tell. And should whatever you require conflict with my duties for Daevi, my loyalty will trump the terms of the favor.”
“Agreed,” Elerion said silkily. “You may proceed with your charge.”
Before I could catch another look at the other demon, Azazel turned, scooped me up again and marched toward the gate. He activated it with a series of furiously drawn sigils that lit up in the air for a second and then stepped through the glowing doorway.
The same suffocating darkness as I’d experienced during our first hellgate travel enveloped us again, pressure rose around us, pushed in from all sides, then a plop and Azazel stepped out on the other side of the gate.
I squinted against the bright light—more an instinctual reaction than necessity, as I realized a second later...because the sun didn’t actually blind me. Not in the ghostly soul form I was in.
Still, it was a shock to see sunlight after so much time without it. It glittered on the dew drops collected on the grass, turning the lawn of the park rolling out in front of us into a diamond-studded sea of emerald. All those colors. The verdant green.
So much life.
I inhaled—and uttered a bitter laugh. That’s right. I didn’t have to breathe. Not just that...I couldn’t breathe. No scents tickled my nose, the aroma of the lush natural scenery beyond the reach of my sense of smell. The leaves on the trees above us stirred in a breeze I couldn’t feel, and when I crouched and put my hand on the grass, I didn’t feel the touch of the blades.
“So this is what virtual reality must be like,” I muttered. Frowning, I turned to Azazel, who watched me with an inscrutable expression on his face. “How is it that I can see and hear, but my other senses—smell, touch, taste—are disabled?”
“My best guess,” he said quietly, “is that seeing and hearing are the senses a human soul clings to the most. They are the most dominant sensations you rely on, and echoes of these perceptive qualities may be available to the soul even without the input of a physical body. But I’m not sure.” He grimaced. “Not like there’s a manual for all this.”
I blinked at him in wide-eyed innocence. “Did the mighty Azazel just admit limits to his knowledge?” I made a show of peering into the sky.
“What is it?” He sounded so resigned.
“Just checking for the flying pigs.”
“You just missed them,” he replied in a dry voice, “but if we hurry, we might make it back to my house before Hell has completely frozen over.”
Funny how even without a body, I could have sworn I felt amusement curl in my belly.
My gaze caught on a jogger stretching his legs barely twenty yards from us, seemingly oblivious to the still glowing hellgate and the guy with huge black wings so close to him.
“They don’t see us, or the gate?”
“The gate is entirely beyond their perception or reach,” Azazel said, “and unless we choose to show ourselves, we’re invisible to them.” He tilted his head. “Where does your friend live?”
“What time is it here? And what weekday?”
“It’s early Saturday morning.”
“Okay, so she should be home.” If it were during the week, she could already be on her way to work.
I rattled off Taylor’s address in the affordable and comfy neighborhood somewhere toward the outskirts of the city. Azazel scooped me up once more and took to the skies.
It was weird how real and solid his form was to me, my fingers actually feeling his collar where I held on to him. The touch of his arms and hands where he grasped me was just like back in Hell, no strange phantom touch or missing sensation here. I pressed my face into the crook of his neck, inhaled...and his scent filled my awareness. The heat of his skin sank into me. When I licked over the pulse on his throat, I tasted him—the hint of sweat, the faint aroma of his soap, and the note that was purely Azazel.
In a world that was lost to my senses in this form, he was the one thing I could still touch, taste, and feel.
“Is it some form of compulsion?” he asked in a suspiciously light tone.
“What?”
“The licking when I’m flying you somewhere.”
I drew back, and even in this form, an echo of my face heating from embarrassment rolled through me.
“I’m not complaining,” he helpfully clarified, his voice dropping, bringing back flashbacks of what that sensual purr felt like against my