The Lure of the Devil (The Demons' Muse #4) - Auryn Hadley Page 0,111

I can't give you an answer now. Except for Vehuel, who seems more than willing to do anything you desire."

"No," Vehuel said, his head turning to Phanuel. "It's just that - "

"She's our Muse," I finished for him. "Sia seems to charm the outworlders, which isn't as surprising as you'd think since she isn't exactly human."

"What is she, then?" Phanuel asked.

"Don't," Nick warned me.

"Why?" I asked. "Do you think they'll never figure it out?"

"I think they're angels," he said, "and some of them probably have ties to those on Angelis. You said you don't want Michael to come after her, but if you tell them, that's exactly what will happen."

Sam groaned in annoyance. "And she can't die."

"No," Ron agreed, "but she can hurt. Trust me, sometimes not dying isn't a lot of fun."

Then Sia decided to take it out of our hands. "My mother named me Ayala. My great-grandfather was a demon. His son was born to a satyr. He had a child with a human of fairy descent. That girl had me, and my father is an angel. It seems that angels have been afraid of me being born for a very long time. The irony of that is that I was only made possible because of what they did. The slaves you keep forcing together and breeding to make your world more comfortable are going to be the reason for its downfall."

And Phanuel smiled. "Well, now doesn't that make a lot more sense." Then he stood, crossing the distance to offer her his hand. "We stand behind you, Ayala. When you tread upon us, please do so gently?"

Sia accepted his hand. "I honestly don't want to tread upon anyone."

"And yet you still will. I have a feeling you won't have any other option." He placed his other hand over hers, holding her palm in the middle. "I knew you were hiding something. You had to be. Knowing that it's nothing more than the strength of your power?" He nodded. "Now, I can trust you, so fix this. Let us live in peace, and we will gladly help you with the slaves."

Sia's brow creased, and she shook her head slightly. "Why? A minute ago, you looked like you were about to kick us out again. For all you know, I could be lying."

He gently released her hand. "But you're not. I've seen your power, Muse. It's impossible, and yet you wield it so easily. That means you just changed the rules. If you are really the Ayala, then you can actually do this. If you are as powerful as has been predicted, offering to stand with you is the only way I can keep my people safe. All I'm trying to do is keep the deal I made with them. I swore I would protect them, and I'm trying."

"Me too," she agreed. "I'm just trying to make all of this a little more fair, yet we're so strong. We can do impossible things. Don't we owe it to everyone else to use that?"

"Why?" he asked. "What have those people done to deserve it?"

"Absolutely nothing," Sia assured him. "But why do they have to do it first? Why can't we?"

With a soft laugh, Phanuel began to nod. "I think I approve of how you think. I'll help with your slaves as well. Not as much as I'd like, but I will do what I can, and I'll ask the rest of us to do the same. Our penance for using their lives."

"Thank you," Sia breathed.

He dipped his head, making it clear he heard her. "Thank you for helping us when you didn't have to. I think it's the least we can do."

26

Sienna

With Vehuel's promise to help, and Phanuel's assurance that he'd talk to the rest of his angels, we decided to head home, but not to Tyrnigg. Nope, I wanted to go to Earth to get a better idea of what was happening with the missing students. After all, we couldn't really see what the angels were doing if we weren't in the middle of this. And the truth was that I missed the conveniences of modern life.

The guys all agreed, which made me think they'd talked about it when I was recovering from my little dying episode. In my head, I'd planned to come here and start looking for Chris, but after talking to God? I now had a lot more questions to sort through first. I was pretty sure we all did.

When I'd first learned that demons and