Chapter 15

My eyes widened. My hands spasmed around the hilt. The sword trembled, more blood running down from the puncture point.

“What?” I whispered.

“You’re my wife,” he repeated, his voice gravel-torn rough.

I shook my head, my mind in shambles. “What are you talking about? If you mean this ring”—I flexed my left hand—“we never got married.” I bared my teeth. “That requires a ceremony and a sworn oath, not just some pretty words and a piece of jewelry.”

His throat worked as he swallowed, and despite myself, despite all the hurt and the bewilderment and the anger within me, a part of me wanted to press my face against his throat and breathe in his scent.

“Zoe—”

“Who’s Zoe?” I snapped.

“You are.”

His words stopped me cold.

“It’s your name,” he said softly. “Your human name, from your life before you were turned into an angel.”

All blood rushed from my face.

Feeling dizzy, I stared at him with wide eyes and a pounding heart, cold sweat making my hands clammy.

My human name?

The part of me that had been searching for even a speck of information about my past life sat up in stunned attention while my mind turned the name over and over.

Zoe… It rang with truth, the same kind I’d kept feeling when my visions came true.

“Explain,” I said tonelessly, shock stealing any emotion in my voice.

“Nine years ago,” he rasped, not even making the slightest attempt to swat away the sword pointed at his heart, even though my hold on it now was merely an afterthought, “when you turned twenty-five, I came to you to fulfill a contract you’d made with me when you were a teenager. You’d bound me to marry you should you still be single at twenty-five, and so we married, and I took you to Hell. I had every intention to lock you away and ignore you, but you”—the corners of his lips tipped up in the most indulgent, most affectionate smile I’d ever seen on his face—“you wouldn’t be ignored. You demanded my attention, my presence…my care. And despite my best efforts, you snuck underneath my defenses. You claimed me in a way no one else had ever dared. I fell for you, and you…for me.”

Breathlessly, I stared at him, my chest tingling, my stomach in knots.

“When Lucifer offered you the chance to annul the marriage and send you back to Earth,” he went on, “you chose me.” He swallowed hard, and his jaw flexed, emotion darkening his eyes. “You chose me,” he repeated in a husky voice. “Chose a life in Hell at my side rather than be sent back to Earth and forget me. And for a year, for one beautiful, blessed year, we were together, and those were the best months of my entire life. Until we were caught in the political games that led to the apocalyptic events eight years ago. You got stuck in your ghost form on Earth for too long, and it severed the connection between your body in Hell and your soul on Earth.” His dark lashes lowered, nearly hiding the glistening wetness in his eyes. When he spoke next, his voice cracked. “You died.”

I’d known that much. I had to have died to become an angel, but still, hearing him say it did something to me. Maybe it was an echo of the obvious pain he felt, maybe it was an instinctive reaction to a fact that defied emotional acceptance, but deep inside me, sorrow and hurt chimed together in a melody that made me want to sob.

“But you didn’t just become a ghost,” he continued after a moment. “You turned into a wraith, almost immediately. I held you in my arms as your spiritual form decayed by the minute, and I knew there was no time to bring you home and try to reconnect you to your body. I knew I was losing you. There was nothing I could do to save you…except call my father.”

“Your father,” I repeated numbly.

“Azrael. I begged him to make you ascend, and he did.”

My eyes shot wide, my heartbeat stumbling over itself. I knew it. I knew it! There was a reason they looked so much alike. But…“How? When I asked you, you said you had no family ties.”

“Officially, there are none. He renounced us.”

“Us?”

He hesitated a moment. “My mother, my sister, and me.”

My hands started trembling again as I still held the sword pressed against his chest, a sneaking suspicion making my stomach fizz. “Who is your mother?”

He looked half apologetic, half resigned. “Naamah.”

“Oh, my God!” My shock veered straight into anger again as the full weight of what he’d said settled down on me. I glared at him. “Are you telling me she’s been in on this? That the one real friend I made up here has only been hanging out with me because she wanted to help her son get close to me? That she’s been lying to me from the start?”

His sigh held a note of annoyance. “She really does like you?—”

“Who’s your sister?” I interrupted him. “If you tell me it’s Bifiel, I cannot be held liable for how I use this sword on you.”

He had the bad form to laugh. “No,” he said, inappropriate mirth glinting in his eyes. “I’d let you chop off my head if it were Bifiel.”

I uttered a sound that was half grunt, half growl.

“Her name is Azmodea,” he said after a moment, “and she’s in Hell. Same as my nephew. You were good friends with both. They adore you, and they want you to come home.” His voice lowered, longing etched into the hard lines of his face. “As do I.”

