Chapter 17

Chapter 17

“So today went better,”Azmodea said, her voice muffled.

I turned my head to look over to where she lay face-down on the table, her auburn hair spilling out over the towel as the female demon massaged her exposed back.

I scoffed. “Because I only died twenty times instead of thirty?”

“It’s an improvement.”

Yeah, right.

The second female demon was currently kneading my calves, and I flinched with each deep tissue stroke. Practice today had left my muscles particularly sore.

I still didn’t know how Azazel managed to convince me to start combat training. I dimly remembered it might have something to do with a promise made under sensual torture involving wicked fingers and a skillful tongue.

A promise I regretted every day since.

There was a reason I’d never joined any competitive sports. I hated any form of ball games, mostly because my face seemed to attract said balls like an industrial strength magnet yanked metal close. I didn’t have enough fingers and toes to count the times I came home from school with a tissue stuck in my nose because a dodgeball/volleyball/soccer or insert-any-sport-with-a-head-sized-ball had hit me square in the face and made me snort blood.

I didn’t fare any better in gymnastics, track and field, or any of the other athletic activities. It was like my DNA was deeply suspicious of all forms of organized sports. Perplexingly, that reasonable explanation did not win over any of my PE teachers.

The only exercise I’d ever been halfway decent at was yoga, thanks to which I was nicely flexible. Pity that fact didn’t help me all that much when it came to fighting. I still landed flat on my ass more times than not, even when I was sparring with someone who pulled all their punches, like Caleb.

It was either him in the training ring with me, or Hekesha, and, occasionally, Azmodea, like today. Never Azazel. He only watched from the sidelines of the sparring hall, witnessing my repeated failures with barely banked heat in his eyes.

When I asked him why he didn’t train me himself, he shot me a dark look and said silkily, “Lack of motivation.”

“What?”

He crossed his arms. “Any time I’d best you, one way or another, we’d end up on the ground with me between your legs. You’d have no incentive to really fight me.”

He did have a point. So training with anyone else it was.

I’d been at this for two weeks, and only today did I manage to theoretically die a few times less than usual. I had no clue why Azazel thought it would make any sense to train me in combat, given the fact that I was and always would be a hundred times weaker than a half-blood. With no powers of my own, I wouldn’t last a minute. And if I had to go up against a full-blood demon, I’d be toast in a matter of seconds, combat training or no.

Still, I kept at it. A promise was a promise.

“So,” Azmodea said, flipping on her side to face me, “how have you been holding up?”

“With what?” Though I could guess what she was aiming at.

“Your father.” Her silver eyes held the glint of knowledge and old pain.

We’d touched the subject here and there in the days following my visit to Earth, though I didn’t tell her as much as I did Azazel. Still, it was nice to have someone else to talk to about this—someone who could also sympathize with a complicated paternal relationship.

My chest constricted, and I took a deep breath that would have hurt my bruised ribs if Azmodea hadn’t healed them right after practice. “I’m okay, I guess. I mean, okay-ish. It still hurts, but I have a feeling it always will. I don’t think about it all the time, but there are moments when it hits me. That he’s really gone. That I’ll never get a chance to talk to him about everything.”

“Grief comes in waves,” Azmodea said gently.

“Yeah. In those moments...I wish I were still living on Earth and sort of religious. Because then I’d believe I’d at least see him in Heaven at some point, you know? I now know that place is real, sure, but with me being down here, I also know I’ll never enter Heaven. So, even that little hope is a moot point.”

Azmodea was silent. Uncharacteristically silent. It was the kind of heavy pause in a conversation after someone said something truly shocking, unbelievably dumb, or so obviously wrong that the other party didn’t even know how to unpack that.

I lifted my head and stared at her. “What?” Oh, God, what kind of verbal blunder did I commit now?

Her eyes shimmering silver, she opened her mouth, closed it again, her expression somewhere between pity and pain. She nodded at the demon masseuses, and they left the room.

“What?”

“Zoe,” she began in the tone of voice used to deliver news of a loved one’s death, “your father is not in Heaven.”

I blinked at her. A chill grabbed my stomach and twisted. “What do you mean?” I whispered.

“He’s either a ghost on Earth—which is unlikely, because then you’d have seen him hang around his house when you were there—or, more likely, he’s...down here.”

“As a sinner?” I choked out.

She gave a tight nod.

