Chapter 9

Chapter 9

The dress fitme like a glove. A super sexy, who-are-you-and-what-did-you-do-with-Zoe glove, and as I stared at my reflection in the mirror, I was torn between glee that this outfit would torture the fuck out of Azazel, and awkward self-consciousness about demonstrating roughly ten times more sex appeal than in my usual jeans and tank top/T-shirt.

Well, I had no other choice but to flaunt it. Wearing this dress with anything less than self-assured awareness of my own sexuality would not just be a disservice to the outfit, but also—more importantly—would play into Azazel’s little scheme of trying to make me uncomfortable. And I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing me embarrassed.

We’d see about other kinds of satisfaction.

When I walked back into the bedroom, it was with a sexy swing to my hips and my head held high. Let the games begin.

Azazel was leaning against the door frame to the balcony, his form outlined by the storm of fire and lightning outside. With the lights in the bedroom dimmed low, all I could see in that moment was his shadowy form, silhouetted against the spectacular light show behind him.

But his eyes flared when his gaze fell on me, the silver flash competing with the lightning in the sky.

I couldn’t help it—I preened.

Despite all his bluster from before, his obvious intentions to simply set me aside and not engage with me, he couldn’t ignore me now, could he? I’d vowed not to beg for scraps of his attention, but damn did it feel good when I had his complete focus on me, underlaid with sensual hunger.

“Let’s go,” he said, and it wasn’t just my imagination that his voice had dropped lower, rougher than before.

I felt like a snack dangled in front of a starved lion.

A thought struck me as we walked out into the sitting room, and I halted in my tracks, my stomach dropping to my feet.

“Wait,” I rasped, cleared my throat. “Wait.”

Azazel swung around, his voice sharp and impatient. “What?”

“Will I have to...serve Zaquiel?”

It had occurred to me that we hadn’t specified this in our bargain. Azazel hadn’t said a word about the scope of our play, whether I’d be expected, as his “pet,” to be of service to his...friends as well.

Azazel regarded me with an inscrutable expression, and I resorted to nervous babbling, damn my anxiety.

“Will I have to—you know—with him?”

I shifted on the spot, my breath suddenly much too fast. Because while playing with Azazel was one thing—I’d enjoy that enough all right, and it felt like a natural continuation of our interactions so far, not to mention I’d turn it into my own sly method of revenge against him—being intimate with someone else, a complete stranger, was another thing altogether.

I wasn’t at all sure I could pull that off, and just the thought of it already let unease coil in my stomach.

And damn it all to Hell, now I’d given him all the ammunition he’d need to truly put me in my place. Fuck, fuck, fuck. There’d been no hiding the tremor in my voice, the fidgeting of my hands, and I was sure my apprehension was written all over my face. I might as well have given him a roadmap for how to embarrass me, with a big x right next to “Zoe’s weakness, exploit here.”

With his goal being to make me uncomfortable and teach me a lesson, he could take this huge vulnerability I’d just stupidly revealed in front of him, and slice right into it.

He still stared at me with quiet intensity, and I could already feel the blood welling from the cut he was about to deliver. He’d pass me off to Zaquiel and silently revel in my discomfort, relish his punishment of the recalcitrant human woman who’d dared trap him in this embarrassing contract.

He blinked as the lightning outside the barred window flashed over his face, casting his features in harsh relief. “I don’t share what’s mine.”

A second later, before I could even catch my breath, he’d scooped me up and carried me out into the hallway again, his pace quick as before.

I exhaled with such force, it almost came out as a gasp. The knot in my chest unraveled swiftly, painfully, making me dizzy, and I clung to him, in more ways than I wanted to admit.

It took me several minutes to scrounge up the courage to speak again, but the silence as he carried me was becoming unbearable.

“What kind of party is this?” I finally asked.

“I have business to discuss with Zaquiel. I invited him here to renegotiate a deal we have.”

A business meeting. All right. Okay. A bit strange that I’d be there provocatively dressed and playing Azazel’s pet, but—demons, right?

Azazel set me down in front of a set of huge double doors, intricately carved with scenes depicting winged demons battling some kind of beasts. I smoothed down my dress, checked that the flowing skirt fell naturally from my hips to just above my knees, covering what needed to be covered.

A pop in my head, and then Azazel’s mental voice, strong and deep and sliding over my senses like a caress. Walk behind me. Lower your gaze in front of Zaquiel and bow deeply when you greet him. Don’t talk unless spoken to. Don’t babble. No snarky comebacks or quipped defiance. He cast me a sidelong glance. In fact, maybe it’s better if you don’t speak at all.

