Chapter 28

CHAPTER28

“Itook the liberty of letting him know to pick you up,” Lilith said from behind me. “I thought you’d like that.”

“Yes,” I whispered.

Azazel executed a deep bow, his fire-licked wings spreading low in a display of deference. “Your Grace.”

“Safe travels,” Lilith said, and then the door closed behind me.

I ran.

Azazel had barely straightened again when I launched myself into his arms. He caught me without missing a beat, and I wrapped my legs around his waist as I clung to him as if he were the only piece of driftwood in a stormy sea. I pressed my nose against his neck and inhaled deeply, needing the reassurance of his scent. For the first time in days, my soul relaxed.

Hell could burn and darkness could rage all around me, but with him, I was safe.

“I missed you,” I choked out, my face still buried in the curve where his neck met his shoulder.

He didn’t respond, except to clutch me closer, as if afraid I might slip away. His fingers dug into my thighs where he held me, and his ragged breath warmed my head where he pressed a hard kiss to my hair. Unlike me, he hadn’t relaxed, his muscles still awfully tense. I could feel how tightly knotted his shoulders and back were, and the agitated buzz of his energy tapped over my skin in a near-painful way.

I wanted to tell him that everything was okay now, that he had me back, in one piece, but just as I opened my mouth to speak, he launched into the sky with me in his arms. The abrupt take-off tore the air from my lungs, the words from my tongue. He hurtled across the sky with such speed and force that I had no hopes of talking to him.

At least not out loud.

Hey, I said into his mind. It’s—

Not a word.His mental voice was barely more than a growl.

My heart lurched. But—

I cannot speak with you right now.Such repressed fire behind those words, it seared me along the mental pathway of our connection.

Why?I asked despite the warning.

Because, came his snarled reply, I am much too furious with you for a normal conversation at this moment, but I cannot adequately yell at you when I’m holding you in my arms.

Oh. My stomach made a nosedive for the ground. The ground far, far below us.

He was furious with me. I cringed in his hold. Of course he was. Mephisto had mentioned how enraged he’d been when he found out I’d surrendered myself to Lucifer. And apparently, that rage hadn’t abated one bit in the time since.

Not that I could blame him. I’d be fucking pissed in his place, too.

But I still stood by my actions. Knowing that Azazel was mad at me didn’t make me regret what I’d done. I’d known that it would anger him, and I’d gone through with it anyway, because it was more important to me to remove the leverage Lucifer had on him than to avoid incurring Azazel’s displeasure.

Of course, that didn’t make it any easier to bear the force of his simmering rage as he flew me back in weighted silence. I held on to him, feeling relieved to be back in his arms and, at the same time, apprehensive about the storm I knew would wait for me once we were home.

By the time we landed on the balcony outside our bedroom, I was a mess of nerves.

He set me down with more gentleness than the sharp whip of his energy would suggest, and unlocked the door with his sigil combination. His eyes blazed fire as he held the door for me, and I got the first real look at his face. Back at the palace, he’d been silhouetted against lightning, and I’d run to him so fast, I hadn’t really taken him in.

Now I did.

He looked ragged, more than I ever thought was possible for an ethereally beautiful being like him. As if he hadn’t eaten in days, hadn’t slept, even though as a demon, he didn’t actually need either to survive and stay healthy. Demons drew their sustenance from Hell itself, but judging by his appearance, you wouldn’t know it.

The lines of his face were sharper, almost haggard, his expression somewhere between desperate fury and ravaged pain.

Between the two of us, he was the one who looked like he’d been tortured.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered as I stepped inside, my heart aching.

He closed the door with a quiet snick that was still somehow loud enough to make me startle.

“For what, exactly?” he said with the kind of calm that harbored a caged inferno.

I swallowed hard.

“For going behind my back?” Lightning in his eyes, the stirrings of a growl in his voice. “For doing what I specifically asked you not to do?”

“Actually,” I began, lifting my index finger, “you never asked me not to go to Lu—”

“Because I didn’t think you’d be reckless enough to do that!” he thundered, the leash on his anger finally severed.

I flinched, my pulse drumming in my ears. Okay, yeah, maybe being nitpicky about how he hadn’t worded his request for non-interference on my part to exclude my mission of self-sacrifice wasn’t the best idea right now.

His wings were still out, and flames rolled over the feathers, his power manifesting as dark smoke around him. “You left,” he snarled, sparks popping over the exposed skin of his arms, neck, and face. “You left without a word.”

