one detail she’d mentioned. “You—you’re Azazel’s sister?”
“Oh!” She slapped her hand over her chest. “Where are my manners? How rude of me not to introduce myself. I apologize ever so much, darling. Yes, I’m that big buffoon’s sister, Azmodea.”
She held out her hand again. Hesitatingly, I shook it, still processing this new piece of information. I had a sister-in-law. A demon sister-in-law.
“Pleasure to meet you,” I murmured, dumbfounded.
“Oh, the pleasure is all mine.” She turned my hand over and kissed the back of it, lingering there with her lips brushing the skin, her gaze on me warm and sensual.
Clearing my throat, I gingerly withdrew my hand.
“So,” Azmodea said without missing a beat, “what’s the story? How come Az brought you down here? You’re not a damned soul. You’re very much alive.” She perused me from head to toe, her eyes hooded. “Very much.” She licked her lips and focused on my face again. “So what’s the deal, love?”
I hesitated. How much should I tell her? What was I allowed to say? Given that Azazel had explicitly ordered those other demons not to inform his own sister of my coming here, it was a safe guess that he wanted to keep this whole thing under wraps. And I didn’t know exactly what kind of relationship the two had. Being family didn’t always mean you were close—my own family being a prime example of that. I had two half-sisters I’d never met, had no desire to meet...and now would never meet, it seemed.
And yet...what loyalty did I have to Azazel? He was my husband in name only, he’d made it clear he had no intention of living up to that title and he’d locked me in here fully accepting that it would break me to live alone for the rest of my likely eternal life. He knew I’d go mad, and he didn’t care.
So then, why should I?
I was willing to roll the dice.
Sitting up straighter, I said, “I’m Azazel’s wife.”
Azmodea blinked. “Come again?”
“We’re married.”
For a moment, she stared at me, eyes like quicksilver. Then her mouth twisted into a grin. “You’re pulling my leg, aren’t you? I like a good joke. Good for you for having a sense of humor. You’ll need it down here. So, tell me, why are you really here?”
“I’m his wife, and he brought me down here because the contract said we’d have to live together, but he can’t be on Earth, which means I had to come to Hell.”
Silence. I had the impression Azmodea wasn’t usually quiet for more than a few seconds, but now she eyed me with her mouth hanging open as if I’d struck her mute.
“What contract?” she finally asked.
So I told her. How I’d summoned Azazel when I was thirteen in what was supposed to have been a mock séance, unwittingly somehow activating a contract I didn’t understand and locking myself into a covenant with a surly demon, to be fulfilled twelve years later. How he’d appeared in my living room last night, how we ended up getting married in front of three drunk women, after which he took me down to Hell and basically put me in storage.
Azmodea had grown increasingly excited during my tale of woe, and was now bouncing on the sofa, her eyes sparkling.
“Oh,” she cooed and clapped her hands, “this is so delicious. This is the best. I can finally get him back for that hellhound he stole. He will never live this down.”
“Um…”
“You know, he’s always so high-and-mighty, so bloody serious, it’s atrocious, really. I’ve been trying to find something to needle him with for ages, but he’s so—” She wrung her hands in a motion reminiscent of squeezing someone’s neck.
Ha, I could relate to that!
“Now don’t get me wrong, darling, I love my brother, despite the fact his sense of interior design is stuck in the Dark Ages—” She glanced around the room with an expression of mild disgust “—but by Lucifer, he needs something to shake him up a bit. And him getting hitched to a human by mistake is just perfect. If I believed in those things, I’d say he’s reaping some wonderful karma right now.”
Her grin showed fangs.
My mind was still playing catch-up with all the new information bombarding me. Just the fact that Azazel had family was enough to send me spinning. Because that opened up a whole new level of Pandora’s Box called “in-laws from Hell.” Quite literally.