my muscles relaxed, and my cheeks and chest flushed.
But Samael’s gaze was intently on his book.
I needed him to look over at me. “Sourial started teaching me to read,” I said.
He was in the middle of turning a page in his book, when he went completely still. He cut me a sharp look. “Why do you bring him up?”
Was that … jealousy? No, that would be insanity. “No reason.” I started tracing circles in the water with my fingers. “You still haven’t told me what this job is. Why do I have to be literate?”
His eyes were on his book again. “I need people to believe that you and I have things in common. If you don’t read, we can have little in common.”
“Why?”
He closed his book with a loud crack, and he stood, crossing over to the archway that separated us. I wrapped my arms around my knees, hugging them closer. So much for being seductive.
I thought I saw the ghost of dark wings swooping behind him. “I need a wife. My dreams tell me it should be you.”
I swear I stopped breathing for a moment.
Seems he was the one catching me off guard.
25
Lila
I watched his back as he crossed back toward his room. “You want me to be your wife?”
“I want other people to think you’re my wife.” Silence fell over the room, and he cocked his head. “Which would involve you actually becoming my wife at some point.”
“Why?”
“It is a custom among my people.”
My heart thudded against my ribs. “And why do you have to conform to this custom?”
“Sometimes to gain the trust of others, you must act as they do. You need to be one of them. I plan to rule them.”
“The fallen angels.” Might as well say it.
In the doorway, he turned back to me, eyes narrowing. “The fallen angels, yes. I assumed you knew what I was, but I wasn’t sure. The Fallen have no king. Yet. But the King of the Fallen must have a mortal wife. That is where you come in.”
As I sank into his bath, my breaths were deep and shaking, and I started tracing circles in the water again. “So will we be sleeping in the same bed?”
“Absolutely not. But others must think we are.”
“Are you interested in mortal women? Because Sourial sure is.”
A chill seemed to spread across the room, and he leaned against the doorframe. “Has he crossed any boundaries he shouldn’t have?” His voice was a blade of ice.
“No,” I lied. “Would you be jealous? Since I’m supposed to be your wife?”
The temperature seemed to grow even colder, the atmosphere thinning. Maybe now was my chance.
I felt like a hundred butterflies were swooping through my body, but this was a battle, and it was time to attack. So I rose from the bath, hot water dripping down my body—one hand over my breasts, one strategically placed at the apex of my thighs.
I stepped out of the tub, then crossed closer to where he stood in the doorway. I looked up at him. “Husband, do you have a towel?”
His gaze snapped to me, and his stare felt like it was boring into me, his chest rising and falling slowly. His irises were bright licks of fire, and I saw the faintest hint of golden sheen sweeping along his cheeks, like swirls of golden tattoos coming to the fore.
He flicked my hair off my shoulder, then slid his hand around the back of my neck.
Leaning in, he spoke in a whisper that warmed the side of my face. “Be very careful around me, Zahra. Do not try to tempt me.” His seductive angel magic was skimming over every inch of my bare skin. I found myself closing my eyes, confused by the hot surge of ecstasy where he touched my nape. “Because if I lose control, I will lose control completely, and I am like nothing you have ever seen before. I am nothing you can comprehend.”
In the hollows of my skull words rang like a curse. Venom of God.
He pulled his hand away from me, and turned to stalk away. I found myself naked and shaking in his bathroom.
Then, he uttered a word in a foreign tongue, and the lights went completely out in the entire place. The fire, the candles, everything snuffed out. With the stormy clouds hiding the sun outside, I could hardly see a thing.
Well this had gone bloody well, hadn’t it?
I swallowed hard. What had I just seen—the golden tattoos? Another glimpse of