Chapter 2

CHAPTER2

Inachiel blinked, his expression a study in perplexity. “So I’ve heard,” he murmured after a moment.

I peered at the floor for a hole to swallow me. At this rate, I’d settle for a crack that I’d somehow wiggle into.

Just kill me now,I whispered into Azazel’s mind.

That would put me in breach of our contract, sweetheart,was his purred answer.

I gave him a quick, disgruntled side-eye.

Just think of stuffies,he murmured.

Right. With a deep breath, I forced a smile on my face, beamed at Inachiel and said, “Good to meet you. Please, come on in.”

Gesturing toward the back of the hall, I stepped aside, bowing my head slightly. Seeing as Inachiel held the same rank as Azazel, a full-body bow wasn’t necessary—not even for me, because as Azazel’s wife, I officially ranked as high as him. Hell was all about protocol, politics, and pomp—tempered by some truly gruesome displays of brutality—so following the rules of diplomacy, I had to be greeted and treated the same as Azazel, even though I was a lowly human without powers.

And therein lay the problem.

It was exactly that dichotomy between my theoretical high status and my actual being a powerless human that tripped everyone up, including me. Not once, in all those months down here, had I been truly treated the way a demon of my status should.

Oh, they all pretended just fine, especially in front of Azazel. As soon as he turned his back, though, most of that pretense dropped to a level of just barely staying above outright insulting me.

Such fun.

These demons excelled at political power plays, at slicing into someone with words as precise and cutting as a surgical knife, at using the sweetest turn of phrase to deliver an insult just covert enough not to be considered a breach of protocol.

Me? I stumbled over my own words when I ordered a drink. Once, in my previous life, when I went through a drive-thru and picked up my food, the cashier said, “Your receipt is in the bag,” and my eloquent answer was, “You too!”

Needless to say, I never went back to that fast-food joint again.

So, anyway, add that particular skill of putting my foot in my mouth to the thinly veiled condescension I had to endure at these meetings, and you had the perfect recipe for an excruciating experience. And here I thought I wouldn’t be tortured in Hell just because I was married to a demon. Ha!

Joke was on me.

It was precisely the fact that I was married to Azazel that made it impossible for me to skip these damn parties. Because as his wife—rare though that might be in Hell—I was head of the household alongside him and was required, by protocol, to welcome his guests and play hostess. If I didn’t show at these gatherings, it would be tantamount to snubbing his visitors, and that affront would damage Azazel’s reputation and standing among his peers.

And no way in Hell would I fuck things up for him down here.

So I gritted my teeth, plastered on a pleasant smile and swam in those shark-infested waters while hoping I wouldn’t cut myself and start bleeding.

Walking side by side with Azazel, I led our guests—a group of half a dozen—into one of the many, many rooms in this house that were solely meant to accommodate leisurely get-togethers. Had I ever wondered how nobility lived in previous centuries? I wondered no more.

Hell was a largely feudal system, and all those alliances and ties and complex relationships between demons and their territories demanded to be well maintained. Everyone’s favorite way of doing that seemed to be to keep inviting each other to shoot the shit at their respective residence and indulge in gossip and often borderline orgy-like festivities.

Half of the time, I was tempted to loudly proclaim, “Let them eat cake!” But that would make them look at me even weirder than they already did, and my clumsy human self was tarnish enough for Azazel’s reputation as it was.

Our honored guests settled onto the available lounging surfaces of the room, this one decorated in a color scheme that could best be described as Let’s make this look like a sunset. Low lighting bathed the room in an intimate glow, and soft music filled the air, played live by a band in the corner. Plush couches and settees and chairs invited visitors to get comfortable, and little side tables held all sorts of hors d’œuvres and refreshments. Demons didn’t need food or drink to survive, as I’d learned, but they sure liked to consume it. And like everything else on offer in Azazel’s home, it was of exquisite quality.

Given that there was no sun in Hell, no agriculture as far as I had seen, I’d wondered where it all came from…until I’d found out that, apparently, demons pilfered it all from Earth. Which had soured my stomach quite a bit—I didn’t like the idea of living off stolen food. Someone had grown all of this, and the ones down in the trenches, doing backbreaking work to plant and process, already barely made a living this way. It just didn’t sit right that they’d continuously lose part of their harvest to the sticky fingers of some demons from down below who didn’t even need this food to survive.

Except me, of course. I did need to eat and drink if I wanted to stay alive.

Azazel, bless his heart, had taken strides to ensure that at least the food he sourced for his estate would be properly compensated. I hadn’t asked him for it, he’d just mentioned it off-hand someday, but I knew it was because he’d somehow realized my discomfort.

I loved him all the more for it.

Now I moved around the room, between groups of demons from Azazel’s domain chatting with the visitors. These parties always attracted quite a few of Azazel’s folks; for one thing, because it was good manners to have demons from his domain and household attend and mingle with the guests, and for another, because…well. There just wasn’t much else to do for fun in Hell.

You’d either go to war against another demon, go to work to torture some sinners, visit Earth to collect some souls, take care of your estate if you were high-ranking, or you’d get shitfaced at one of these parties. Sometimes, a group would venture out for a dragon hunt. Thankfully, I didn’t need to participate in that particular entertainment because I didn’t have wings, which made me glad for the lack of feathers for a change.