The chill spread through my body. “Why?” I sat up, clutching the towel to my chest. “Because he’s an adulterer?” My opinion on his wrongdoing notwithstanding, that was ridiculous, draconian, incredibly Old Testament—

“Well, yes,” Azmodea cut into my thoughts.

My whole body tingled, and not in a good way. I couldn’t feel my legs. “That’s—that’s absurd!”

She shrugged. “It’s the law.”

“Well, it’s a shitty law!”

She sighed. “We don’t make the rules, Zoe. We just enforce them.”

No. Oh, no, no, no.

My mind was racing, thoughts tumbling one over the other.

“I thought Az told you…”

Her soft words yanked me out of the spiral of chaos in my head—and heart. I sucked in a breath, my stomach plummeting. “He knows?”

Azmodea sat up as well. “Zoe…”

My mouth tasted sour. I hopped off the table, got dressed in record time, and stormed out of the room, ignoring Azmodea’s calls.

Vengeance jumped up from her lounging position outside the massage room and trotted behind me as I marched through the hallways, nausea churning in my gut. The huge double doors to the training hall loomed in front of me. I pushed them open without breaking my stride.

The scent of sand and dirt and sweat hit me, mixed with the metallic tang of blood and weapons. In the center of the arena-like room, two shapes moved in a blur of strikes and parries. Blades clanged, swished and sang. Dust flew up and billowed around them. The two fighters moved too fast for me to actually see them, but I didn’t need my eyes to recognize Azazel. His power hovered in the air, a thick charge of honed violence and controlled, efficient brutality.

“Is it true?” I called out. My voice wavered, barely audible over the sound of the sparring.

And yet, Azazel stopped the fight immediately. He took one look at me, his features hardening, and jerked his head at his sparring partner. “Out.”

The other demon left so fast, one would think a hellhound snapped at his heels.

Azazel faced me, his bare chest heaving slightly. Sweat glistened on his bronze skin, his muscles flexing, the heat of battle licking over his formidable body. Any other time I’d have appreciated the sight of him all worked up and brimming with primal, masculine ferocity. Right now, though, I stared at him with nausea twisting my stomach, my hands clenched to fists at my sides.

“Is he here?” I rasped. “My father. Is he in Hell?”

The expression on his face was answer enough.

My breath hitched. “You knew. You knew, and you didn’t tell me.”

He moved closer, the sword loosely held in his hand, pointing down. A muscle feathered in his jaw. “And what good would it have done if I told you?”

“I would have—”

“What?” His tone sharpened. “You were grieving. And you’d like me to add to that pain?”

“It’s not about that,” I ground out, my heart thudding so fiercely I feared it might break out of my chest. “We could save him. Find his soul, and—I don’t know, get him out. You guys trade in souls all the time. So trade for him! If he’s yours, then you get to decide how—or if—he is tortured. You could just leave him be, couldn’t you? Or take him to Earth!”

The tiny muscles around his eyes twitched, his jaw hardening, as if he was trying his damnedest to remain calm against a surge of emotion. “Have you considered that his punishment is just? That there’s a reason he should be here? It’s not something we decide. We don’t drag innocent souls to Hell. They are already marked.”

“Then unmark him!” I was breathing heavily now, the thought of my dad’s soul suffering from who knew what kind of torture burning through me like nauseous acid. “Yes, what he did was shitty. He lied to us, he betrayed us, he hurt us, but—he shouldn’t burn in Hell for it. That’s for murderers and rapists, for fuck’s sake. He shouldn’t be here.” My eyes prickled hot, and I blinked furiously against the impending threat of tears.

“There’s nothing I can do for him,” Azazel said, a horrible finality in his voice.

“Please.” My throat clogged up. “Please, you have to find him. I can’t just leave him here. If you could just find out where—”

“I already know.” His rough interruption cut me off. “I know exactly where he is.”

Startled, I closed my mouth and stared at him. A storm of epic proportions hid behind his eyes, glimpses of violently leashed, frustrated rage showing in the fiery cracks in his skin.

“Lucifer has him,” he said through gritted teeth.

The floor fell out from under me. My vision went a little sideways.

“There’s an archive,” he went on, “where all souls are logged. Their names, their origins, who caught them, and where they are kept now. I made an inquiry after we returned. A demon from Lucifer’s territory captured your father’s soul, brought it down here, and then traded it up. It has been added to the cattle in Lucifer’s personal demesne.”

Cattle. I choked on my breath, and bile rose up my throat. I covered my mouth with my hand.