“I wrote a note,” I ventured.

“A note!” His bellow shook the room. The furniture—all replaced after his last outbreak of rage—rattled as if struck by an earthquake.

I pointed a finger at him, some anger of my own stirring. “Don’t you dare incinerate the room again!”

Several muscles in his face twitched. With a flick of his hand, he summoned a fire extinguisher and handed it to me.

Well, all right, then.

I got it ready and cocked it at him. “I left you a note,” I said through gritted teeth, “because I knew you’d prevent me from going if I told you in person, and I was worried you’d kill whoever would deliver the message for me.”

His fingers jerked, as if he imagined decapitating anyone unlucky enough to have to tell him that his wife just waltzed herself into Lucifer’s palace to be tortured.

“Tell me I’m wrong,” I prompted.

“Oh, you are wrong on so many levels, I don’t even know where to begin,” he bit out.

I hid my flinch this time, glaring at him instead. “Like what?”

“Like thinking you can pull this stunt, and I’d just shrug and go along with it.”

“I didn’t think—”

“You clearly didn’t! At all!”

Darkness exploded from him, bathing everything in gloom except the flames dancing over his feathers, the sparks and gashes of fire on his skin.

He bared his teeth at me. “I told you that I would forsake the right to see my mother specifically so you wouldn’t be punished by Lucifer, and what do you do? You walk right up to him and ask to be punished!”

“I did it for you!” I yelled right back. As conflict-avoidant as I was, once embroiled in a fight, I’d give as good as I got. He wanted a shouting match? He’d get it. “I’m the one who started this whole mess, and I didn’t want to be the reason you couldn’t go see your mom! So I went ahead and took away Lucifer’s leverage!”

“How magnanimous of you,” he snarled, his every word like thunder rocking the room. “And did you stop to consider, in your noble crusade to fall on your sword for my sake, that my having to sit idly by while you’re being tortured hurt me more than not being able to visit my mother?”

Tiny spikes of regret poked at my heart. Still, I didn’t back down. “He would have come for me anyway! Sooner or later, Lucifer would have called in the punishment. What difference does it make that I pushed for it to happen earlier? At least that way, it was on my terms!”

“On your terms.” His face carved from stone, he glared at me, his nostrils flaring. “Yours alone. Is this not a partnership?” He gestured between me and him. “Did you not recently rebuke me because I acted without including you in my thought process?”

I gulped, my throat suddenly thick. He had a point, dammit, and I didn’t like it.

“You went behind my back,” he snapped. “You hatched out this plot, knowing I didn’t want you to interfere, and then you left and presented me with a fait accompli. You didn’t discuss it with me, you didn’t respect my opinion, you just did what you thought was best, regardless of how it affected me, consequences be damned!”

My chest drew tight, my stomach turning.

“Does that sound like a partnership to you?” he barked.

I didn’t answer his question because it hurt too much to admit he was right. In a small voice, I said instead, “I just wanted to do this for you. Because I know how much your mother means to you.”

He turned away and rubbed a hand over his face, his wings trembling. When he faced me again, his expression was equal parts pained and furious. “You still don’t get it. You still don’t believe—” He broke off and took a deep breath as if to rein in the mighty beast that was his anger. “When will you see? What will it take?”

Shivering from the nauseous cocktail of emotions brewing inside me, I stared at him, uncomprehending.

“What more do I have to do to make you understand that you deserve to be put first?”

My eyes prickled with wet heat. I couldn’t even speak, struck mute by the turn this fight had taken.

His breath heavy, Azazel stared at me. “I’ve told you before, and I will tell you again—your safety is my first priority. You are my first priority. Do you truly not understand?”

I pressed my lips together, pain squeezing my chest.

“I love you more than anything,” he said, the hint of a crack in his hoarse voice. “More than anything.” He punctuated the last word with a hard swipe of his hand through the air. “And you being harmed in any way hurts me more than anything.”

Lungs seizing, I blinked rapidly against the tears clouding my eyes.

“I would have been fine not seeing my mother,” he continued. “Do I wish to see her again? Yes. I still love her, as much as the faded memory of her allows me to. Nevertheless, it would not have broken me not to visit her, even knowing she’s alive.” He paused, the only sound in the room the crackle of fire over his wings, and the pounding of my heart. “But do you know what broke me?”

My lips quivered. There was too much pain in my chest to draw a full breath.

“Coming home and finding that note of yours.”

The sob that wanted to break free couldn’t get past the knot in my throat.