Home. I didn’t even have a concept of that word. It felt wrong to apply it to my place here in Heaven, and I had no recollection of what it had once meant to me when I’d lived on Earth. Not to mention I didn’t remember ever going to Hell and finding something like it there. With a demon.

I couldn’t wrap my mind around that. It all seemed far too fantastical, and considering I was an angel living in Heaven, with unicorns and supernatural powers, that was saying something.

The part of me bruised and beaten by finding out someone close to me had been hiding their identity and deceiving me—no matter the allegedly good intentions—didn’t want to blindly trust what Aziel was telling me. What if this was just another ruse? Just another lie? How was I supposed to take him at his word and accept that he was my long-lost demon husband?

“Zoe,” he said, not missing how I flinched at the name that at once seemed strange and yet strangely familiar. “I’ve been waiting years for this. To see you again, to be able to talk to you, touch you. I’ve been dreaming of the day I’d hold you in my arms again, to see you look at me fully knowing who I am. I’ve missed you. And I need you to come home. I need you to remember.”

I swallowed hard. “You’ve been lying to me since I met you in this cave. Now you want me to believe you, to just accept whatever you say as truth? How do I know you’re not lying to me right now?”

He shook his head. “I lied as little as possible. Most of what I told you is true, if maybe phrased carefully.”

“A lie of omission is still a lie!” I snapped. “You waltzed in here fully intending to deceive me. You hid who—what—you really are.”

Lightning gleamed in his eyes, a muscle feathering in his jaw. “And what would your reaction have been if I’d revealed my demon nature to you that very first day? Would you have even let me speak? Would you have given me a chance to explain? Or would you have run to report me to your superiors? Even now, after getting to know me and falling in love with me, you responded by nearly ramming your sword through my chest, barely willing to hear me out. Don’t tell me you’d have listened if I’d told you who I was right at the start.”

I clenched my teeth, unwilling to admit he was right.

His voice gentled as he went on. “I know you might not fully remember, at least not consciously, but those memories are there. I know they are. I’ve seen glimpses of them, moments over the past week when a scene from our past would play out word for word, and there was recognition in your eyes. Sometimes I’d nudge you there by trying to reenact a moment from our past; sometimes you’d come up with it yourself. Your memory of your human life is buried deep inside you, but slivers of it have been coming loose and rising to the surface. You want to know how to tell whether what I’m saying is the truth? Look inside you. It’s right there.”

I sucked in a breath. Memories… Those dreams I’d had. All those scenes that I’d thought were visions—could they have been memories instead? I mentally reexamined all the times I’d had that sense of knowing, of recognition, and had attributed it to part of a vision coming true.

And there were so many more dreams I remembered that hadn’t yet played out in reality. I’d chalked it up to them maybe relating to sometime farther in the future, that they might happen over the coming days, weeks, months, or even years.

Only that didn’t seem likely now. If I’d truly had visions of the future, and they featured Aziel, how could any more of those dreams come true after today? He was a demon in Heaven, and no matter my personal feelings about this, or him, or us, there wouldn’t be a future here for him.

And there were also some aspects of my dreams that had always seemed rather unrealistic, not likely to truly take place here in Heaven. I frowned as the image of a black cat rose up from the depths of my mind. A black cat with wings.

Such a creature did not exist in Heaven. But I’d seen it in a dream, the same dream that Mysterious Stranger—Aziel—had appeared in.

Dully, the throb of a headache started behind my temples.

Another image floated to me, another detail from a dream that did not fit my experience up here in Heaven.

“There was a dog,” I said, my voice but a whisper. “With three heads?”

His smile lit his eyes. “Her name is Vengeance. You picked her as your personal hellhound because you liked how clumsy she is.”

Vengeance. I knew that name. I knew that dog.

The pain in my head intensified, making me flinch.

“I’ve seen her,” I rasped. “In my dreams.” I licked my suddenly dry lips. “Same as you. I’ve been dreaming of you since I woke up here.”

He took a shuddering breath, the movement of his chest making the point of my sword slice further into his skin. “Dreams,” he said with a half smile.

On an impulse, I rushed to demand, “What is the other animal? Besides the dog, what is the other pet?”

Something he could only answer correctly if what he was saying was true. If those visions of mine weren’t actually visions, but memories. Memories that he shared.

“A hellcat.” His eyes glowed quicksilver as he steadily held my gaze. “A black cat with wings. He’s an obnoxious little shit with no sense of boundaries or sarcasm, but he’s loyal and intermittently helpful. You were the only person he ever allowed to pet him.”

“What’s his name?” I whispered, every word of his feeling like a missing puzzle piece clicking into place, confirming what I’d seen in my dreams.

“Mephistopheles.”