“There’s no trading for him, Zoe. There’s no buying him out. Not with Lucifer. Not with our history. As soon as I ask him for this one particular soul, it’ll paint a target on your father’s back. Lucifer will keep him just to spite me. And do not ever underestimate how astute he is—by now I’m sure he’ll know about you as my ‘pet,’ and if I ask him for your father’s soul, he’ll put two and two together and will probably pour acid on him in front of me just to see if I flinch.”

I staggered back, the image of my father screaming in agony as his spiritual skin corroded under acid far too vivid in my mind.

“If his soul were in another demon’s territory,” Azazel continued, his voice low and rough, “I’d have options. Depending on the demon’s rank, I could either sneak in and steal it, or march in there and take it by brute force. I can’t do that with Lucifer. His demesne is the best guarded among all the domains in Hell. Anything I could try would be akin to suicide. There’s no scenario where I would come out of this on top.” His hand flexed around the sword hilt. “That’s why I didn’t tell you. I didn’t want to give you false hope before I knew where his soul was, and after I found out—telling you would only hurt you.”

With my hand still covering my mouth, I met his gaze, my entire body trembling.

My father was here, in the same realm as me, and yet he might as well have been in a different dimension. I couldn’t help him. He would suffer, day in and day out, for who knew how long, while I stood by, powerless to do anything.

The irony. The goddamn irony of it all. My estranged father, who’d ruined our family, ended up in Hell, and instead of it making me rejoice for poetic justice, it broke my heart. And here I was in Hell, married to a demon, but instead of it giving me any sort of power to change my father’s fate, all it gave me was a lesson in helpless anguish.

A sound of despair escaped my tightened throat.

Despite all the hurt he’d caused me and my mom, despite years of pain and resentment and broken childhood dreams, the thought of him being tortured shattered something inside me, a small, soft part that had stubbornly resisted calcification under bitter cynicism.

How could I live here knowing he was being ripped apart? There was no way I could ever relax, smile or laugh, with the certainty of his suffering hanging over me like a toxic storm cloud.

I couldn’t shake the image of my father’s soul being tortured, over and over, with acid and hellhounds and fire and a thousand ways I couldn’t even fathom. The cries and wails of the damned souls echoed in my mind, the piercing agony in their voices making me taste bile.

Nausea bubbled in my stomach, boiled up, up, up until I gagged. Convulsing under a violent tremor, I sank to my knees and vomited.

I barely noticed Azazel kneeling beside me, holding my hair back. My guts twisted, bucked, and I puked, over and over, until my throat burned, my stomach ached as if grated to shreds, and nothing came up anymore. Still, I dry-heaved, shivering uncontrollably. Tears ran down my face, and I gasped for air.

Azazel’s arms closed around me, pulled me to him. White-hot anger sparked in my veins. I jerked and tried to get out of his hold. He didn’t let me go. With the kind of unshakable patience that drove my irrational fury only higher, he held me tight as I fought him like a wildcat.

I bucked and writhed, pummeled his chest, angry, so fucking angry, at him, at this fucked-up situation, at this fucking twist of fate that put me in the care of the one demon in Hell who was so high on Lucifer’s shit list that he couldn’t even ask for a single soul. Fury seared me from the inside out, and I screamed, striking out in a mindless rage. My knuckles hurt from the blows, but I kept punching his chest and shoulders…until a whisper of a memory stalled me.

He needed an outlet for his wrath, and I was conveniently handy.

Gasping, I pulled my shaking hands back, curled them against my chest.

Oh, God.

The conversation about Azazel’s past came back in a flash, and a full-body tremble took hold of me. Lucifer had turned his fury on Azazel because the real target hadn’t been available, and so he punished Azazel by proxy.

And I…I just did the same. It wasn’t Azazel I was angry with. Not really. He didn’t do anything wrong. It wasn’t his fucking fault he had a sadistic psychopath for a grandfather, and this entire goddamn situation wasn’t his fault either. I was mad at Lucifer for his petty family feud that made it impossible to help my father, but because Lucifer wasn’t here…I lashed out at Azazel.

Just like Lucifer.

Something twisted painfully in my chest. My breath was little more than a wheezing shudder, and fresh tears sprang to my eyes, burning like the shame now creeping up my throat.

“I’m sorry,” I rasped, laying a shaking hand on his chest, my fingers trembling against skin I’d been hitting just seconds before. “I’m so sorry.” A sob punched its way out of me, and my voice broke. “I didn’t mean to—I’m sorry.” I kept on apologizing, crying, stroking his chest, in a helpless attempt at soothing the hurt I’d caused him.

