Chapter 14

Zoe

He’d left?

What the fuck?

I gritted my teeth with enough force to pop a muscle. Anger was quick to rise to the surface, sizzling across my nerves and heating my skin. How…? Why…? He’d hightailed it out of here the second after we made love? Just like that? He’d dropped me, letting me plop into the water like some rejected fish after a haul, and then he’d run away with angel speed before I could say, Excuse the fuck out of you?

That was so…so…

I paused, my brain catching up with the swiftness of my emotions.

…uncharacteristic of him.

Frowning, I took a minute to think things through. Standing there in the steaming pool, the water lapping at my chest, I took stock, laying out all the facts.

The Aziel I knew wouldn’t have left me hanging like that. The angel I’d fallen in love with, the one I’d seen in my dreams, and the one I’d come to know over the past week would never disappear without a word, especially not after we’d just made love, something I knew meant as much to him as it did to me.

The love he’d professed, the way he’d laid bare his heart, the fact that he’d claimed me for eternity, none of it felt like a lie. I knew in my gut that it was all true.

Which meant he hadn’t left out of some nefarious motivation.

It had to be something else.

I thought back to the moments right before he’d run away. There’d been something different about him, and not just the effect of our lovemaking. His power had felt strange, a twist to his energy that had been…off somehow.

It had almost felt like flames burning my skin—but angels were impervious to fire.

What was left of my anger dissipated in a rush of concern.

Something was wrong with him. That was why he’d fled.

I hauled in air and waded out of the pool as fast as I could. Jumping out, I summoned my clothes from the other cave and got dressed in record time, my heart beating a mile a minute.

I had to find him. Whatever was going on, I had to try to help.

Oh, God, I really, really hoped I could help.

Hurrying out of the cave with the hot springs, I stopped in the corridor and scented the air, feeling for his power. I needed to figure out which direction he’d gone, left or right.

It was the twist, that strange note to his energy, that made it even possible for me to follow him. It hung heavy in the air, growing stronger when I moved to the right. His power had an acrid scent to it now, and the more I jogged in the direction of where it came from, the more it felt like I was running toward a furnace.

A muffled yell sounded from somewhere up ahead, and I ran faster, worry tightening my throat. My pulse thundered through me, quicker than the slap of my boots against the stone.

The corridor opened up into another cave, smaller than the one we’d sparred in, but apparently this one also featured an entrance. Through a large gap in the opposite wall, the multicolored light of the eternal sunset sky shone in from the outside—and illuminated Aziel’s hunched-over form.

He was kneeling on the ground with his back to me, his fists pressed into the stone. His head hung forward, and his shoulders heaved with his labored breaths.

And his power…dear God.

It seemed to boil the very air around him, distorting it like the desert heat. And it tasted like…ash. The acrid scent of something burned to a crisp threaded through his energy, with a note of?—

I swallowed, my stomach hollowing out at the horrifying, logic-defying suspicion that was creeping up on me.

Because there was only one reason that his power would carry the scent of sulfur.

But it couldn’t be. He couldn’t be?—

“Aziel?” I asked, my voice reed-thin, my eyes filling with water…not just in response to the pungent smell in the air. My heart reacted to what my mind was still not quite grasping.

A breath, a pause—and then his power burst into flames, an eruption of fire that shot toward me.

I acted without thinking, throwing up my arms to shield myself with a wave of my own magic, even knowing instinctively that I wouldn’t stand a chance, my angel powers not nearly strong enough to counter this kind of energy. I ducked and screamed, closing my eyes.

From deep within me, a spark of power swelled and surged, rushed through me, and exploded outward one second before the wave of fire hit me. A blast of light, so blindingly bright it nearly seared my eyes through my closed lids, and then the air shook, the floor trembled, and the sound of a gust of wind slapping against a hard surface made my ears ring.

