wept for hours.
On day ten-or-something, I started talking back to the Japanese toilet. Sadly, it wasn’t much of a conversationalist. In a fit of spite, I asked the gremlins to bring me a sharpie, which I then used to write Azazel’s name on the damned toilet. Was it petty and childish? Yes. Did it give me the grim satisfaction of defecating on his namesake? Also yes.
What could I say? Isolation did quite a number on me.
Suffice it to say, when Azmodea came to visit, I was so grateful to see her—see anyone—I’d have kissed her feet.
“Darling!” she tweeted as she swept into the room, all glamour and glitz in a dress that could have been snatched from a movie set of the 40s. Taking my face in her hands, she kissed me on both cheeks and peered at me with drawn brows. “Oh, you look dreadful. Has he been starving you?”
“Of attention,” I muttered, unable to keep my tongue in check.
She tsked. “He’s been in a mood lately, let me tell you. So much brooding, randomly snapping at his people. You know, like a human on a particularly prohibitive diet, denying themselves what their body needs the most.” She casually waved her hand in the air. “Not a very apt comparison, since we don’t need food, but—” Staring at me, she pursed her lips. “Hm.”
“What?”
She rolled her eyes. “He’s a right stubborn git, is what he is. Never you mind, I’ll talk to him.” Her voice a murmur, she added, “I seriously don’t know why he prefers to suffer.”
Him, suffer? How ridiculous. Before I could even laugh at that idea, though, someone else spoke up.
“Um, because he’s Azazel, patron saint of stuck-up control freaks?” a male voice said from behind Azmodea.
I hadn’t even noticed anyone else being in the room—Azmodea had a way of monopolizing my attention, glittering like a jewel in the spotlight. Now I peered around her to the man—demon?—who’d spoken.
His dark eyes, framed by thick black lashes, sparked with humor, mirrored in the wry grin curving his full lips. His skin a smooth brown tan, a short beard dusting his strong jaw, he held himself with natural confidence. The torchlight reflected on his long black hair, loosely bound at his nape.
Stunning. That was the word echoing in my brain as I stared at him. If I’d passed him on the street, I’d have done a double-take and turned to ogle him some more. He was the type of man who’d arrest your attention, not just by the refined beauty of his features, but by his poise, by the way his smile seemed like a beacon drawing your eyes.
“Ah yes,” Azmodea said, “let me introduce you. This is my son, Mammon. Mammon, meet your uncle’s secret wife.”
That word stung unexpectedly. Or maybe not so unexpectedly? In light of how my father had an entire secret family, was it any wonder I’d react with intrinsic bitterness to that concept?
“Enchanté,” Mammon murmured with a glint in his eye, taking my hand and placing a kiss on the back of it.
I cleared my throat. “Nice to meet you.”
Azmodea clapped her hands together. “Splendid! Isn’t it just swell to get to know more of the family? I figured you’d love to see some other faces than that of my dear brother—I just wasn’t sure if you were free, you know. I assumed he was keeping you busy rolling around that big bed, but then I found out he’s been throwing himself into work lately and roaming about, and I just knew I had to sneak by.” She swung herself onto the sofa. “Let’s sit, dear. We were so rudely interrupted last time, but there’s still so much to talk about.”
I sat next to her, with Mammon perching on the armrest of the chair opposite us.
“Is it true,” he said, crossing his legs, his hands clasped over his knee, “that you tricked him into a marriage contract?”
Good God, would I ever live that down?
“No.” I gritted my teeth. “I mean, I don’t know. I had no clue what I was doing. Honestly, it was just a desperate teenage séance gone wrong. Okay, sure, my friend and I were kind of naively hung up on this idea that we had to be married by the age of twenty-five, or else we’d shrivel into undesirable wallflowers and would die alone—I know, I know—” I held up my hands “Too many historical romances, not enough frontal cortex developed yet, but hey, no one ever claimed young