He pulled me closer, his energy a raw, biting charge in the air. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse, at odds with the intended lightness of his words. “You barely tickled me.”

I couldn’t even smile at that, the heaviness in my chest snuffing out all amusement. Shaking my head, I stroked him some more with trembling hands, my breath hitching.

His hot breath fanned the top of my head as he kissed my hair. “You’re nothing like him,” he said in a harsh whisper.

I sagged against him, deflated, weary with the overload of feeling too much and nothing at all.

Azazel held me while I wept in silence. It wasn’t until much, much later, when he carried me out of the training ring, that I noticed the pattern of sand-turned-glass on the floor all around where he’d sat cradling me.

The kind only a fire of immense heat would cause.

* * *

In the week that followed,I moved through the days like a ghost. It was like a fog descended over me, a perpetual veil of numbness that separated me from life. Numbness that I clung to with both hands—because I knew with instinctual clarity that if I let one emotion in, all the others would come rushing in as well, the devastation about the situation with my father most prominent among them. And once I felt that again...I wouldn’t function at all.

So I went through the motions, there but not, knowing I couldn’t go on like this but unable to flip whatever switch needed flipping in my head to change it. Azazel tried to engage me as much as possible, and I tried to go along… Perceptive as he was, however, he knew my heart wasn’t in it, and when even his usually surefire sensual persuasiveness failed to draw me in, he stopped trying.

I fully anticipated him to back off completely, given my lack of enthusiasm for basically anything, but to my surprise—numbed by the fog that stubbornly lingered—he still came to me at night. In sleep, the veil I so clung to during the day would become fragile, tearing to reveal the horrors I repressed, and I’d wake from a nightmare of fire and pain and being a helpless witness to my father’s torture—and Azazel would be there, a solid, soothing presence next to me, petting me down from my panic.

During the day, he made himself increasingly scarce. His withdrawal would have seriously hurt me, if my own apathy weren’t the damn reason for it in the first place, and if my numbness had allowed for any emotion more acute than a slight sting. As it was, the fog shielded me from the roaring pain I knew loomed on the other side of this widening chasm, and all I could do was watch the distance grow.

Until that day Hekesha came knocking on my door, frantic in a way I’d never seen her.

“You need to come,” she pressed out, her face ashen.

“Where?”

“Just...come.” She swallowed and added, “Please.”

Something like worry pierced the fog. It was a rare moment when Hekesha would voluntarily offer such niceties. Usually she’d just glare or grunt.

“Okay,” I slowly said, following her out into the hallway. “What’s going on?”

She didn’t answer—a glimpse of her usual Hekesha-ness—just kept walking ahead at a brisk pace until she got to a door. Gingerly, she opened it.

I sucked in a breath. What greeted me was a level of destruction that shook me even in my numbed state. Splintered pieces of what once was furniture littered the room, half charred, some of it still smoldering, the rugs on the floor partially burned, liberally showered in glistening shards of glass. Ash swirled in the air, along with what looked like sooty scraps of paper floating on a phantom wind, and behind it all, on the wall, the seared remains of shelves.

I knew this room. I’d been here before, when I explored the mansion. It was some sort of study, with scrolls tucked into antique bookcases, a massive desk, and comfortable chairs to lounge on next to an armoire filled with liquor and drinking glasses.

All of that old-world, sophisticated coziness was smashed to smithereens, as if a fiery tornado had ravaged the room.

And in the middle of the destruction, on the one untouched chair, sat Azazel. His head bent, his elbows on his knees, hands clasped together, he was as still as a statue. Behind his back, his wings rose, the unforgiving black of the feathers seeming to swallow the light spilling in from the hallway.

“He’s been like this for hours,” Hekesha whispered from behind me. “We don’t know what to do. It’s weirding us out.” She gave me a small shove forward. “Fix him.”

“What?” I whispered back, rooted to the spot. I had no idea how to handle this. “What do you expect me to do?”

“Just do what you’ve been doing that made him happy before,” she said under her breath. “You were good at that. Go do that some more.”

And before I could protest—or marvel at the unexpected compliment she’d just given me—she shoved me into the room and closed the door behind me.

With the light of the hallway cut off, the room fell into almost complete darkness. Only the last embers of a not quite extinguished fire on a rug in the corner illuminated the gloom. No flames danced over Azazel’s wings. They were pitch-black, hiding him in the near darkness of the room.

