We hadn’t bothered to skin the angel, hadn’t stopped to take him prisoner. We’d been more concerned about our own murder. I hadn’t done more than stomp his face for good measure as we’d hurried Katrina and Zolroth out, on high alert for any other attackers.
Had that been a mistake?
Had the fucker not taken the hint and come back?
The idea that that asshole might have found my girl makes a growl rip from my throat.
We should have chained the bastard and dragged him through the realms, right to Hell. We should have put him in the killing pit, the deep canyon in the clouds that’s the color of sunset. The beautiful place is home to the worst atrocities of all…because Lucillania doesn’t believe in tempering impulses.
Those fuckers are given every weapon imaginable and allowed to go at one another again and again for as long as their soul resides in Hell.
I occasionally visit in order to get food for thought for my own magic, because those assholes can be creative bastards.
But that’s irrelevant right now. Everything’s irrelevant, other than ensuring that Katrina is safe.
I growl, irritated, sending a bolt of orange lightning at the snarling shitheads beneath me as my black wings explode from my back and unfurl, shooting me up into the sky. When I’m high enough, I let my hand morph into a claw, and then I rip through the veil that separates the realms, flying from the divine realm right into the human one.
The night sky on Earth blasts me with autumnal cold, one of the few obnoxious things about the human realm. The seasons never get this bitter in Hell. Or maybe all the random lightning fires there keep me from noticing.
The stars gleam merrily overhead, and the cars dance below me, oblivious to my panic as I catch a ride on a wind belt and coast above the town, eyes glued to the white building in the distance that houses my love, the Center of my existence. Why the universe chose to give my murder a human woman, I don’t know, but I do know Lucillania would laugh at the chaos it’s causing. She always loves when the universe throws out curveballs. It sharpens the point she tried to make with God before he cast her out—order always descends into chaos. Chaos is stronger than order, emotion stronger than logic.
She’s right.
Because ever since I met Katrina, I’ve become stupid and illogical. When I stumbled across her during her dreamwalking six months ago, logic dictated that I should have struck hard and fast. But I waited, fascinated by the sweet human girl who’d somehow met me on my own turf.
It’s not often that a nightmare demon sees someone lucid and aware. Typically, the sleeping mind is so malleable that I can play with it however I like. I can create monsters out of shadows and wave my hands to create glowing red eyes. With a flick of my wrist, I can fill a room full of busty women in short dresses that tempt… My kind are a key ingredient to Hell’s inner workings.
We allow people to experience their deepest, darkest desires each night, until the need to live them out becomes unstoppable.
So far, I’ve tempted two hundred forty-two thousand eight hundred and seventy-one souls into Hell.
But Katrina’s mind didn’t even bother with that dreaming bullshit. Six months ago, during a brief break I took in God’s garden to chill out between nightmares—Heaven’s far less crowded than Hell, and no one there dares to trudge through God’s precious gardens—I stumbled onto Katrina.
At first, I was completely shocked to see a human dreaming about the garden. That, in and of itself, is unheard of. But a second later, she turned and I saw her face, and my heart twisted in my chest.
I knew, right then and there, that she was our Center.
I knew it was my duty to kill her.
But then I heard her giggle, when a little tuft of cumulus cloud was blown off the strand it was growing on and swept over her cheek, tickling her.
I was a goner.
Fucking downed by a goddamned giggle, like it was a spear or something. It shot right through my heart, went straight to my dick, and made my blood race like I was in the midst of battle.
Every night after, I went crawling back there, searching for her, any sign of her, needing her like some pathetic addict.
Just like now.
I barrel roll through the sky and land on her balcony, noting Akor’s camping light glowing inside his tent, making the whole thing look like a firefly’s ass. I don’t bother with knocking. I use my claw to slice through the metal latch like it’s butter, and I slide the door open.
Katrina’s asleep, half upright with pillows stuffed behind her on the padded black hotel bed frame, Adam’s little head tucked against her chest. In the moonlight, her skin is pale, and even the pink of her hair dye is softened. Her plush pink lips are parted as she breathes softly in her sleep, and I wonder where her mind has gone now.
Immediately upon seeing her, the strain on my heart eases and that awful, bile-flavored panic recedes. No one has her. No one but her brother.
Adam must have been what ripped her away from me. He must have needed her.
My logic returns, and I want to throw a lamp across the room, just to vent my frustration at the way these stupid feelings have me tied up over her. I should have known that no one would’ve gotten in with Akor hawking over her. He’s one of the most powerful damn demons in Hell, even if he is the craziest.
I let out a low sigh of relief.
Her gorgeous eyelashes flicker open, and for a second, her face gets pale, scared. But then she blinks a few times in confusion, staring at me. “Ziel?” she asks, hesitantly.
Fuck. I forgot to change my face when I left the divine realm. I scrub a hand over my forehead and down my face, unsure what the hell I’m supposed to say. I’ve thought about this moment for months, tried to plan it.
I certainly didn’t want it to fucking happen with me standing over her like a creep in the night with the window open.
Dammit to fuck, what do I do?
She’s already sliding out of bed, covering Adam with the comforter, bending over the bed to tuck him in and to release his death grip on that fuzzy little cat that Akor gave Katrina, who’s purring up a storm. I swallow hard when I realize she’s wearing the most delectable tiny pink sleep shorts, the globes of her ass spilling out just the tiniest bit, pale like slivers of the moon, and my eyes can’t help but lock onto the exposed skin.
I have no clue what to do when Katrina straightens and turns to me, stepping tentatively closer, her bare feet shuffling over the carpet. My mouth goes dry in my throat when I think about what happened last time she saw me as Ziel, not tonight, but before. When she still thought everything was just a dream.
Is she furious?
Because to me…that night was everything.
Does she have any idea how hard I have to work to tone it down each day…? Not to grab her and just do what I want? Not just take her, let this insatiable craving for her go wild and do what it wants? It’s like trying to hold back a bull in his cage.
But…does she want me? All of me? Or just that softer side…the side no one else gets to see?
I shut down the fear she doesn’t want me when I see her eyes grow hooded and watch her lick that plump bottom lip tentatively.
She wants me as Ziel. And she kissed me like a fucking sex demon when we were in the gym at that shitstorm of a dance. So she wants me as Raz. At least that’s what I tell myself.
But the question is…does she want the dream version of me more than the real? Does she want the guy who can be soft and patient in a way I can never be in real life, because there’s too damn much riding on my shoulders?