Her lips parted, and she dropped the paintbrush. “Azazel? How is he?”
Tears prickled at the back of my eyes. “He’s great. Strong, confident, stubborn.” My voice broke. “He’s the bravest male I know.”
Her throat muscles worked as she swallowed, her gaze swinging to the side. “Does he remember me?”
“Yes,” I whispered.
Her eyes held a sheen as she looked up again. “Not just the bad?”
I shook my head, inhaled a breath that hurt all the way in and out. “Have you been here all this time?”
“How long?”
Oh, God.
“Two thousand five hundred years,” I said in a small voice.
She closed her eyes, opened them again. Her face contorted, her energy flaring hot. “They think I broke because of him,” she said harshly. “Because of how he left. As if a male could shatter me.” Lips quivering, agony etched into her features, she added in an anguished tone, “It was me. It’s always been me. Something’s not right in me.”
My vision blurred, tears filling my eyes. I furiously blinked them away.
Naamah rubbed her temples, pressed the heels of her hands against her head. “I can’t get it out. I can’t make it right.”
The pain in my chest felt like shards of glass digging into my heart. I wanted to help her so badly, hug her until she was okay. But all the hugs in the world wouldn’t be enough to make her okay.
She uttered a tormented sound that tore at my soul, then sank down on the floor. Eyes vacant, she brushed her fingers over the rug, back and forth, back and forth.
“Naamah?” I asked softly.
No reaction. She continued stroking the rug, her gaze unfocused.
At a loss for what else to do, I knelt down next to her, tentatively touched her arm with my left hand. I sucked in a sharp breath when the flare of pain at the contact reminded me that my fingers were a bloody mess.
Without looking at me or my hand, Naamah tilted her head and laid her hand over my fingers. “Broken,” she muttered.
Warm tingles spread through my hand, up my arm and through the rest of my body. The pain vanished, not just the one in my hand, but the throbbing in my ankle and the dull hurt inside my skull as well.
“Thank you,” I whispered, wishing so hard I could return the favor.
Naamah hummed, her eyes unseeing, lost in her own world.
A commotion outside the room made me snap up my head, look to the closed door leading out of these chambers. Sounds of metal clanging came from the other side. Fighting?
I had a brief moment of wide-eyed confusion, and then the door burst in as if blasted by an explosion.
A demon barreled inside. For a hopeful second, I thought it was Azazel.
But no, this was someone else. Someone with wild eyes, blood all over him, and a raised dagger. “I found her!” he yelled.
And then he threw the blade.
I didn’t even have time to startle. The knife embedded itself in flesh with a nauseating thunk. Next to me, Naamah toppled over backwards, the dagger protruding from her chest, rendering her unconscious.
No!
The demon was already striding toward us, giving me a cursory glance. My hand curled around the hilt of my dagger, hidden from his view next to my thigh.
Having reached us, he grabbed my hair and pulled me up. Pain shot from my scalp all the way through my body, and I screamed, pawing at his grip with my free hand. The flash of a blade, cold steel against my throat.
The demon peered at me. “You’re Azazel’s, hm?” He clucked his tongue. “Didn’t expect you here, but you’ll be a nice bonus.”
Focus, Zoe. I breathed, stilled the shaking of my hand. Muscle memory took over. Weeks of training, repeating the same movement over and over, guided my stroke. With an exhale, I yanked the dagger up and shoved it forward, straight into the demon’s chest.
His eyes widened, his features going slack. His grip on my hair spasmed, eased. I fell to the floor at the same time he dropped his blade. A second of frozen shock, then I rolled over and stumbled to my feet.
The demon lay on his back, eyes staring at the ceiling, mouth agape. The dagger sat in his chest, bull’s eye in his heart—incapacitating him for now, just like Azazel had taught me.
I let out a rugged breath. My hands were shaking, my heartbeat a jackhammer in my chest. What now?