It took my eyes a minute to adjust to the low lighting, and I squinted at the shape I knew to be him in the center of the room.

“Azazel?” I asked tentatively, my heart thumping in my chest like a trapped animal.

I wasn’t scared of him. Not really.

Thumpthumpthumpthumpthump.

Okay, maybe a little.

I inched forward, my shoes crunching glass, until I stood close enough to him that I could reach out and touch his head. With a slight tremble to my hand, I did just that. As soon as my fingers brushed his hair, iridescent flames ignited all over his wings. The darkness receded a little.

“Azazel?” I ventured again. My pulse was a roar in my head. “What happened?”

I cautiously let my hand glide down to his face, and he turned ever so slightly into my touch. His sigh echoed loudly in the deafening silence of the room.

“There is a festival,” he said, his tone inscrutable. “It commemorates the Fall from Heaven. Every year, high-ranking demons come to join the festivities at Lucifer’s court. All members of his own family have a standing invitation…including me. I haven’t gone in over two thousand years.” The flames on his wings flared brighter, and an edge crept into his voice. “It’s not the kind of company I enjoy.”

Of course not. I swallowed hard. If this shindig was held at Lucifer’s court, it would be like walking back into his own personal nightmare, what with demons being so long-lived that many of the ones who were there when he was a boy and witnessed his abuse would still be present today. My thumb stroked over his temple, a helpless caress.

“An RSVP is required to attend,” he continued, “even with a standing invitation. This year, I responded with yes.”

I stilled. My heart skipped a beat.

“The festival takes place in Lucifer’s palace.” A tense pause. “In the bowels of which your father’s soul is being kept.”

I had trouble breathing.

“Attending the festival is the only way to enter the palace without drawing undue attention. The festivities are notoriously chaotic, and it would be easy to slip away from the crowds.” His wings flared. “And to search and find a soul in the pits.”

My hand trembled against his cheek.

“I thought it was a good plan,” he said, darkness weaving between his voice, “if a bit dangerous.” He shrugged. “But doable. Get in, slip away, grab the soul, get out.”

Dizziness threatened to creep in from the sides, the ominous shadow of what he wasn’t yet saying encroaching on my mind.

“And then I received this.”

A note appeared in his hand. He held it out to me.

I took it with trembling fingers. Unfolding it, I squinted at the script I could barely make out in the dark. “A little light,” I whispered.

The tapestry behind me went up in fresh flames, casting an orange glow over the paper.

My dearest grandson,

I am delighted you have chosen to grace us with your presence at this year’s commemoration of the Fall from Heaven. I am looking forward to seeing you again. — L

PS: Please make sure to bring along your new pet. I cannot wait to make her acquaintance.

Dread spread inside me on icy claws, chilling me down to my soul. My breathing flattened, as if someone had dropped a boulder on my chest.

“I had every intention,” he ground out, “to leave you out of this. The very last place I want to take you is that hellforsaken palace. He hasn’t shown an interest in me in over a millennium, and I thought—” He clenched his jaw so hard, the planes of his face seemed to rearrange themselves. “I didn’t think my RSVP would draw any attention. There will be close to a thousand demons in attendance—I should have been conveniently anonymous.” His voice dropped to a growl. “But he noticed. He noticed, and with him personally requesting your presence, I have no other choice. I can’t back out, and I can’t leave you here.” He lifted his head and met my gaze for the first time since I entered the room. The flicker of violent lightning in his eyes revealed a glimpse at the unmitigated rage he’d let loose on the room earlier. “You’re going to accompany me to the Fall Festival, and you’re going to meet Lucifer.”

The room spun. Or maybe that was my head. I grabbed his shoulder for purchase, dizziness a buzz in my veins.

“I have no idea,” he continued in a low voice, “what he intends to do, but whatever it is, we’ll get through it, and then we’ll grab your father’s soul and get out of there.”

My eyes widened. “You’re still planning to go through with it?”

His energy was an electric hum in the air, his tone lethally soft. “If I am to enter that palace to face that wretched fucker again—and drag you there with me—I will damn well not waste the opportunity to steal a soul right from under his nose.”

I sucked in air, light-headed. “Okay,” I wheezed.

He leveled a stare at me that raised the hairs on my arms with its intensity. “You are not to leave my side. Ever. When I slip away to get your father’s soul, you’re coming with me, because I sure as fuck will not let you out of my sight for even one minute. Not at his court.”

