“What?” Azmodea pinned him with a look. “He might be a bag of shit in the family department, but his devotion to her is epic.” To me, she said, “Lilith was the first woman, God’s first daughter, and quite beloved at that. God paired her with Adam, and they were to create human life on Earth. Bummer was, Adam was a bore. Lilith couldn’t stand him. She refused to lie with him—that’s biblical for fucking—”
I spit out my drink.
“—which enraged God, as you can imagine,” Azmodea continued blithely. “No human life without ye olde horizontal tango, ya know?”
“Doesn’t need to be horizontal,” Azazel muttered.
I choked on the rest of the water that was stuck in my throat, tears in my eyes. They really needed to stop before I suffocated from laughing too much.
Azmodea patted my back. “There, there, dear. Anyway, Lucifer meanwhile had fallen in love with Lilith. He was still an angel at the time, the brightest star of Heaven. He’d been watching Lilith in Eden, and when she rejected Adam, he swooped in and made his move. Stole her from right under Adam’s nose, you could say. Well, it’s important to note that she wanted to be stolen.” She wagged her brows. “God found out, of course, and things went downhill from there. Lucifer was kicked out of Heaven and cast down into Hell, Lilith got thrown out of Eden and cursed to roam the barren wilderness alone, and Adam got a new woman, this time with a bit less of an ‘attitude problem.’” She made air quotes.
“But she still disobeyed the order not to eat from that tree, though, right? Is that true?”
“Yep. That was Lucifer’s revenge. He clawed his way out of Hell for that one, snuck into Eden and seduced both Adam and Eve to eat from the tree.”
“Both?”
“Sure did. Not that the old men writing these stories down left that little tidbit in there.” She winked at me. “But that wasn’t the end of it. While on the earthly plane, Lucifer sought out Lilith and offered to take her with him, to rule Hell as his equal. She accepted, and he brought her down here. God didn’t like that either, so he took Lilith back.”
I pursed my lips. “I take it that didn’t go over well?”
Azmodea gave a small huff. “Caused the war between Heaven and Hell. See, Lucifer had managed to rally support among his former brethren in Heaven, and there was a good-sized contingent of rebel angels who opposed Lucifer’s punishment. He gathered them around him and attacked Heaven. It was an epic battle, and contrary to what is generally known, God didn’t win. Would he have won eventually? Maybe.” She shrugged. “We’ll never know, because he offered a deal. Lucifer would get Lilith back if he agreed to stay in Hell for all eternity, never to set foot on Earth again, and if he took up the task of punishing the sinners for God. Lucifer agreed, and the truce has held ever since.”
“All that is to say,” Azazel followed up, “that to wrong Lilith is to incur Lucifer’s wrath like nothing else. His devotion to her has not abated in thousands of years.” He gave me a look from underneath his lashes. “Be careful when you speak to her.”
I swallowed past the knot of unease in my throat. “Got it.” Frowning, I added, “Wait. If Lucifer and Lilith are such an item, how come he had a child with Daevi?” Devoted, my ass.
Azmodea smirked. “Whoever said their relationship is exclusive?”
My expression must have shown my bafflement, because Azmodea gently added, “Devotion and love don’t equal monogamy. Consensual polyamory is a thing, you know.”
My cheeks heated. “I do know that,” I muttered.
“Both Lucifer and Lilith are happy to invite others into their bed,” Azmodea went on. “It’s quite common among our kind. Demons like to share.”
“Not all of us,” Azazel said silkily, his eyes full of lightning as he looked at me.
My face burned even hotter. “Good,” I whispered, and sent him a small smile.
Chapter 18
“Zoe.”
I paused in pulling on the dress Azazel had gifted me for the occasion—a luminous dream of intricate, red lacework across the sheer bodice and long sleeves, ending in a whirl of diaphanous fabric for the ankle-length skirt, the color of which segued from cream to blood red at the very bottom. The dress was see-through again in most places, with high slits among the skirt to give teasing glimpses