was only partly my own—some of it was the echo of what he felt right now, floating over to me through our bond.

He placed a soft kiss on my lips. “So don’t ever doubt that what I want from you, what I require of you, is not obedience but truth spoken without fear.”

I swallowed past the lump in my throat and blinked away the wetness in my eyes. “With one exception,” I said quietly.

“Oh? What’s that?”

“A case where a rule does not apply, but that’s not important right now.” I waved that away, biting back my grin.

His smile was so genuine and brilliant that it lit up all the shadowy corners of my heart. “Zoe,” he said, his voice woven through with a laugh.

“Okay,” I said, playing with the collar of his tunic. “I’ll tell you of the exception where you most definitely want me to be an obedient, good girl ”—I sent him a meaningful look from underneath my lashes—“but we really should be at home for that part.”

He stared at me for only a second.

Then he grabbed me around the waist, hoisted me up over his shoulder, and carried me to the nearest exit in record time, my giggles and the clicking of Vengeance’s claws echoing along the hallways.