But then how will I praise my master Azazel’s glory to the high heavens?I fluttered my lashes.

The tiniest twitch of his mouth, humor sparking in his eyes. Lucifer, he said smoothly. We praise to Lucifer, not Heaven.

Duly noted.I faced the doors. I’ll make sure to change my standard-issue sexclamation to, Oh, Devil!

He made a noise that sounded awfully like a choked-back laugh. When he spoke in my head, though, his voice was all breath-taking sensuality and self-assured challenge. I promise you, the only name you’ll moan will be mine.

Before I could shoot something back, he pushed the doors open and strolled in, fully expecting me to follow in his wake—like the good pet I was.

Gritting my teeth, I did exactly that. A deal was a deal.

The bass beat of drums reverberated in my bones as I stepped inside the room, and a primal, seductive melody wrapped around me, pulled me in. Music? What kind of business meeting was this?

Large enough to rival a small dancing hall, the room held an assortment of seating areas, with settees, chaise lounges, floor pillows, comfy-looking armchairs strewn around the space. In the middle of the room, scantily clad dancers moved sinuously, sensually to the rhythm of the music, played live by a group of demons in one corner, on instruments I didn’t recognize.

The low lights glowed warmly on the dancers’ skin, played over fabric and metal and jewels adorning the demons present as well as the sumptuous furnishings. My gaze caught on a demon couple in the corner to my left, and I almost missed a step at their state of undress and obvious make-out session.

When you said business meeting, I pushed along the mental line to Azazel, I kind of figured a conference room, or maybe a business casual lounge, or some kind of dinner.

Is this too much for your prudish human sensibilities?His voice held a softly mocking edge.

If I had a knife, that spot right there between his shoulder blades would make for a perfect place to stick it. A warning would have been nice. Something along the lines of, Hey, by the way, there’ll be an orgy, just FYI.

He threw a glance at me over his shoulder, one corner of his mouth tilted up. Oh, love. You think this is an orgy?

I calmed myself by contemplating the many ways I could fillet him.

Stopping in front of a settee, Azazel bowed slightly. “Lord Zaquiel. Thank you for your patience.”

He stepped aside and settled on a chaise lounge opposite Zaquiel’s seat. Not missing a beat, I took a deep bow toward the Fallen lazily sprawled on the settee’s cushion, mindful to keep my gaze down.

“Lovely,” the demon murmured. “Her assets really shine when she’s free of inferni splatter. I can see why you agreed to keep her.”

Take a seat, Azazel said in my mind, subtly pointing to a cushion that had just appeared on the floor at his feet.

“She is proving to be an amusing diversion,” he said out loud to Zaquiel.

Determined not to show even an ounce of my irritation, lest he could use it to complain I hadn’t held up my end of the bargain, I smiled coyly and slid into a seated position on the cushion, facing Zaquiel’s settee. Azazel’s legs were on either side of me, effectively caging me in—and making it clear to whom I belonged. It should have rankled and raised my hackles to be so ostentatiously labeled as his...instead it gave me a weird sense of security.

“I trust you’ve been well taken care of while you were waiting,” Azazel said, his hand coming to rest on my head.

Zaquiel raised his glass and nodded at a male demon who passed our seating area. The other male winked, his smile languid and teasing.

“As always,” Zaquiel said, “the hospitality of your halls is beyond reproach.”

Did you order your people to have sex with your guest?I mentally whispered to Azazel.

A sharp tug on my hair. Do not insult me. His energy darkened, pinched my senses. If the demons in my employ choose to engage with Zaquiel, they do so of their own free will. Look at him.

I did, struck anew by his unearthly beauty, the impact of his ancient power.

There are many demons who would beg to gain his favor. Any time he visits, several of mine line up to spend time with him.

All right, fine.I relaxed a little. He’s a demon snack, got it.

More like a delicacy, but you get the point.

He began stroking my hair in the same languorous rhythm as the music, doubling the effect on my body. Had I held my spine rigid before, I now found myself leaning into his leg...into his touch. His fingers on my scalp drew small circles, and I felt those moves much, much lower, as if he’d established a direct connection between the top of my head and the sensitive spot between my thighs.

