Chapter 7

Chapter 7

I startedwith practicing to draw the sigil on the notepad. Before I spilled my own blood for this, I needed to make sure I could write the symbol perfectly.

Once satisfied I could reproduce it without issue, I laid down the pen, found a free area of wall that could reasonably accommodate a door—and realized I still needed something to cut myself with.

My razor. I retrieved it from the bathroom, along with a towel to wad up excess blood, and went back to my spot in front of the wall. Heart pounding, hands clammy, I stared at the blade in my fingers, hovering over my lower arm.

No way was I cutting myself in the palm. While it was the spot of choice in pretty much all movies and books requiring a pact or an offering of blood for a spell or some such, I’d once read the plea of a fiction-loving doctor who argued that the palm was one of the worst places to make a cut—it was full of nerves, much more so than the lower arm, for example. Same was true for a fingertip. And it would be a pain in the ass to heal, what with how often you flexed your hand and used it for grasping something.

So, lower arm it was.

I just had to make sure I didn’t cut any of the veins. I needed a certain amount of blood for the sigil, but not a stream.

My breath was uncomfortably loud in the silence of the room. Hand shaking, I still stared, unable to move, to take that step. I’d never hurt myself on purpose before. It was a lot harder to deliberately slice my own flesh than I’d thought.

I could scratch you.

I froze at the voice in my head. Slowly, I turned to look up at the ceiling, and wouldn’t you know it, the hellcat sat lurking half-concealed in the shadows right above me. The firelight reflected in its luminous eyes, and its tail swished languidly in the air.

“Um, no.” I cleared my throat. “No, thanks.”

I’d be careful. Just a scratch.Its wings flared a little. And I’d lick it clean right after.

“Yeah, no. That’s what I’m worried about.” I gave it some major side-eye.

Its claws scraped over the rafters as it shifted its weight, and I had the impression it was faintly amused.

Great, just great. I’d probably have to incinerate the bloody towel afterwards just to make sure my live-in fire extinguisher monster didn’t snack on it and develop a taste for my blood.

Okay. Deep breath in. Deep breath out. Steady hand...and cut.

Before I could waver again, I sliced the razor over the outside of my lower arm. The pain was sharp, but abated quickly, then settled into a more dull throbbing. I’d cut myself while shaving before, and it mostly just hurt when water hit the wound or the skin pulled tight when I moved. Hopefully this wouldn’t be that much different.

Blood welled at the cut, and I touched my finger to it.

Showtime.

Thankfully, the stone wall was smooth enough to draw on, and I wrote the sigil as best I could in continuous strokes, touching my finger again to the gash in my arm when I needed more blood. Upon finishing the last stroke, the sigil lit up briefly, reminiscent of the glow of the symbols I’d seen Azazel draw for the hellgate and outside on the balcony.

Silently, an outline manifested in front of my eyes. A second later, the wall sported a real passageway. No door to close on this one, just an open arch into darkness. A slight breeze blew through it, brushing with a chill over my skin. Definitely not an illusion.

Alrighty. I licked over the gash on my arm to crudely disinfect it, then pressed the towel to it.

My saliva has healing properties.

“Still nope.” I cast a wary glance upward. “Nice try, though.”

Suit yourself.

I raised a brow and turned to the doorway. Better to walk right through it, before it vanished. Who knew how long it would last? And how would I get back?

“Um.” I faced the hellcat again. “Will this spell work the other way around too? Can I get back here when I draw the symbol out there?”

The lines are all connected. A web of sorts. Here and there, and back again and to a place you haven’t been. Be careful that you seek the right one.

“Wha—” I shook my head. “What is that supposed to mean?”

Yes, and no.

“Can’t you just give me a straight answer?”

I’m a cat.

“Ugh. Fine. Thanks anyway.”

You can leave the towel. I’ll...take care of it.

I raised both brows and hurried into the dark archway. “Byyyyyye.”