“Knowing that you were in Lucifer’s claws,” Azazel went on, his voice rough as gravel. “Spending the next days in the cold prison of my mind, imagining what he was doing to you. Not knowing how long he would keep you.” He balled his hands into fists. “Not being able to do jackshit about it.”

I sniffled and tried to find my voice. “He didn’t hurt me physically. He couldn’t. Lilith’s power inside me prevented him from touching me with the intent to harm, and he couldn’t even order someone else to do it for him.”

He exhaled a shuddering breath and squeezed his eyes shut for a brief moment. When he looked at me next, the raw, painful relief in his gaze rattled me to the core. “Mephistopheles mentioned something like that,” he muttered, rubbing both hands over his face. “I didn’t know if he spoke the truth.”

“He did,” I said. “Lucifer couldn’t lay a hand on me. And in the end, Lilith saved me from…” I trailed off and bit my tongue, realizing too late that maybe I should keep the psychological torture to myself.

His eyes glittered like broken shards lit by lightning. “From what?” he rasped.

I pressed my lips together.

“What did he do to you?” A quiet question, teeming with pain and fear.

“He made me watch a torture session,” I whispered, “and scrub the glass floor in his entrance hall.”

Azazel was silent while thunder rolled outside the window. I didn’t have to elaborate. He knew me well enough to understand what that would have done to me. And it wasn’t too long ago that I’d puked all over Inachiel’s freshly severed wings, demonstrating my soft heart and weak stomach.

He knew the way I was built, and I saw the exact moment when the realization of the emotional and psychological pain I’d suffered broke something in his gaze.

“Zoe,” he said hoarsely, and then he was right in front of me, framing my face with both hands, laying his forehead against mine. “I am so sorry.”

My heart jumped at his touch, so eager for his warmth, so starved for his affection. With a trembling exhale, I leaned into his hold. “I’m okay now,” I whispered. I might still have nightmares about what I’d seen and felt, but eventually, time would dull the memory.

He pulled me to him—or tried to. I still clutched the damn fire extinguisher, and it bumped up between us. With a frown, he grabbed it and threw it aside, hauling me close again right away.

I melted into his embrace. The tension fled me on a full-body shake, and I grasped onto him with desperate need. I could feel the trembling of his muscles, the edge to his energy.

His voice was ragged when he spoke. “I died a thousand deaths imagining your torture.”

“I’m sorry,” I choked out, my face buried in his chest.

He squeezed me closer, then withdrew to clasp my face in his hands again, his eyes wild and pained. “I know you meant well. I know you thought you were just helping me see my mother, that you did it because you know how much she means to me.” He shook his head, his thumbs stroking over my cheeks. “But you should have known that you mean more to me. I will always put you first. Not my mother, not my comfort, not anything nor anyone. I would rather bleed and break than see you hurt, do you understand?” He gave me the gentlest little shake, his touch still incredibly careful and cherishing. “I need you to understand this.”

I swallowed thickly. “I’m trying.” Wetting my lips, I added, “But I need you to understand something, too.”

His eyes darted between mine, his attention so acute it charged the air. “What, love?”

“That you deserve to be put first as well.”

His brows drew together.

I laid my hand against his cheek, caressing him. “That you deserve someone who would willingly walk into torture for you.”

His confusion fell away to reveal a glimpse at something raw, something unbelieving yet profoundly starved.

“You are worthy of a love so deep, it will bleed for you.”

His fingers twitched against my jaw.

“What I did for you? I’d do it again. You say you’d rather break than see me hurt. Well, I’d bleed and break to see you happy.”

“Zoe.” A broken whisper.

His mouth crashed onto mine, his kiss equal parts claim and surrender. I responded in kind, my entire being pulled toward him, like a compass needle drawn toward true north. All the parts of myself that had been shaken and shattered these past few days now righted themselves, mended in the benediction of his kiss.

He tunneled his fingers through my hair, his touch at once reverent and possessive. Fire licked through my veins, sparks of arousal buzzing all along my nerve endings. I jumped up and slung my legs around his hips, grabbing his shoulders to hold on. He moved one hand to my butt to steady me, the other sliding down to cover my breast.

“How partial,” he murmured as he broke the kiss, “are you to these clothes?”

“Burn them.”

“Good answer.”

And with a squeeze on my breast, he lit my shirt on fire. I groaned at the delicious sting of heat that coursed across my torso, around my increasingly sensitive nipples, and then traveled south.