A spot currently uncovered by panties, a first for me. I’d never gone commando before, and the feeling was unsettling, in more ways than one. Instead of having at least a flimsy piece of fabric as the pretense of a buffer there, my most intimate skin now rubbed against my legs folded underneath me on the cushion with every little move I made.

It was both arousing and maddening.

Azazel and Zaquiel engaged in what I imagined was demon small talk, mentioning people and places whose significance flew right past me with what little knowledge I had of Hell and its inhabitants. They might as well have been talking in another language.

I did try to pay attention at first, to see if I could glean some more useful information about either Azazel or my new home down here. The longer I sat, however, the more the sensual drums of the music sank into my bones, reverberated in my blood, the more the sight of the dancers twisting and twining to the rhythm in an artistic rendering of sex drew my focus, the more Azazel’s caresses—on my head, down to my neck—scattered my thoughts.

By the time Azazel broached what seemed to be the business part of their conversation, I was half feral inside, vacillating between a weird mix of languid sensual relaxation and throbbing need. Any lingering self-consciousness about the amount of skin revealed through the lace of my dress had long slid off me, and all that was left was a creature fitting right in with the sexually charged atmosphere of the room.

Azazel’s hand tangled in my hair, pulled my head to the side and back until I could see him out of the corner of my eye. The position forced me to lean back until I was sprawled over his lap from my shoulders up, my breath unsteady and fast.

Go get me a drink, he said in my mind, his other hand stroking a line of heat down my throat, toward the neckline of my dress. And one for yourself as well, before you catch fire.

More like dying of boredom,I shot back.

Oh?

With a tug on my hair he made me stand up and immediately tumbled me onto his lap, my legs dangling over his thigh on one side while he held me upright and half leaning against his chest with a firm grip on my hair. My hands reached out to grasp his shirt for purchase. The heat of his body poured into me, ignited the already simmering fire burning in my core.

So if I were to stroke between your legs,he said in a silken murmur, I wouldn’t find you wet?

My breath hitched. I squirmed in his hold, and even though technically I was still covered, air brushed against the very spot he’d mentioned, proving his assumption true.

Zaquiel said something about streamlining trade processes, and Azazel’s reply might have contained something along the lines of decreasing soul qualities, but the words were a blur, drowned out by the hammering of my heartbeat, the drums of the music, the rapid rise and fall of my own breath.

With his focus unnervingly on the conversation with the other demon, Azazel laid his free hand on my knee, slid it higher in oh-so-torturously slow increments. I both dreaded and craved the conclusion to that exploration, unable to do anything but sit still and anticipate.

Now underneath the skirt of my dress, his fingers inched up, drawing tiny circles ever closer to my core.

“I recognize your supply lines are compromised,” he said to Zaquiel. “And I appreciate your willingness to reconsider the terms of our deal.”

Zaquiel’s reply got lost in the undignified sound I made when Azazel’s finger brushed my skin less than an inch from the damningly wet proof of my arousal. I involuntarily jerked on his lap—and my hip rubbed against the very, very hard proof of his arousal.

Ha!

I wasn’t the only one affected here. Somehow that realization made me feel a lot better. As cool as he was playing this, he couldn’t deny his own physical reaction to having me squirm on his lap.

And squirm some more I did, just to aggravate his situation a bit.

His grip on my hair tightened, and his fingers dug into my thigh. When I chanced a glance at his face, his pupils had dilated, almost swallowing the lightning storm of his irises. When his gaze met mine, an electric current bolted through me, arrested my breath.

Go fetch those drinks,he said mentally and pushed me off his lap.

Taken aback by the sudden move, I swayed a little on traitorously unstable legs. He grabbed my hips to steady me, then ran his hands over the curve of my ass, resting them on the exposed skin just under the hem of the dress, right above the back of my knees.

You seem a bit wobbly.His voice was a purr overlaying my thoughts. Perhaps I should make you crawl.

Don’t push your luck,I hissed back.

I’m not.He caressed my legs. I’m pushing you.

Before I could snap in response, he turned me around, patted my butt, and gently shoved me forward while answering a question Zaquiel had just asked.

Over there, right-hand corner,he said in my mind.

And indeed, the spot he’d indicated held what looked like a small bar, demon bartender included. Azazel could have just called him—or any of his other underlings—over to serve him, but of course sending me to do his bidding was a clear statement, part of our charade.