The air held a welcome chill, much more in line with what one would expect from a stone building than the pressing heat in my rooms. Goosebumps beaded on my skin as I cautiously stepped forward. The light spilling in from the room behind me was just enough to illuminate the path in front of me. That was, until it vanished.

Darkness fully enveloped me, like a complete blackout blanket thrown over my head. Trying not to panic, I wrapped the towel around my arm and fastened it as well as possible, then reached out with both hands in search of the walls. My fingertips connected with cool stone, and I inched forward, using the wall to guide me.

I stopped short when I hit a dead end.

Crap. There was no door here. And only darkness behind me. I’d figured this would be a tunnel, with another archway at the end, waiting for me to walk through. I had the sinking feeling that if I turned around and retraced my steps, I wouldn’t find the original doorway again—only a blank stone wall, like here.

Was I trapped?

Panic welled inside me. I shoved it down mercilessly. Freaking out wouldn’t help me.

Think, Zoe, think.

Maybe I needed to draw the sigil again? I could still squeeze out enough blood from the cut in my arm, I was sure, but...it was pitch black. I couldn’t see my own hand in front of my eyes, let alone the wall or anything I drew on it.

Well, should have thought of that before I stepped into a dark archway, shouldn’t I? I groaned at my thoughtlessness. Next time I’d bring a torch, or a candle, anything to light my way.

If there was a next time.

Okay. Berating myself wouldn’t get me anywhere. I could only try to draw that sigil and hope I got all the strokes right, even without seeing them.

I unwrapped the towel from my arm, squeezed the gash—ouch—and tipped my finger in the warm liquid I could only feel, not see.

My heart thundered in my head, and I sweated so much I didn’t even feel the chill anymore.

There, the last stroke. I hoped.

The glow that had been faint before in my room now blinded me. I closed my hurting eyes, ready to weep with relief. It worked. It actually worked.

When I opened my eyes again, I squinted at the light, which was insanely bright compared to the utter darkness of a minute ago. It took me a few seconds of my eyes adjusting, but then I made out the hallway behind the archway.

Yes!

I rushed out before that doorway decided to trap me again.

Licking over the gash once more and then rebandaging the wound with the towel, I glanced around. Freedom. The possibilities made me dizzy.

Or maybe that was the blood loss.

Right. So, which way to go, which way to go…? I had to be careful not to run into any of the small demons, or else my little excursion would be cut short. I should have brought a handheld mirror to peek around corners or something like that.

Mental note: Plan your next sneak escape better.

I’d just been so excited to finally have a way out that I hadn’t taken the time to prepare well. Live and learn.

I decided to go left. Interestingly, I couldn’t see the door to my room to my right, even though it should be there, given the layout of the room and the place where I’d summoned the passageway.

Then again, the tunnel had been a lot longer than the depth of the stone wall. When the door to my room had been open, I’d seen how deep the wall was...an arm’s length, at most. The passageway had stretched on for several yards—I’d walked for at least two minutes.

Weird magic.

Shaking my head, I snuck down the hallway then stopped. I should mark this spot. If I didn’t get caught, I needed to be able to come back here and summon the passageway again to get back to my rooms. If the hellcat’s rambling held any kind of truth, the exact place where I summoned that door might play an important role. As well as intention, maybe?

This was worse than trying to assemble Swedish furniture with a picture-only manual that didn’t make sense and a kit that was missing key parts.

In fact, it was a good idea to mark my progress through the hallways in general, like leaving a trail of breadcrumbs to lead me back to this spot. From what I had seen in my first escape attempt, the hallway didn’t change much in appearance, and if I didn’t leave any hints, I’d get lost.

I remembered how long Azazel had walked when he’d carried me to my rooms...this house was huge, with intricate turns and a maze-like structure to the hallways. And worse than the idea of getting caught—with my luck, I’d run smack dab into Azazel himself—was the possibility of having to actually seek out either him or his demon underlings to lead me back if I couldn’t find my own way. Which was terrifyingly likely if I didn’t mark the places I passed.