All I could do was nod. I didn’t really trust myself to speak.

“The festival takes place in two weeks,” Azazel continued. “You will need to step up your combat training routine.”

Like that would make a difference should I face a demon attacker. I’d be mincemeat in under a minute.

His gaze was calculating as he studied me. “No one will expect you to be trained even a little, so whatever defensive skill you can show may buy you a few crucial seconds. Like I said, you will not leave my side, and a moment’s delay on the part of an attacker could help me defend you.” The hint of a wry smile touched his mouth. “And you’ll need to strengthen your mental shields again.”

Dammit.

The enormity of the situation hit me then. The sheer danger and impossibility of it. We were going to infiltrate Lucifer’s palace to get my father’s soul out. While I was numb with grief, Azazel had been planning this, plotting to go back into his own personal nightmare…for me. So I’d be happy again.

With my hand still on his cheek, I went down on my knees in front of him so our faces were level. I kissed him gently, my breath trembling, all my layers unraveled and raw before him. Holding his stormy gaze, I swallowed hard, found my voice and whispered, “Thank you.”

* * *

A weekafter the ill-fated note from Lucifer arrived, Azmodea blazed into the training ring where Azazel and I were currently sparring. My demon husband finally deigned to take over my combat training, to better correct my style, as he said. The fact I now had to go up against an unfairly hot demon whose naked chest slicked by sweat seemed to evaporate my brain cells only compounded my already weak “style.”

Which was why, when Azmodea blasted through the doors of the training hall, I was currently with my back on the ground, Azazel straddling me with a look somewhere between resignation and easily kindled lust.

“Why,” Azmodea called out, “by the nine circles of Hell, would you go back into that snake pit of a palace? And more importantly, why would you go without me?”

The look of resignation on Azazel’s face deepened, and with a sigh, he turned his head to his sister. “I take it Daevi told you?”

Hands on hips, Azmodea glared. “You know she did. She just didn’t know why.”

Taking a deep breath, Azazel came to his feet with a grace that should have been at odds with his size, yet seemed to make perfect sense, like the elegant fluidity of a panther. He offered me a hand and hauled me up in a show of easy strength when I accepted.

“Here,” he said and handed me a bottle of water he’d summoned, then turned to Azmodea with a calculating expression. “We’re going to steal a soul from Lucifer.”

Azmodea summoned an entire settee, plopped down on it with a flourish, put her chin in her hand and batted her lashes. “Do tell.”

And he did. While he laid out the situation and our plan, I limped over to the settee and gingerly sank down on it, chugging my water and contemplating the weird turns my life had taken to lead me to the point I was plotting a soul heist with two demons in Hell.

“You will need a distraction,” Azmodea eventually said after Azazel finished.

He cast her a look. “Obviously.”

“Once Lucifer gets his claws in you in front of the court, he won’t let you go without an intervention.”

Azazel said nothing, but a muscle feathered in his jaw.

“Don’t worry.” Azmodea leaned back with a smirk. “I have just the thing.”

“Not the bats.”

She waved that away. “Much better, darling.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Tell me.”

“Ah-ah. I won’t ruin the surprise. Trust me, it’ll cause the most delicious chaos.”

He raised a brow at that.

Turning to me as if only now remembering I was sitting right next to her, Azmodea asked, “Has he brought you up to speed on the court?”

“Uh…”

She shot Azazel an arch look. “Come on. She needs to know the basics of the who-is-who so she won’t accidentally insult anyone.” Facing me again, she patted my knee. “I’ll draw you a family tree and a diagram of the alliances. But the most important thing to remember is that besides Lucifer, the person with the most power at court is Lilith.”

I paused with the bottle raised to my lips. “Wait. The Lilith? As in the apocryphal first wife of Adam?”

“Very good,” Azmodea purred.

It was among the large collection of random facts I’d picked up over the years. The way my brain worked, I’d forget what I wanted to buy without making a list, but I could reference jump through ten articles on Wikipedia and remember weird details like this one subspecies of Canadian wolves who lived entirely off fish.

So, likewise, I had at some point learned that according to some non-canonical biblical texts, Adam had another wife before Eve, but she refused to obey him like a good little subjugated wifey, so she was cast out of Eden. Not a big stretch to see how her legend was a goldmine for feminist religious theory.

If you saw past the part where she was later demonized—literally—and became known as a baby-eating monster.