Mephisto. My eyes widened. I’d spoken that name in one of my dreams.

But I needed more, needed further confirmation. Something that couldn’t also be part of a vision of the future, something he could only know because it had already happened exactly like that.

“That moment with the dagger,” I said breathlessly. “The first day we met here, when you gave me that dagger and made me hold it against your throat.” I swallowed, my mouth feeling dry. “You asked me if we could talk. What did you say next? Not here in the cave, but in…the past. You said something else. What was it?”

I still remembered those words, had wondered why he hadn’t spoken them that day the dream had supposedly come true. Later, I’d chalked it up to the future being fluid, and changeable, thought that maybe not everything from a vision would necessarily play out exactly like I’d seen it.

Aziel lifted his chin. “I have never touched you with the intent to harm, and I never will.”

And every word of his was the death knell for my suspicious resistance to believing him.

Because he couldn’t know those words unless he’d said them in the past, in a shared history I didn’t remember…except in my dreams.

“It’s true.” My voice was hoarse as I refocused on Aziel, the floor falling out from under me. “It’s all true. You’re—I’m?—”

“Zoe,” he murmured, raising his hand to cup my face, his features ravaged by love and pain. “You’re my Zoe.”

My breath hitched, my chest constricting. Such love. There was such love in his voice, his words, the way he looked at me. Deeper than was possible from one week spent together. The kind of love grown over time, built on intimate knowledge of living together, of sharing a life, a home.

Home.

He was home.

And I’d forgotten him.

No. My memories had been stolen, torn from my consciousness and stuffed into a vault deep inside me, with only bits and pieces leaking out over time. My awareness turned inward as I tried to locate the place where my dreams and that sense of knowing originated from. I followed that thread of vague recollections, only to run into what felt like a wall.

“I can’t get through,” I muttered, my eyes unfocused. “I know it’s there, but I can’t get through the wall.”

The more I tried to claw at it, the heavier my headache became, until every beat of my heart made me wince with pain.

“Zoe…”

I looked at him through tears clouding my eyes, from the migraine, from the sorrow of knowing I held all the knowledge of our past yet couldn’t access it. “I want to remember you.”

“You will.” Steely assurance filled his voice. “We’ll work on it. I’ll help y?—”

He broke off, whipping his head to the side, acutely focused on the opening to the cave.

Through the haze of pain, I heard the flapping of wings only a second before their energy filled the room. It all happened so fast. Power arced in the air, hitting Aziel in a targeted blast. His back bowed and he screamed, the movement causing my blade to slide precariously close to his heart.

My cry of alarm, of shock, got stuck in my throat, fear paralyzing my limbs as half a dozen angels streamed into the cave, swords drawn and wings crackling with lightning.

Two figures stepped closer, their blades gleaming as they laid them against Aziel’s throat. He was trembling with what looked like aftershocks of a seizure caused by the blow of power he’d taken.

“Fiend,” the male angel said with a sneer at Aziel, and my heartbeat stumbled when I recognized him as Dahariel, the seraph directly superior to Derdekea, one rank underneath Raphael, our archangel. “Trespasser,” he hissed, his blue eyes sparking, the sunset colors painting his fair skin in warm hues. “Your foul energy has tainted this realm.”

“Chaya.”

I jolted at my name—that didn’t quite feel like my name anymore—my eyes darting to the other angel beside Dahariel, her sword aimed at Aziel’s throat as well. I blinked at Derdekea, who regarded me with something like pride on her face. Her silver-blond hair braided tightly to her head, she nodded at me, a smile adorning her face of deep brown.

“Well done,” she said. “Very impressive. To have subdued this demon all on your own, holding him here at sword-point. And to think, I’d written you off as not having a talent for warfare. I’ll have to revise my evaluation of you.”

“Wha—” I croaked, not even getting a whole word out, my throat too dry, my chest too tight. Pain pounded in my head, lancing through my heart.

“You can lower your sword now, soldier.” Derdekea gently laid her hand on mine, which was still holding the fucking blade with its tip sliced into Aziel’s skin. “We’ll take it from here.”

No.

No, this couldn’t be happening.

This wasn’t real.

They couldn’t take him.

They couldn’t drag him away now that I’d only just found him.

The headache ripping into me with serrated blades, my eyes met Aziel’s, his face twisted with pain from whatever magical hold Dahariel seemed to have on him.

But wasn’t Aziel a seraph, too? He was so powerful. I’d felt his strength, the impact of his magic. He was stronger than Dahariel. I wouldn’t stand a chance going up against just one of these angels—let alone six—but Aziel should be able to blast them all to fucking Hell if he so wished.

But he wasn’t fighting. He didn’t raise his power, didn’t burn them with his fire like I knew he could.