Only problem was—I didn’t have a tool to mark the wall or floor in any way. If I had a knife or something similar, I could scratch the stone in a certain pattern. But of course, my demon douche of a husband hadn’t supplied me with a weapon. To be fair, I would have contemplated using it against him.

I stared at the wall and uttered a sound of frustration. There was only one thing in my arsenal to use as a way marker, and I hurt just thinking about it.

Nothing for it...there really was no other choice.

With a sigh, I unwrapped the towel from my arm again and pinched the wound. It was still unscabbed anyway.

I dabbed my finger in the blood and then touched the wall. A little should do. Drawing a sign wasn’t necessary, I just needed something to recognize if I came by here again. To be sure I’d remember that this was the spot to summon the passageway, I gave the wall two dots. Any future hallways to mark would get only one.

And thus I began my journey through Azazel’s medieval mansion.

The hallways truly never changed much. Rough-hewn stone, lit by torches, the space large enough for two male demons with their wings out passing each other without touching, and a ceiling so high that it was lost in murky darkness.

Here and there I came by doors, but they were closed and I didn’t dare try to open them. What if someone was on the other side, and by peeking inside I’d reveal my presence? I knew better than to push my luck. The risk of running into Azazel or someone else who knew I shouldn’t be out here was already high enough. I didn’t need to increase it by poking at doors.

I walked for what seemed like an hour. Without my phone or another clock it was hard to track time, but it got more and more difficult to keep the gash on my arm open to extract more blood. I’d gotten so used to the never-changing appearance of the hallways that I stopped dead in my tracks when I came upon a wholly different sight.

The open doorway I’d just walked through led into a much larger hall. Instead of walls all around, this time there were windows on one side. If you could call them windows.

Huge pillars made up the entire left side of the hall, the space between them allowing a view of the outside. There seemed to be panes of glass between them too, but not just that...a pattern of bars stretched between the pillars, like a giant grid of what looked like wrought iron. Like a prison, to keep someone in. Or...the fortification of a castle, to keep someone out.

In a daze, I moved closer to the windows. I hadn’t seen the outside since Azazel flew me here, and even then I’d only caught glimpses.

It was still dark outside. Or yet again? Maybe this was the permanent state of Hell, no change from day to night, just relentless, ever-same twilight. It would be a sort of torture in itself, I mused. I knew that locking someone in a room with the lights always on was used by some secret agencies as a way of breaking people. We’re not made to endure monotony like that.

The sky lit up in red and orange hues, streaks of purple lightning flashing for a few seconds before the gloom returned. Somewhere in the distance sparks erupted as if from a volcano. When the next lightning broke up the darkness, I spotted flying shapes, moving fast across the sky. Even though they were thousands of feet away, I could tell they were bigger than regular birds.

I shivered, yet I couldn’t wrench my eyes away from the view. The bleakest sort of landscape, an apocalyptic tableau come to life. My mind still struggled to understand this was real, wasn’t a scene from a movie. I saw it, and yet I didn’t get it. Not truly. It would probably take me wandering through that dismal scenery, touching it, smelling it, feeling it on my skin to fully understand—and I had no desire to be out there.

A commotion to my left jolted me out of my trance. The sounds of someone approaching from the direction I’d come. Shit. I needed to keep moving.

Heart in my throat, I rushed to the other side of the hall, skidded around the corner of the open archway there, into the next hallway. Behind me, deep growls and the rapid clicks of claws on stone.

I almost stumbled. Those noises...the gremlin demons had sounded different, even when they chased me down. Their snarls had been higher-pitched, their footfalls softer, no claws, just the muted slapping of fabric-soled feet.

Whatever was behind me seemed a lot more animalistic, primal...predatory.

My sneakers squeaked on the floor as I rounded another bend. No time to mark the walls here. I hadn’t yet dared to cast a glance over my shoulder to see what was hunting me, but my gut told me that if it caught me, the result wouldn’t be so benign as a horde of goblin demons hog-tying me and carrying me back to my room. Our human gecko brain survival instinct was there for a reason, and right now it blared at the highest setting for me to run for my life.