Taking a deep breath to steady myself, I carefully crossed the room. Much to my dismay, I was a bit wobbly, which is why I walked with deliberate slowness. It didn’t help my nerves that my leisurely stroll through the room drew what felt like extra attention from the demons milling about. Now that I was out of Azazel’s force field of sexual allure, a little self-consciousness crept back into me.

I’d never been comfortable being the focal point in a group, and crowds had always made me slightly twitchy. I often wished I had an ounce of Taylor’s extroversion, her natural ability to command a room. Give her five minutes, and she had any stranger wrapped around her finger, delighting in their attention.

Me? I was glad if I managed an interaction with a person I barely knew without embarrassing myself...and not pull a stunt like that one time I ended a phone call to my doctor’s office with “Goodnight!” at 10 in the morning because my brain hadn’t fully run through the appropriate terms of farewell and picked the right one.

All the way over to the bar, I practiced what I was going to say in my head, just to be sure. Apart from Azazel, Azmodea, Mammon, and Zaquiel, this would be the first other demon I’d actually talk to, and I didn’t want to bungle this up.

I need a drink for Azazel, I thought.

No, that wasn’t quite right.

A drink for Azazel, and one for me.

Better.

I’d like a drink for Azazel, and one for me, please.

Best one yet?

But what kind of drink? He hadn’t specified. Did they have the same beverages down here as on Earth? My food sure had been familiar.

I fidgeted, almost at the bar now. I felt the eyes of at least half a dozen demons on my back.

The practice sentences tumbled over one another in my mind. I laid my hands on the bar, inhaled deeply and said with full bravado, “I drink a need for Azazel.”

Mortified, I closed my eyes. Where was that fucking hole in the ground to swallow me when I needed it?

Glass clinked against glass, and then a male voice said, “Don’t we all?”

I opened one eye to peer at the bartender.

The demon raised a blond brow, the hint of a smile on his lips. “The usual for him?”

I gulped. “Sure. And one for me.”

The bartender poured from a bottle with golden liquid. “And what would you like? Besides Lord Azazel over there?”

Ha, ha.

Remembering my role in the charade, I plastered on a sufficiently smitten look. “Water will do.”

I really didn’t need an alcoholic drink in my current condition.

The bartender handed me the two glasses, and I managed to extract myself from the situation without further embarrassment. Yay!

The way back seemed easier. Maybe it was the enchanting rhythm of the music, its beat a primal call to the parts of myself that knew how to walk with a swing in my hips, how to let my movements flow with a touch of sinuous grace. And maybe it was the way Azazel watched me from his spot on the chaise lounge, a hint of feral hunger on his face.

With all the demons in this room—each and every one of them physically enthralling—I was the one who drew his focus, who made him look like he was one step away from pushing me against the wall and—

I took a big gulp from my water. My skin felt too tight, as if stretched thin over nothing but unquenchable desire.

By the time I reached the chaise lounge, I’d drained my glass, and I was still burning up.

Crap.

I was about to take a desperate sip from Azazel’s mysteriously golden drink when he grabbed my wrist and pried the glass from my fingers.

“No amrit for you, love,” he murmured, and directed me to sit at his feet again.

Amrit?

“Why not?” The question came from Zaquiel. “I’d be curious about the effects on her. It’s been some time since I’ve seen it used on a human.”

“It doesn’t agree with her,” Azazel said, his voice casual, not a hint of subterfuge on his face.

“Such a shame.”

What is it—amrit?I mentally pushed toward Azazel.

You’re familiar with the concept of ambrosia?

I frowned. The nectar of the gods?

A bit more complicated than that, but yes.He took a sip from his glass. Human substances have no effect on us, but amrit does.

So it’s like booze for demons?

He smiled over his glass. As close as it can get.

And what does it do to humans?

Unpredictable things. It’s not meant to be consumed by mortals.

He laid his hand on my nape, massaging my skin lightly, and a pleasant shiver cascaded down my spine, reigniting the barely banked fire in my core.

Am I, though?I asked, struggling to keep my thoughts from melting. Still mortal, that is.

His grasp became a tad more proprietary, and his mental voice brooked no argument. I’m not willing to test it.

Any other questions I might have had vanished in the feel of his fingers on my skin, the command in his touch when his hand stroked up and down my throat, tilting back my head. The room spun. I held on to his thigh to keep myself from spinning along with it.

His muscles like steel underneath his pants, he was my anchor when I would have drowned in the magnetic allure of the music, once again a rhythm of such raw sensuality, it felt like a siren’s call to sex. The throbbing pulse between my legs—still too exposed, too sensitive—scattered any and all thoughts except how to ease the pressure building inside me.

