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.
Chapter 10
I woke in slow increments, my senses sending my mind messages long before my thoughts returned to interpret them. Softness underneath me. Gloom surrounding me, broken up by flashes of distant light. A scent tickled my nose, sank into my skin, familiar and foreign and so, so good. I inhaled deeply. Leather and fire and dark spices. It was all around me, but especially concentrated on the soft surface underneath my head.
Pressing my nose into it, I stretched out, languidly moving my body like a cat shifting into an even more relaxed position. My skin slid along what felt like silk sheets, and my mind finally decided to come back and compute a little.
I opened my eyes to the next flash of light conveniently blinding me, but after a few seconds, my sight adjusted to the semi-darkness. A bed. I was lying on a bed, and I fucking knew this bed. I’d picked my overly revealing dress off this very mattress earlier, under the watchful, hungry gaze of its owner.
I was upright within a second, my eyes darting around the room. No sign of Azazel in the shadows anywhere. Just me, in his bed, curled into his sheets—and his scent—still wearing that damned dress. Of course, as flowy skirts are wont to do, the loose material around my hips was now bunched up, leaving me disconcertingly exposed from my waist down—exhibit A of why I hated nightgowns. I grimaced as I realized I’d wiggled all over his bed half naked.
The lightning outside illuminated the room for a second, and my gaze caught on something lying next to me. A pile of clothes—a fresh pair of jeans, a tank top...and underwear. Well, well.
But not just that. Something gleamed in the faint light coming from the window, the spark of a jewel. I reached out and my fingers grazed chilled metal. Gingerly, I grasped the object, held it up and turned it to the window. The next flash lit up the dagger’s sheath, made the black jewels set in it spark to life.
I carefully drew the blade out of its protective case and held my breath. Almost as long as my lower arm, it shone in the low light, its dark metal iridescent. Beautiful.
And sharp. I tested the edge, and even though I barely pushed, my fingertip came away wet. Sucking on the small cut, I sheathed the dagger again.
This...this was no accident. He wouldn’t leave this blade lying around here just like that, not with me in the room, right next to it. And a pile of my clothes laid out for me to find.
No, this was deliberate. He’d just given me a weapon.
Frowning, I scooted off the bed and quickly donned the fresh clothes. I wasn’t sure what to make of it, but one thing was clear—I really, really did not want to face him right now.
My panic from before had abated, yes, and my mind wasn’t as jumbled anymore. I couldn’t shake the sense of dread, though, the insidious grasp of primal fear lurking behind my more rational thoughts.
All it took to cause a new shiver of trepidation to skitter down my spine was a flash of memory of those wings pinned to the wall.
There, right there, was my thundering heartbeat again.
Yeah, no, I needed to just get out of here, find my way back to my rooms and hole up there for...however long it would take to come to terms with...this.
Ironic, wasn’t it, that I’d fought so hard to break free of those rooms, and now all I wanted was to retreat to their relative safety. You sure had it right, Alanis.
With the song Ironic playing on repeat in my mind—thanks to that weird quirk of mine that would get me an ear worm of a random song by only thinking of one word from the lyrics—I crept toward the door to the next room and opened it as if neutralizing a bomb.
The sitting room loomed empty in the low light of the torches, the door in the opposite wall cracked open about an inch. A voice floated over,