I listened without even thinking twice.

The growls came closer. Panting, I ducked my head and ran faster, pushing myself to my limit. I had no idea how long I could keep this up. What was my exit strategy here? I couldn’t run forever, in fact it was likely the things chasing me would catch up soon. If they were anything like most predatory species on Earth, they’d be faster than a mere human.

The walls flew by as I raced. I could swear something was literally snapping at my heels. Suppressing a shriek, I scrambled around the next corner, right into another large hall, bigger even than the one I’d seen before. Statues lined the walls, as far as I could see at a glance, not having the time to look closely. There seemed to be artworks as well, some sort of 3D paintings or flat sculptures adorning the stone.

My gaze caught on something in between the statues. No way. This could just be my saving grace.

I veered toward that wall, sprinted even harder, the things chasing me now almost breathing down my neck. I nearly crashed into the stone with how fast I came in, but I managed to grab hold of one of the two swords displayed on a wall mount, wrench it away from its fastening, and turn with it just in time to face the first beast lunging at me.

Oh, my God.

I froze in terror, my mind simply blanking at the sight of the creatures. A far cry from hellcats, these...things were an abomination, something straight out of a horror flick or the worst kind of nightmare.

In the split second of suspended time as the nearest of them pounced right on to my raised sword, I caught a glimpse of unnaturally long limbs, dark gray skin, a body structure somewhere between canine and feline, with a twist of vomit-inducing strangeness.

The next instant, my arms jolted from the impact of the creature upon the sword. Pain reverberated up from my wrists, into my shoulders, and I barely held on to the blade. A yowl echoed in the hall, ear-splitting and nauseating. Black blood splashed onto my face, my hands, a body thumping to the ground—right before the next beast lunged.

I didn’t know what I was doing, I had no idea how to wield a sword, all I knew was that hacking and slashing and waving that thing around was better than rolling over and letting myself be eaten.

I managed maybe three hits before the pack toppled me to the ground. A jaw clamped around my ankle and pulled me off balance even as I flailed with the sword to keep another beast at bay. I cried out, sharp, ripping tears shooting up from my leg before everything hurt in a kaleidoscope of pain as I hit the hard stone.

Growls and teeth and blood and claws, closing in and crashing over me in a wave of death impending.

A sharp word echoed in the hall, rose above the snarls, and whipped the beasts on top of me like a physical lash. With a keening whine, the creatures fell off me, scattering like cockroaches when the lights turned on.

Breath heavy, my body aching in a hundred places at once, I pushed myself up, the sword still in one hand. My left leg, the one that had been attacked by the beasts first, almost gave out under me. I grabbed on to the nearest statue in order not to fall.

Blinking against the pain and the drops of blood running down my forehead, I stared at the demon who’d just saved my ass.

White-blond hair fell down to his shoulders, framing a face of ethereal, light brown beauty. Goddammit, were all demons that appallingly attractive? Figured. He could have stepped out of one of Peter Jackson’s Tolkien adaptations, all masculine elven grace and subtly arrogant posture.

Dressed in a mix of elegant robes and fighting gear, he stepped closer, the light of the torches and chandeliers gilding his hair. Azazel and Azmodea both had an impressive amount of power radiating from them, but this guy...he was something else. Such ancient, ancient strength and energy rolled off him, I resisted the urge to fall to my knees and cower. It was similar to looking at a mountain range that has been on Earth for millions of years, indomitable, unmoving, unperturbed by the passage of days and the hustle of life, only with this demon that feeling was multiplied by a thousand.

“How intriguing.” His voice a deep bass, he tilted his head in a distinctly non-human way. “You are not a half-blood. Nor a damned soul.”

Rustling behind him, a tentative female whisper. “My lord…”

The demon held up a hand, and whoever had spoken behind him fell silent.

Another step closer, and the powerful being was right in front of me, his violet eyes holding me spellbound.

“Tell me,” he said—and honest to God, I was ready to tell him anything and everything— “who are you?”

“Zoe,” I whispered.

“And who are you?”