His fingers caressed my jaw, grazed my lips—and I opened my mouth and sucked his thumb inside. Gave him a taste of the torture I was going through.

Dark power washed over me, a blanket of energy caught between a kiss and a bite.

Liked that, didn’t he?

Well, I was in the mood to tease him some more. I’d been squirming under his influence for the past hour—time to turn the tables a bit, let him see I could give as good as I got.

Tilting my head, I rubbed my cheek over his groin, over the still very prominent hardness pressing against his pants. My breath caught when I felt it twitch. More heat pooled low in my core, and I shifted on the cushion, half turning toward him.

His hand now in my hair, his fingers firm in their grasp, creating a delicious pull on my scalp, he stared down at me with eyes of molten lightning.

Was it just my imagination, or did his breath come a little faster?

A thrill coursed through me. I did that. I made him look like this, like he might—might—just lose that damned control of his.

And, God, but I wanted him to.

Who was this wanton creature testing the limits of a demon’s restraint? I had no idea, but she was definitely in charge right now. Gone was any thought of modesty, forgotten all awareness of anything—and anyone—outside this intimate cocoon of hunger and lust as I fully turned around despite his death grip on my hair.

Kneeling on the cushion in a quiet mockery of supplication, I ran my hands over his thighs, toward his groin...brushing ever so lightly over his cock straining against the fabric of his pants.

His chest heaved. Just a little, but noticeable enough for me, and it added fuel to my fire.

I wanted to singe him with it.

With deliberate slowness and pressure, I repeated my caress, watching as he watched me with hooded eyes. I shifted a bit, an involuntary move to soothe the ache between my legs.

Drums, drums all around me, within me, thumping in my blood, in time with the heavy beat of my heart, the pulse of need in my bones.

I reached for the fastening of his pants, but his hand caught my wrists, held them.

Steel in his gaze as he grabbed my chin with his other hand, tilted my head back, leaned forward and covered my mouth with his.

Everything ground to a halt.

My breath, my heart, my mind, my senses, all stopped and blanked, as if switched off.

His lips on mine, his tongue licking, demanding entrance, and I complied eagerly, hungrily, seeking his taste as if my life depended on it. I moaned into his mouth, shuddered when he nipped at my lower lip.

With my hands still in his grasp, all I could do was fall into his touch, lose myself in his kiss. I barely noticed when he pulled me up to stand—until his mouth forged a path of fire down my throat, over the neckline of my dress...and closed over the peaked tip of my breast.

I gasped, struggled to breathe, fresh moisture pooling between my thighs. His teeth grasping my nipple just so sent arrows of arousal straight down to my clit.

With a deft move, he brought both my arms around to my back, held them there with one hand. The position forced me to arch my spine, pushed my chest even closer to his torturously skilled mouth.

He sucked and nibbled, alternating between breasts. I squirmed in his hold. It was too much, not enough. I wanted to break free, press closer. I needed...needed…

Panting, I rubbed my thighs together, desperate for friction. My fingers flexed, my hands twisting in his grip, unable to help alleviate my suffering.

Ask me.His voice in my head, dark seduction on rumpled sheets.

My breath hitched. I burned.

Ask.

His teeth on my nipple, his other hand sliding over my hips, down the curve of my ass.

My inner muscles clenched in despair.

I closed my eyes. Please.

He grabbed my right knee, pulled my leg over his thigh, pushed against my back with the hand holding my wrists. With this single swift move, in the span of a frantic heartbeat, I now half-straddled him, and that poor, over-sensitive, aching spot between my legs met the unforgiving hardness of his thigh.

One shove, in time with his free hand grasping my breast, his mouth now on my neck, teeth nicking skin, and I came apart.

The pressure unraveled in a wave of ecstasy. I undulated in his hold, gasping in his ear until I collapsed against him. His scent surrounded me, potent like a drug where my nose lay buried in his neck.

He let go of my wrists, and I curled my arms in the space between us, still breathing fast.

“Beautiful,” Zaquiel said from somewhere behind me.

Reality intruded on icy feet, in the sounds coming back from outside the vacuum of lust I’d been in, in the returning of my awareness of other people—demons—in the room...the knowledge that Zaquiel sat just a few feet away, having witnessed everything.

