The Lure of the Devil (The Demons' Muse #4) - Auryn Hadley Page 0,63

saying that being bad feels very, very good, huh?"

He smiled down at me. "I want to say yes, but do not know if it will get me in trouble."

"Yes!" Sam said. "Oh, yes. And I think you should be bad like that with me next."

I decided that was a pretty good idea. After all, if I could seduce an entire legion of demons, that meant I was bad in all the right ways.

15

Sienna

The next day started earlier than I liked. Luke woke me by banging on the door with his fist loud enough to make me jump. At that point, there was no going back to sleep. Thankfully, I didn't have to answer it. Bel did that in all his naked glory, and the set of his wings made it clear he wasn't pleased. Luke didn't seem to care. He just said that if I wanted to make it to Angelis today, then I needed to get my ass out of bed, get dressed, and we had to get a whole lot of aether.

That took us a couple of hours, and by the time I was done, I was dying for a cup of coffee. No one should make a Muse get out of bed without providing caffeine first. Evidently, Luke didn't get that memo. Either that or he just didn't care. The second was more likely, but the smirk that seemed permanently attached to his face made me think he'd had a pretty good time sharing his bed with both Nick and Ron. Unfortunately, he was adamant that nothing had happened.

But I didn't get coffee. Instead, Luke and I slipped straight from the corridor to Angelis. I ended up inside Uriel’s house, but Luke hadn't been added to the wards, so he arrived outside the back door. The same place I'd come the first time I'd made a trip to visit my parents. Without bothering to ask for permission, I headed over and released the latch, inviting him in.

Luke stepped through it and caught my arm, turning me toward the only hall in this house I knew. It was only a few steps, and then we walked into the same sitting room where I'd talked to Uriel last time. It was empty. Not that I was surprised, but without people in it to distract me, I realized just how angelically pristine this place really was.

The walls were white. The floor was white. Even the furniture was white. The only color I could see came from the massive painting on the back wall. Mine. Almost as if it was the focal point, even though all of the chairs faced away from it. Then there were the large windows that looked into what I could only call a garden. It reminded me of a cross between a Japanese Zen garden and a botanical conservatory. The most exotic flowers grew alongside immaculately manicured trees, and the white pebbles beneath had been raked perfectly, leaving parallel lines across all of it.

Clearly, it was good to have slaves, because I knew Uriel hadn't done that work on his own.

While I looked around, Luke headed for the closest seat and dropped himself into it. "I have a feeling Uriel can manage to get you a cup of coffee," he teased.

I flipped him off, tossing a smile at him a second later to make sure he didn't take that the wrong way. "Can you tell me again why I couldn't have coffee before we went reaping?"

He just shrugged. "Nick and Ron were being cute. I didn't want to interrupt. Don't judge."

I gaped at him. "What?! Being cute how? You cannot just drop that on me and think that's enough information."

"Nothing like that, you pervert." Then he grinned, making me wonder if it was exactly like that. Asshole.

I didn't get the chance to ask though, because the door to the room opened and Kacira stepped in. Her eyes landed on me, widened, and she held up a finger in what appeared to be the universal symbol for needing a second. Then, without a word, she spun and headed back up the hall. What she didn't do was close the door behind her.

Luke and I shared a confused look, but she was back in less than a minute, dragging Uriel with her. The copper angel looked at me and smiled. Then he turned his attention to Luke.

"A little warning would've been nice," he said.

I wasn't about to let Luke get shit for my decision, so I said, "I'm