“I...I’m Azazel’s...wi—”

I hadn’t even heard him approach. One minute my entire world was zeroed in on the demon in front of me, the next instant a hand clamped over my mouth and pulled me back against a hard surface.

“Pet,” a familiar voice said from behind me, the deep baritone rumbling through my back pressed to his chest. “She’s my pet.”

The weird spell I’d been under effectively broken, I blinked, wanted to shake my head...only Azazel’s hand still on my mouth held me fast. His fingers smelled faintly of leather, metal, and fire, and inhaling his scent catapulted me back to that moment during the flight over here when I’d given in to the urge to lick his skin.

Heat centered low in my belly, and I clenched my thighs to alleviate the sudden ache between my legs.

“Pet?” the other demon asked, his curious gaze now focused over my head, on the irritatingly hot male clutching me to him.

“A special deal we made,” Azazel said nonchalantly, and if it weren’t for the tension in his hand, I’d have believed him to be completely relaxed and in control. “She is to serve me here in her human form in repayment for a debt.”

Excuse me?

I widened my eyes and grabbed on to Azazel’s arm, trying to dislodge his hand from my mouth. I might as well have attempted to move a full-grown redwood tree by shoving at it. Outrage building inside me, I tried to speak, which of course came out as pathetically muffled mumbling.

A push against my mind, a weird popping sensation in my head, and then I heard Azazel’s voice like my own thoughts, much like the hellcat’s words had somehow sounded directly projected into my head.

You better play along.

Out loud, he said, “Unfortunately, she is still a bit rough around the edges.” He wiped a trail of blood from my cheek with his other hand, making me quiver. “She shouldn’t have been wandering around my house on her own. More training—” now his free hand settled around my throat, and my traitorous nipples pebbled underneath my tank top and bra “—will ensure she remembers how to obey...and please.”

His teeth closed around the top of my ear. My legs, the fiends, threatened to turn to cooked spaghetti.

You have got to be kidding me, I thought with as much force as I could muster, hoping to push back along the same line of mental communication as he’d done. You’re passing me off as your...submissive sex pet?

Your powers of deduction are astounding, he said in my mind.

The other demon raised a brow, a glint of humor in his lavender eyes. “I didn’t know you had such inclinations, Azazel.”

A soft laugh from my devious demon husband. “She begged to be of service. And who am I to refuse a human offering when it lays itself so sweetly at my feet?”

Oh, no, he didn’t. Before I knew what I was doing, I bit his hand and twisted out of his hold in the second of surprise.

I opened my mouth to—

Do. Not.

Azazel’s growl filled my mind, shocked me enough to falter.

Outwardly, he was the epitome of calm, poised and in control as ever, not a single dark hair out of place, his power a velveteen caress.

Inside my head, his energy scratched me raw. An acrid scent permeated my mental senses, and it took me a second to realize its nature.

I closed my mouth, stared at him in dumbfounded amazement. You’re afraid, I whispered with a mental push.

Lightning flashed in his eyes as he glared at me.

I didn’t hear what the other demon said next, my thoughts racing, putting the pieces together.

Azazel didn’t want his visitor to find out the true nature of our relationship, that much was clear. And the taste of panic underlying his snarled warning not to divulge the truth hinted at the reason why… I thought of how both Azmodea and Mammon had taken the news of my “tricking” Azazel into a marriage contract as something to be weaponized against him, albeit with familial affection and a teasing intention.

What would someone outside his trusted family circle do with this information? If this was enough to get him a hundred years of being lovingly picked on by his sister and nephew, what would the revelation of this secret do to his reputation among other demons?

At first, I’d thought he was trying to humiliate me by passing me off as his sex pet. Now, though, I realized it was the other way around—he was the one who didn’t want to be humiliated in front of his peer by his shameful secret getting out.

Talk about a chink in his armor. This was much more than that. All this time, he’d appeared so invulnerable, like nothing could truly faze him. He was in control, he held all the cards, and I had literally no power in this farce of a relationship.

Well, that was about to change.