Heat flared inside me, but this time for wholly different reasons than the desire that had short-circuited my brain before. My fingers curled in Azazel’s shirt. My face was still plastered against the curve of his neck, eyes closed, my hopeless attempt at hiding from the room and my own mortification.

Damn it, hadn’t I sworn not to be embarrassed?

Get yourself together, I sternly told myself. It was part of the show, all a front.

Except it wasn’t. The very genuineness of my experience just now made me so vulnerable, stripped down and laid bare far more effectively than if I’d actually been naked.

Azazel’s hand settled on my head, his fingers playing lightly with the strands of my hair. His other hand stroked down my spine, the move unexpectedly soothing despite the embarrassment searing my nerves.

He’d achieved what he wanted, hadn’t he? Well, partially, at least. The hardness nudging my thigh where it lay against his crotch was proof he hadn’t gotten off…but maybe that was part of his plan. Considering how stripped down I felt after coming all over him in front of a room full of people, perhaps his preference for control extended to this as well. An orgasm was a sort of loss of control, wasn’t it? And maybe this was a side of himself he carefully curated, like so much else in his demeanor.

I wondered what it would take to pierce that kind of armor.

Get up, I berated myself. Come on, the show’s not over yet.

Any second now Azazel could pull me back into our charade, demand even more of me, and I had to be ready. If he ordered me to sit at his feet again right now and face the room—face Zaquiel—my raw vulnerability would be there for all to see, my walls still cracked, any hint of my self-assured pretense still gone. And wouldn’t that be even more devastating than my public orgasm?

I had to get my game face back. I couldn’t fucking lie here with my nose buried in the crook of his neck for much longer, couldn’t hide from the room and my exposure indefinitely.

And yet, I couldn’t move a muscle. My awareness of my situation paralyzed me, and the knowledge of how much I’d let myself go in front of at least a dozen strangers caused tremors of anxiety all through my body.

I tried to stifle my trembling, to no avail. There was no way Azazel didn’t feel it.

I tensed, just waiting for him to make a cutting remark about it, to relish how successfully he’d put me back in my place. He’d proven, yet again, how he wielded more power than me. I might have won a single battle by forcing him to bargain and by negotiating for my Earth visits and freedom of movement, but that single advantage of mine was spent, my arsenal depleted. At this rate, I’d never win the war.

And I was so tired of fighting.

I just wanted to crawl under a blanket and hide. Hide from this new life of mine, from having to scratch and claw for the smallest bit of autonomy, from arguing and bickering and still losing, from the prying eyes of everyone in this room who’d just witnessed my own personal Girls Gone Bad spring break type moment of shame…from the demon who held my fate in his hands, held me even now while I unraveled a bit more with every tremor, while tears burned hot behind my eyes, threatening to erode the last bit of dignity I clutched on to.

Goddammit, if I cried right now, right here, I might as well crawl out of this room.

Azazel shifted forward without letting me go. The sudden sound of susurration startled me, and I jerked in his hold. When I opened my eyes and moved my head just so to see what happened, the room had darkened…no, not the room.

Satin black all around me, sliding over my exposed skin in a silken caress, covering me like a blanket.

I blinked, my mind playing catch-up. Were those really…?

Gingerly, I reached out, touched my fingers to the wall of black. Feathers—soft yet strong—with sparks of incipient flames dancing over their shiny onyx. I gasped as pinpricks of heat met my fingertips. Not painful per se, not searing, just…electrifying.

Large enough to wrap around me, Azazel’s wings blocked out the room. Blocked me from the room. I exhaled, my breath more intimate in this sudden, unexpected cocoon of privacy.

“Azazel,” Zaquiel said, clucking his tongue. His voice sounded a bit muffled through the wings.

Azazel’s chest rose and fell with his sigh. “What can I say? She likes to play with my feathers, and I do rather enjoy it when she does.”

I pulled my hand back from his wing as if burned.

His fingers stroked my hair, and I could have sworn his energy humming over my skin shifted with amusement.

Zaquiel said something else, but all I heard was Azazel’s voice in my head. Take a few minutes to compose yourself.

It was the gentle note in his tone that startled me almost as much as his wing maneuver did.

You’re not going to break apart here. That’s not what you do.

He shifted his wing just enough so I could see his face. His hand on my head moved to my jaw, lifted my chin, forced my gaze to his. I swallowed hard, my breath stuttering.

When I withdraw my wings, he continued, his eyes steady on mine, you’ll hold your head up like the tough little human you are.

His thumb brushed over my lower lip.