I caught his gaze just as Derdekea made me remove my sword from his chest, my eyes pleading with him as I still struggled to speak, my parched throat not making a sound. Why aren’t you fighting?

And then I saw the answer on his face as he looked at me with a heartbreaking combination of stubborn protectiveness and resignation and gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head.

He wasn’t using his power because doing so would hit me, too.

The kind of raw force necessary to fight off half a dozen high-ranking angels, among them a seraph, would kill every angel in this cave.

Including me.

Whatever had saved me during his outburst earlier wasn’t something I knew how to control, even if it had come from within me, and he had no reason to believe I could shield myself again if he unleashed his power.

“Chain him,” Dahariel barked, jerking his head at the angels next to him. “Let’s make sure he’s fully subdued.”

No. No, no, no.

I jerked forward without thinking, slamming against an arm.

“We’ve got it,” Derdekea said calmly, pushing me back. “You did well. Let us handle the rest. No need to defile your hands by touching him.”

Lightheaded, my heart in my throat and that fucking headache tearing painfully through my skull, I stared in agonizing paralysis as the angels stepped up to Aziel, one of them grabbing him by his hair and shoving him down face-first, while another yanked his arms behind his back.

Aziel’s face slammed down on the hard stone floor, the crack and thud making me heave.

A full-body tremble took hold of me, nausea rising in my gut, that pounding headache blurring my vision.

“Stop!” I croaked.

Derdekea looked at me askance, her silver-blond brows lowering over unfathomably dark eyes.

At that moment, Aziel bucked up with a snarl. “I dare you to fucking touch me, you angel bitch,” he spat, his eyes locked on me. “I’ll tear you to shreds and feast on your intestines.”

I reared back as if his words had hit me like a physical blow. What? Disoriented, I swayed on my feet, unable, unwilling, to process this change in him.

“Charming,” Derdekea drawled, her focus pulled off me and onto Aziel again, who now fought against his chains and the hold the angels had on him, like a wild animal backed into a corner. “Full of venom and spewing filth. Could you be any more of a cliché, hellspawn?”

When my eyes met his again, he shook his head the slightest bit, mouthing, Don’t.

Understanding clicked in my pain-addled mind, some sliver of reason piercing the haze of fear. He’d drawn Derdekea’s attention—and that of the other angels—from my suspicious outburst in order to protect me, yet again. He was thinking beyond this situation, whereas my brain was caught in shock and panic and helpless fear.

If I pleaded on his behalf, if I tried to stop them from arresting him, it would raise questions about my loyalties and possibly get me arrested as well. Right now, they believed me to have caught him, believed me to be an upstanding warrior angel who’d apprehended a demon invader.

If they suspected that Aziel and I were anything less than mortal enemies, if they caught even the slightest hint of there being a relationship beyond trespasser and alert guard, I’d lose any chance of actually being able to help him—not now, but later. Trying to get him out of this right now would be nothing short of madness. I’d have to play along and not risk my mask slipping, no matter what it cost me.

“Seems like he’s in need of a lesson.” Dahariel nodded at the angels standing close by. “Make him regret ever opening his fucking mouth.”

What happened next occurred in such close succession it seemed like an instant wrapped into a moment frozen in time, everything crashing over me like an avalanche of events and sensations.

Aziel still fought against the two angels holding him by the arms, his hands bound behind his back, but they jerked him up until he was on his knees—and then they held him there for the beating that rained down on him.

Two other angels, a male and a female, took turns punching and kicking, using the pommel of their swords to increase the impact of their blows. Blood sprayed, the sound of boots and fists striking flesh filled the room, and the crunch of bones breaking twisted something vital within me.

I wanted to yell, to rage, to weep at the sight of Aziel, the man I loved, being bloodied and broken right in front of me while there was nothing I could do.

Every strike seemed to echo inside me with the crack of a missile against a fortress wall, each blow joining the throb of pain from the migraine crawling through my system, until I couldn’t separate the sounds I heard from my own agony—until something deep inside me shattered in a violent burst.

A silent scream tore through me, my mind splintering, a furious kaleidoscope of images, sounds, tastes, and smells fracturing my thoughts. A floodgate opened, a dam broken, and through the rubble of a once heavy wall streamed a storm of memories that brought me to my knees.

All of it, all of it, from the earliest recollections of childhood to the last moment I’d looked at his face before the encroaching darkness of my transformation into a wraith had pulled the rug out from under my consciousness, all of it ravaged through me in a twisted tangle that overloaded my mind.

Before everything went dark, I clung to the name that rang with a truth reclaimed, that spoke to every part of my bleeding soul.

Azazel.