My breath coming in ragged gasps, I opened my eyes. Aziel lay a few feet away, half-crumpled against a broken stalagmite. His bare upper body was wreathed in flames, his skin cracking to reveal slashes of what glowed like lava underneath, and singular spots of fire scattered on the ground around him burned.

Fire that tasted of death and darkness.

I sucked in a breath as I recognized it with instinctual awareness for what it was, where it came from…and what it meant.

I might never have met a demon before, but every angel would know one on sight, their very energy the antithesis of our own, the inversion of the light and life woven into our being. The realization of what I faced swept through me with the swiftness of a battering storm, leaving me shaking and my heart in tatters.

I stared at the angel I’d fallen in love with…who wasn’t an angel at all.

Tears of rage sprang up and burned my eyes, the shock giving way to the worst kind of feeling twisting my soul—betrayal. It corroded my chest, tearing through my flesh, eroding all sense of security, warmth, and love.

I’d given him my heart, my body, my soul, and all this time, he’d been my natural-born enemy, tricking me with the cold cruelty his kind was known for. Had this all been a game to him? Was I some kind of prize, a challenge to be won? Had he set me up to fall for him as some sort of fucked-up joke?

Or was his presence here part of something bigger? Had he been sent by Hell, be it Lucifer or a rogue group trying to infiltrate Heaven? And was I simply a nice little side quest on his mission to spy for Hell?

Sneak into Heaven—check. Go undercover and work on nefarious agenda—check. Bonus: seduce unsuspecting angel—double check.

Aziel’s groan as he hoisted himself up to sitting made my focus zero in on him again. Rage heating my blood, I summoned my sword—the sword he’d given to me—from the other cave, and with a yell of primal wrath, I swung for him.

I halted with the tip of my blade pressing into his chest, right above his heart. With his torso unprotected by his armor, the point sank into his skin a fraction of an inch, drawing blood. It ran down his chest in a bright red rivulet.

He sucked in a breath at the attack, his eyes flying open, that swirling silver so fucking familiar, a hated reminder of all those times he’d gazed upon me with feigned affection.

The love I’d believed in was nothing but smoke and mirrors.

“I trusted you!” I bit out, tears blurring my vision. I furiously blinked them away. “I trusted you, and you lied to me. You deceived me. I gave you my love, and you fucking lied to me!”

My tears spilled over, hot and damning.

His lips parted, those storm-swept eyes of his softening. “You’re still an angry crier.”

I frowned, confusion mixing with the rage inside me. I’d never shed tears of anger in front of him before. How the fuck would he know this about me?

I gritted my teeth and chased that question away. “And you,” I snarled, pushing my sword infinitesimally farther into his chest, “are a demon. My enemy. Did you enjoy playing me for a fool? Did you have a laugh every time I opened my heart further to you?”

“Chaya…” he said, his face so soft, his voice so gentle despite the threat of my blade against his chest.

My heart twisted, the pain exquisite and all-consuming. I couldn’t separate the demon I saw in front of me from the angel I’d fallen in love with, and yet every part of my conditioning screamed, Enemy! My angel nature, the core of me that was inextricably linked to this realm and the power of God, demanded that I subdue him to eliminate the threat.

By rights, I should have immediately stunned him and then notified the authorities so they could arrest him.

Yet my arms trembled as I grasped the hilt, hesitating, waiting. The light of the sunset sky caught on the ring on my left hand, the jewel glinting as my hands shook—the ring he’d given me with the promise of his love, words spoken with such devotion, such truth to them, that I’d felt it in my soul.

Had it been a lie? Or had any of it been true?

“You’re a fucking demon,” I ground out, torn inside, rage and heartbreak and confusion and the vaguest sense of knowing staying my hands. “You’re trespassing in Heaven in violation of the truce that was struck. Tell me why I shouldn’t shove my sword through your heart and hand you over to my superiors!” I pressed the blade just a little more into his skin. “Give me one good reason!”

His eyes were lit by silver flames as he caught my gaze and slowly, distinctly said, “You’re my wife.”