You just made every single demon in this room envy my exclusive right to touch you.

His power enveloped me, hot, dark, soothing.

So when you face them, you’ll do so knowing you’re something they desire, but can’t ever have. Show them what it’s like to look at something unattainable, love. Move like you own them.

I swallowed again, my throat dry and tight. Who are you, I said along the mental line between us, and what have you done with Azazel?

Laughter in those eyes of lightning, his energy a thunderstorm caress over my senses. There now. That’s better.

He looked away, presumably toward Zaquiel, and engaged in some non-business small talk, leaving me thrown off-kilter in an entirely different fashion than before. My head swirled with confusion, my chest tight with too many emotions I couldn’t sort through.

His one hand still stroked over my back in lazy moves, and every breath I took filled me with his aroma, intensified by his wings and the small space they created around me. I laid my forehead against his shoulder, closed my eyes and centered myself as best I could.

His words replayed in my mind, and damn if they didn’t hit the mark. I felt the truth of them with every beat of my heart, settling into my consciousness, shifting my perspective. Bit by bit, the awkward embarrassment vanished, replaced by a growing sense of self-assurance, the confidence of a woman in touch with her sexuality, and not ashamed of it.

Ready?Azazel asked in my head.

Yes.

With another deep breath, shaking off the last of my earlier discomfort, I slowly pushed off his chest while he opened his wings. The cocoon fell away, cooler air rushed in all around me, the sounds once more louder.

Azazel’s voice in my mind. Give them a smile that makes them wonder what you’ve been up to underneath my wings.

Picking my nose without anyone seeing me?I replied.

His chest shook. Let them think your fingers explored something else.

When I met his eyes briefly, the grin flirting with my mouth wasn’t even an act. Taking that budding amusement in me and directing it outward, I half-turned toward the room, making sure my smile teased with saucy sensuality. I bit my lip for extra effect.

“Well, now,” Zaquiel murmured from behind me, “that is a lovely sight. I’ll have to return home, but I sure would like to take her with me. Tell you what, let me borrow her for a while, and I’ll sweeten the deal with an additional shipment.”

I stiffened, my fingers curling into Azazel’s shirt.

“Lord Zaquiel,” Azazel said calmly while his hand possessively grasped my hair, “I’m sorry to decline your generous offer, but I’m afraid I haven’t had my fill of her.”

“So I see.” Zaquiel’s eyes dropped to Azazel’s crotch in blatant appraisal. “Fair enough. It was worth a try.” One side of his mouth tipped up as he rose to his feet. “Should you tire of her, do let me know.”

Azazel inclined his head, directing me to stand as he got up as well.

Walk behind me, he said in my mind while falling into step alongside Zaquiel. And remember you’re a snack no one else will get to taste, however much they salivate for it.

With a deep breath, I loosened my muscles and made sure my steps flowed with languid sensuality, rolling my hips as I sauntered after the two demons.

Snack, I thought, holding my head high. Snackity, snack.

Dammit, but that actually helped.

I didn’t glance around the room, but I sensed the gazes of several other demons like licks of heat on my body. When before, their attention would have caused my steps to falter, my shoulders to hunch forward, now it made me walk even taller. I felt desirable, and it made all the difference.

I followed Zaquiel and Azazel out of the room, through the hallway and back to the big hall where the inferni had gotten me earlier. Azazel and Zaquiel paused for a moment in front of a set of giant doors and said their goodbyes.

Zaquiel turned to me. “I sure hope to see you again, Zoe. Perhaps in a more intimate fashion.”

I dutifully kept my gaze lowered and bowed deeply, careful not to show my revulsion. Beautiful and attractive he might be, but the casual way in which he regarded me as a commodity to be bartered for raised my hackles. If it weren’t for Azazel’s insistence to keep me to himself, I’d be on my way with Zaquiel now, with no say as to what happened to me.

The giant doors opened, and a blast of heat rushed inside. Daring to raise my gaze just a little, I peered through the doors, blinked at the view of the apocalyptic landscape. So this exit led directly outside, making this hall the entrance to Azazel’s mansion. It made sense, then, that this room was huge and impressive and decorated with statues and weapons and…I frowned, my eyes snagging on one of the 3D artworks on the wall.

Wait a sec—Those weren’t artworks at all.

Blood left my head in a dizzying rush as I took in the details of the decorations.

Wings. Black-feathered, large, just like Azazel’s, they hung mounted to the wall like a grotesque, oversized butterfly collection. My mind spinning, I turned on my heels and glanced around the entire hall.