And now, apparently, I was going to meet the real-life version of her. Yay?

“Is she…a demon too? Some of the texts say she is.”

Azmodea shook her head. “No, sweetie. Humans don’t just become demons. Although she definitely is more than human now. Thousands of years down here have changed her…” She stared off with a pondering expression.

“She’s bonded to Lucifer,” Azazel said, his eyes on me. “Not unlike we are.”

My eyebrows shot up. “They’re married?”

“No,” Azmodea cut in. “Marriage was invented after their union.” She sucked her teeth, a small smile playing about her mouth. “She’s the reason Lucifer fell.”

My eyebrows shot up. “I’ll need to hear that story.”

“Ah,” Azmodea sighed, tilting her head and looking at the ceiling. “The great romance of the ages.”

Azazel made a very un-Azazel-like snort.

“What?” Azmodea pinned him with a look. “He might be a bag of shit in the family department, but his devotion to her is epic.” To me, she said, “Lilith was the first woman, God’s first daughter, and quite beloved at that. God paired her with Adam, and they were to create human life on Earth. Bummer was, Adam was a bore. Lilith couldn’t stand him. She refused to lie with him—that’s biblical for fucking—”

I spit out my drink.

“—which enraged God, as you can imagine,” Azmodea continued blithely. “No human life without ye olde horizontal tango, ya know?”

“Doesn’t need to be horizontal,” Azazel muttered.

I choked on the rest of the water that was stuck in my throat, tears in my eyes. They really needed to stop before I suffocated from laughing too much.

Azmodea patted my back. “There, there, dear. Anyway, Lucifer meanwhile had fallen in love with Lilith. He was still an angel at the time, the brightest star of Heaven. He’d been watching Lilith in Eden, and when she rejected Adam, he swooped in and made his move. Stole her from right under Adam’s nose, you could say. Well, it’s important to note that she wanted to be stolen.” She wagged her brows. “God found out, of course, and things went downhill from there. Lucifer was kicked out of Heaven and cast down into Hell, Lilith got thrown out of Eden and cursed to roam the barren wilderness alone, and Adam got a new woman, this time with a bit less of an ‘attitude problem.’” She made air quotes.

“But she still disobeyed the order not to eat from that tree, though, right? Is that true?”

“Yep. That was Lucifer’s revenge. He clawed his way out of Hell for that one, snuck into Eden and seduced both Adam and Eve to eat from the tree.”

“Both?”

“Sure did. Not that the old men writing these stories down left that little tidbit in there.” She winked at me. “But that wasn’t the end of it. While on the earthly plane, Lucifer sought out Lilith and offered to take her with him, to rule Hell as his equal. She accepted, and he brought her down here. God didn’t like that either, so he took Lilith back.”

I pursed my lips. “I take it that didn’t go over well?”

Azmodea gave a small huff. “Caused the war between Heaven and Hell. See, Lucifer had managed to rally support among his former brethren in Heaven, and there was a good-sized contingent of rebel angels who opposed Lucifer’s punishment. He gathered them around him and attacked Heaven. It was an epic battle, and contrary to what is generally known, God didn’t win. Would he have won eventually? Maybe.” She shrugged. “We’ll never know, because he offered a deal. Lucifer would get Lilith back if he agreed to stay in Hell for all eternity, never to set foot on Earth again, and if he took up the task of punishing the sinners for God. Lucifer agreed, and the truce has held ever since.”

“All that is to say,” Azazel followed up, “that to wrong Lilith is to incur Lucifer’s wrath like nothing else. His devotion to her has not abated in thousands of years.” He gave me a look from underneath his lashes. “Be careful when you speak to her.”

I swallowed past the knot of unease in my throat. “Got it.” Frowning, I added, “Wait. If Lucifer and Lilith are such an item, how come he had a child with Daevi?” Devoted, my ass.

Azmodea smirked. “Whoever said their relationship is exclusive?”

My expression must have shown my bafflement, because Azmodea gently added, “Devotion and love don’t equal monogamy. Consensual polyamory is a thing, you know.”

My cheeks heated. “I do know that,” I muttered.

“Both Lucifer and Lilith are happy to invite others into their bed,” Azmodea went on. “It’s quite common among our kind. Demons like to share.”

“Not all of us,” Azazel said silkily, his eyes full of lightning as he looked at me.

My face burned even hotter. “Good,” I whispered, and sent him a small smile.