Azazel was back, bending low to steal her breath with another heated kiss.
“Stay here,” he whispered, caressing her face. “I have to see to something, but I promise that we’re not done here.” His voice roughened, the pad of his thumb digging into her cheek. “Don’t leave this bed. Don’t get dressed. I plan on having you again when I return.”
“Did something happen?”
“Nothing that concerns you.”
And then he was gone.
The door clicked shut behind him.
Sera moaned into the sheets, finally letting go of everything she’d been holding within her. She’d survived. And now she was right where she wanted to be, but the worst thing was, a part of her didn’t want to leave this bed.
“Tay?” she whispered. “Still there?”
It took a while. Tay had well and truly shut the wormhole behind her, and it took several mentions of her name to catch the technowitch’s attention.
“Hey, girlfriend.” The words were tentative, filled with concern. “How you doing?”
Sera sat up, wincing a little as all the new aches in her body made themselves known. She was naked, bruised, and in Azazel’s bed. She knew how this looked.
“Well, they don’t call him the Prince of Ruin for nothing.” She tried to breathe a laugh to cut the tension.
“Sera?”
“I’m fine. Maybe….” Sera bit her lip. It wasn’t the sort of thing you admitted, but she had no one else. Tay was her backup, her bestie. She wouldn’t go running to Uriel with this. “Maybe better than fine, if you know what I mean?”
“Your choice?”
“My choice.” And one she’d made the second she walked into the club.
It would be easy to hide behind the mission. I will do whatever I have to do to get the shard of Michael’s sword back. But that only made the lie in her heart ache fiercely.
You loved him. Once.
You wanted this to happen.
You needed it to happen.
And now it had and she could walk out of here with all the demons of her past—ha, ha—laid to rest.
But she needed to move.
He wouldn’t be gone forever, and if he returned, then who knew how long he’d keep her here.
“Comms and video out?”
There was a little buzz of magic sinking through her as Tay sent out a surge. “Nothing to take out. Guess the prince likes to keep his pleasures private.”
That didn’t sound like the demon who’d fucked his way through half of New Purgatory’s population.
“Alright. Give me what you’ve got,” she said. “Anything here? The shard in the gallery is a fake, which means he’s keeping it elsewhere.”
“Maybe it was never real in the first place?”
“It’s real. He’s got it. But he knows someone else wants it too, which is what this entire fucking setup is about. And I think someone just crashed the party, which is why he had to leave so abruptly.”
“Give me a minute,” Tay replied. “I’ll see if I can hack into the main comms and see what’s happening.”
But who was he trying to trap?
There were two other ruling princes of Hell in the city—Samael and Astaroth. Each ruled their own quadrant and there was a treaty in place to keep the city from spilling over into war.
Did he… did he know Uriel was here?
Uriel was the one she’d run to when Azazel had first offered to steal her away from Heaven. Her heart had been filled with so many doubts, and she’d wanted to find some way to save him. Instead, she’d thrown him to the wolves.
So yeah, if he knew Uriel was in the city, he’d be more than interested in setting a trap.
Sera slipped from the bed, trying to find her dress.
Ruined.
Well, fuck.
She hauled the skirt of it on, hoping the zip held and slipped inside his wardrobe, breathing in the scent of fine suits and silk shirts. Tugging a shirt from its hanger, she slid it over her arms. The scent of him was already on her skin, his teeth imprinted in her flesh. Her heart skipped a beat. To wear his clothes felt like she was drowning in him.
She’d keep it though.
Maybe, after this was all said and done, she’d be able to lift his shirt to her face and smell that scent and think of… maybe.
The buzz was back. “Holy shit. Okay, yeah. I think you’re right. Someone else made a play for the gallery last night. There’s glass everywhere. Blood. One of the newly-made vampires, by the look of it.”
So she was right. Someone else was trying to get the shard.
“Where’s Azazel?”
“Um, let’s just say he won’t be