There were dozens of them. Every wall boasted several pairs of wings, fastened to the stone evenly spaced apart, from the bottom upward. My neck hurt from craning it to look up, and I almost lost my balance following the gruesome display until I lost sight of the wings in the gloom of the ceiling.

The clang of the doors closing startled me, and I jerked and wrenched my gaze back down to Azazel, who just now turned to face me. His inscrutable expression morphed into a frown when he took me in.

“Are those—” I cleared my throat, made my voice a bit steadier. “Are those trophies?”

I gestured at the wings.

He glanced at the wall, then back at me. “Spoils of war,” he said carefully.

He took a step closer, and I involuntarily backed up. His expression darkened.

“From demons you killed?” I sounded breathy even to my own ears. I couldn’t help it. My heart was in my throat, my head too light.

“Some I killed, some I let live,” he said, his voice deceptively calm. “We can survive amputation of limbs. They grow back.” He moved toward me as one would approach a skittish animal. “Eventually.”

My chest heaved with my breaths, too fast, too shallow. I couldn’t keep my eyes from flicking up to the wings. So many of them. So. Many.

“Zoe.” Azazel’s voice was pitched low, and still it made me jump.

I glanced back at him, rattled, and the sight of him only fueled whatever hindbrain response was in charge of my faculties now. His cutting beauty notwithstanding, he was a specter of darkness, his power humming in the air, his eyes too luminous to be human.

With everything else I’d seen and heard recently, somehow this was the aspect that pushed me over. This callous display of intentional cruelty, the barbaric collection of brutal trophies hung on the walls of his entrance hall, a warning in welcome for every visitor, a clear message of his strength and prowess in battle.

My mind just couldn’t compute. Sure, I’d known he was physically stronger, known he was a demon with a likely very different mindset than humans. But I hadn’t truly understood what he was capable of, not until the evidence of it slapped me in the face.

To think…he’d touched me with those hands, the very same ones that could rend someone limb from limb. Not just could, but did. Repeatedly. And then he displayed those trophies proudly in his home.

“Zoe,” Azazel said again, but I shook my head, frantically.

“I think—I need to—been a lot today—should go back to—my rooms,” I stammered, giving him a smile that was likely closer to a grimace. “If you’d just…point me in the direction?” I flailed toward the archways in the walls leading deeper into the mansion. “Or maybe…someone can escort me back? Hekesha?”

He followed my retreat as I inched away from him. His form vibrated with restrained power, yet his voice was smooth, with the hint of a playful note in it. “How did you get out of your rooms in the first place?”

Whatever distracting effect he might have been hoping for with his question was completely lost on my frazzled brain. All it did was remind me of how I had—yet again—disobeyed his orders earlier, how I kept riling him up, naively unaware that I was poking at a creature who was ostentatiously capable of dismembering those who crossed him and keeping the body parts for funsies.

I’d been so comfortable around him, relaxed enough to let him pleasure me, let him kiss me… Good God, I’d begun to see him as human, hadn’t I? And all this time, I had no idea of the extent of his otherness, that he really, truly could snap me in two with a twist of his hands.

How naive. How dewy-eyed of me.

I should have just stayed locked in my rooms.

Run, run, run, my gecko brain chanted. All I knew, in that moment, was that I needed to put space between me and him. My instincts screamed at me to flee, and for once, my frontal cortex didn’t object.

Azazel took a slow step closer, his features harsh and drawn. “Don’t.”

With my breath stuck in my lungs, I whirled around and ran.

A muttered curse behind me. My pulse roared in my ears, almost drowning out the swish of movement as he gave chase.

I didn’t make it two steps before he caught me.

Arms like steel closed around my upper body as he pulled me back against his chest. My breath left me on a gasp, my heart stuttering.

“Stop,” he said in my ear, his voice still at that pitch used to soothe and coax an animal about to bolt.

I was more animal than human right now. I couldn’t think, couldn’t stop, couldn’t reason. I was all instinct, no sense left, and so I struggled against his hold like something wild and feral willing to gnaw off my own limb to break free.

“All right, then.” Azazel clutched me tighter with one arm around my middle. He laid his other hand on my forehead and whispered, “Sleep.”

A push and pop in my mind, then velveteen darkness closed in around my frantic consciousness, as if someone turned off the lights in my head...and my mind along with them.

I fell, and sleep caught me.