Yeah, so these gatherings were really at the top of the list of fun activities for many demons. How had Azazel so succinctly put it back when we were at Lucifer’s Fall Festival? Hell is a shithole and immortality holds endless ennui. We take pleasure where we can find it.

I went from group to group in the room brimming with chatter, music, and the clinking of glasses, doing my best to pretend to be the social butterfly I really wasn’t, wishing I had even an ounce of Taylor’s extroversion. My best friend had always been at ease in large groups, energized by the atmosphere, charged by just being around others and interacting with them. She was such a natural at parties.

I felt a pang of longing in my chest. If only Tay were here, she’d hook an arm through mine and float through the crowd at my side, bridging the gap between my social anxiety and the demands of my position. She’d help me chat up the demons and make me feel less alone.

But alas, Tay was a whole dimension away on Earth, in Australia, living her human life, unable to play emotional support human to her awkward friend.

Azmodea, my demon sister-in-law, was similarly extroversion gifted as Taylor, and she’d sometimes help me out at these parties. Unfortunately, though, Azmodea couldn’t attend every gathering, since she had her own domain and therefore her own schedule full of these things.

Same went for Mammon, her charming son.

So tonight it was just me, listening to the conversation of the two demon females from Inachiel’s entourage, one of them a blonde with golden skin and sky-blue eyes, the other a brunette with a light brown tan, both of them wrapped in glittering dresses that accentuated their curves. They could have easily modeled for that famous lingerie line that liked to send their ladies down the catwalk with huge wings attached to their backs.

And, given these were full-blood demons, they’d even bring their own shiny black wings.

“So, Zoe,” the blonde said. What was her name again? Argh, my damn brain. “What is it like being a human?”

I blinked. What the hell kind of question was that?

At my undoubtedly stupefied look, she elaborated. “You know, having no powers of your own?” Her voice was full of sincerity, her eyes holding just the right amount of pity. “You must feel so vulnerable. I cannot even imagine.”

It took all my brittle strength to keep the smile plastered on my face. “Well,” I said, clearing my throat, “it’s not that bad. I do have some powers. I heal fast, and I can summon.”

And to demonstrate, I materialized a glass of champagne and raised it in a salute before taking a sip.

“Ah, yes.” Impossibly, the gleam of pity in the blonde’s eyes grew, and she shared a look with her friend. “Like a half-blood, then.”

Not even, I grumbled in my mind. Half-blood demons—the offspring of a demon and a human—could often control fire as well, a power I was sadly lacking. And the two I’d named were courtesy of Lucifer, in payment for a favor I’d done him.

It wasn’t likely I’d ever grow into more power down here. What little I had gotten from my bond with Azazel was being impervious to fire, having an eidetic memory, and understanding every language ever spoken, scripts and all, including…Hellspeak.

When I’d first come down here, I hadn’t even noticed that demons spoke their own language—because I’d understood it immediately, as if it was a native language for me. It had taken me embarrassingly long to realize this, and that it was an effect of marrying Azazel. To be fair, some aspects of this power had trickled in over weeks and months. For example, I couldn’t read the scripts of different languages at first. But a couple weeks in, all those books in Azazel’s library whose titles I hadn’t been able to decipher before suddenly revealed themselves as legible.

This delayed timeline of magical gifts had given me hope that maybe I’d get more powers over time, but to my vast disappointment, the trickle of supernatural skills had stopped a few months ago.

Guess I was as magically jacked as I was going to get.

The brunette shook her head and clucked her tongue. “Remember that half-blood at Guthor’s court?” she asked her friend. “What was her name?”

The blonde raised her brows. “Oh, you mean the one who fell into the dragon trench? At feeding time?”

“Yes.” The brunette beamed then sighed. “Gruesome death, that one.”

The blonde nodded, the light of the candles making her hair appear like spun gold. “So fragile, those half-bloods.”

They both faced me again, with those damn pitying eyes barely hiding the glee they truly felt. Probably imagining the many ways my own fragile self could die a gruesome death down here.

Point taken, thank you. I knew I’d never be as strong as a full-blood demon.

Stuffing my fizzling anxiety and simmering anger down lest it show on my face, I inhaled sharply. “Oh, if you’ll excuse me, my fragile human condition is forcing me to get more food. You know, so I won’t die of malnutrition. Terribly bad human habit, that need for sustenance. Cheerio!”

And with a little wave, I turned my back and wove my way through the settees and chairs, intent on finding Azazel for a quick reprieve from having to handle this shit alone. He usually tried to stay by my side as much as possible, knowing that I felt more comfortable with him there, but often enough, we had to split up to tend to different guests at the same time. He was currently sitting on a chaise lounge on the other side of the room, talking to a male demon from Inachiel’s entourage.

Halfway before I made it to my salvation, someone flagged me down. I turned and froze. Inachiel. Barely restraining myself from grimacing, I beelined over to where he was draped across a divan, all casual elegance and leashed power.

“Inachiel,” I said as I reached him, dipping my chin. “Are you enjoying the party?”

“I am, yes.” His green eyes glittered like crushed emeralds under the sun, and he indicated the settee opposite his. “Do join me for a moment, will you? I haven’t had the chance to talk to our unusual hostess yet.”