The scorched remnants of my clothes fell away a moment before my back met the mattress and Azazel rose above me in all his demonic glory. My hungry gaze devoured the sight of his massive bare chest—he’d conveniently incinerated his own clothes, too, it seemed.

“I thought you were patient,” I said with a cheeky smile.

“Only for things that are worth taking time.” He collared my neck with his hand, then slid it down torturously slow, his touch becoming featherlight when he drew closer to my breasts. “And I’d rather take my time worshipping every inch of your naked body than spend it on peeling off your clothes.”

I could only utter a sound somewhere between a gasp and a moan as he circled my nipple with his fingers before he cupped my breast and lightly bit the hardened bud. A zing of pleasure shot straight between my legs, making my hips buck off the mattress.

While he lavished my breasts with his attention, my hands roamed his broad shoulders, sliding to the point where his wings connected to his back. I stroked over the black feathers along the strong upper curve, then squeezed with both hands.

“Keep those wings out,” I muttered.

A full-body shiver wrecked him, and on a spark of lightning all across the plumage, his illusion faltered and gave way to the black-and-white symphony of his true colors.

His stormy eyes met mine. “That spot is sensitive.”

“I know,” I drawled—and squeezed him again.

He groaned and bit my neck, pushing my legs apart with one knee. I arched into his touch as he cupped my mound and traced my entrance lightly. His fingers found me wet.

Ready. I was so ready for him, and I needed him inside me. I didn’t want him to leisurely worship my body as he’d promised. Right now, with my heart raw and open, with the memory of what it had felt like to be deprived of his warmth and love while I endured Lucifer’s cruelty still fresh in my mind, I needed all of him.

“Let me feel you,” I whispered, my lips seeking his.

The softest touch of his mouth to mine. “Always.”

He trailed his fingers down my inner thigh, leaving sparks of fire in his wake, and then grasped me under my knee to spread me wider. I moaned into his kiss as he slid his hard cock through my juices, coating himself in my wetness and rubbing over my clit. My pulse pounded in my core, my inner muscles clenching in anticipation.

When he pushed inside me, I arched against him in welcome, letting my head fall back on a helpless sound of pleasure. His wings trembled under my touch, my fingers still wrapped around the silken hardness of his sensitive arches. He trailed bites and kisses and licks over my exposed throat as he pulled out and thrust back in, as if he could barely restrain himself from devouring me quite literally.

Fire raged over my skin, sparks of lightning nipped at my fingertips, deliciously dark power hummed all around me, while inside, a storm of pleasure was building. I’d wanted to feel him, and I’d gotten my wish—my senses were full of him, and only him. Everything else fell away, all my awareness subsumed by his powerful presence. His scent, his energy, his heat, his movements…his love, shown with every touch, every kiss, every caress.

I met him thrust for thrust, climbing higher with him while I sank ever deeper. Lust and arousal pulsed through me in quivering waves until I clawed at him with the need for release.

A hard push, a sizzling rush of his energy over my clit—and I came with a keening moan. He followed me over a moment later, bracing himself with one arm while he still held my legs spread wide with one hand under my knee, angling me just right for his final, powerful thrusts.

My eyes closed, I clutched him to me, our breaths mingling, our souls as fused as our bodies.

By the time my mind came back on track and I opened my eyes again, he was looking at me with a curious mix of smug and sheepish.

I blinked at him. “What?”

He just raised a brow and made a show of glancing around us.

At the incinerated room.

Wide-eyed, I propped myself up on my elbows and took in the smoldering damage. We were lying on what was left of the bed, all scorched and smoking, flames still licking at the last skeletal frames of the rest of the furniture.

“What—” I murmured.

He cleared his throat. “I may have lost control.”

I gave him an incredulous look. “What about the sprinkler system? Shouldn’t it have turned on?”

As if on—belated—cue, a sputtering shower of water started pouring down on us as the sprinklers came on with a belabored groan. My shriek of surprise veered straight into laughter, the ridiculousness of the situation too much after the rollercoaster of emotions.

“Those sprinklers,” I said between giggles, “are completely useless.”

A grin lighting his eyes, Azazel angled his wings so the water wouldn’t hit me in the face. “I think someone sabotaged the programming.”

“What?” I stopped giggling. “Who would do th—” I broke off and sent him a dark look. “He wouldn’t.”

“What better way to demonstrate the continued necessity for his fire-extinguishing services?”

Ugh. “Mephisto!” I yelled at the top of my lungs.

I would absolutely kill that cat.