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For the last few hours, Shax had been doing his best to hear nothing, see nothing. Whenever his excellent sense of self-preservation failed, what he saw and heard made him want to run from the room and keep running. He would never forget this, which was precisely the point. Those who defied Duke Aeshma paid in blood, pain, and death.
Aeshma clutched his hand, her gaze fixated on the grizzly scene in front of them. Charun’s blood spattered nearly every surface. The black specks faded every hour, covering Aeshma’s flowered dress, replaced by more with each cut, each lash. A demon’s rapid healing was no gift under these circumstances.
An insistent chime rang out, startling everyone in the room. Peth froze mid-slice, and Orax straightened up from where he leaned against the door, ensuring Charun had no escape. Aeshma blinked as though coming out of a trance and looked up at him, annoyance twisting her lips. On the table next to the door, Aeshma’s phone blinked, buzzed, and chimed. Shax left her side and picked it up.
“Four hours.” Holy shit, four hours. He could only imagine how long it felt to poor Charun.
“Already? That’s a shame.” She played with the hem of her skirt and looked thoughtful.
“Shall I continue, Your Grace?” Peth asked.
“No. Let the poor creature rest before the next round. It’s no fun if she dies too quickly.”
With a hideous smile, Peth put his blade down and stepped away. Choking sobs erupted from Charun, still tied to the bed frame. Her voice gave out long ago, and the sobs had escaped Shax’s notice as he tried to tune everything out.
“Shax, fetch Irena.” Aeshma stood and straightened her skirt, all business. “And knock on the door once you can hear through it again.”
She approached her prisoner, examining Peth’s handiwork. A wintry smile flitted across her face, and she turned to the vicious little prick.
“Such fine blade work, my dear.” Aeshma caressed Charun’s wounds. The other demon twitched in agony. “You’ve really outdone yourself this time. You deserve a reward. Go rest and think on what you want. Be back in an hour.”
The weaselly demon’s eyes gleamed, and he practically skipped in joy. Charun’s sobs and groans followed them out until Shax closed the door, reactivating the spell. Peth crossed the living area and disappeared into the adjoining room. Good riddance.
Legs abruptly wobbly as the need to maintain indifference evaporated, Shax stumbled toward the kitchen. There was a reason he had kept out of sight for the last year. He filled a glass with water and walked over to the desk. He let his wobbly legs win, slumping on the chair. Sipping his water, he stared at his phone until his hands stopped shaking.
He called Irena.
“Yes?” she answered.
“Duke Aeshma needs you to do the spell again.”
A long silence filled the line.
“Now?”
“Soon. The next session begins in an hour. You’ll probably want to make yourself scarce before that happens.” Bloodlust did peculiar things to demons, made it harder to control their worst impulses.
Irena cleared her throat and said in a quiet voice, “Thanks for the heads up. How long do you think...?”
Shax knew what she was thinking because it was the same thing he was thinking. He could be next. Once you crossed a Duke, your life was in their hands and was worth exactly as much as they decided. He answered the only way he could.
“As long as she wants it to last. What did you think would happen when you joined up with a Duke of Hell?”
“You think I had a choice?” Her voice was bitter and brittle. “When a demon shows up at your door to demand you serve them and threatens your children if you say no, there isn’t one.”
She was right. “My apologies. Even I can only say no so many times.”
“Why?”
“It, too, is a long, sad story, best suited for another day.”
“Will you say that every time I ask?” Her words carried a trace of humor.
She was smarter than he had assumed. The corners of his mouth twitched up, but he said nothing.
“That’s what I thought,” she said. “I’ll be there in a few minutes if Her Grace asks.”
“I’ll tell her.”
He hung up the phone. Shax grabbed a paper towel from the kitchen and ran it under cold water. He scrubbed off all the black blood he could find. Gone in an hour, no matter what, Shax didn’t want to wear Charun’s blood any longer than absolutely necessary. He kept scrubbing.
When he turned the water off, he heard Charun’s pitiful sobs coming from the bedroom. The spell must be wearing off. Shax tried to tune them out as he poured himself something much stronger than water. Today, of all days, he didn’t dare leave until Aeshma dismissed him. The strains of Running with the Devil drifted under the door.
“Hello, I’m busy,” Aeshma said in a sing-song voice, too pleased with herself.
It wouldn’t be long before she called him back in. He took some deep breaths and steeled himself for what awaited behind the door.
“I know it’s you, darling. You’re in my contacts. What do you need?”
He drank the last swallow of vodka in his glass and left it by the sink.
“Really? Now, that’s surprising.”
Shax moved closer, his interest piqued. What he heard next nearly stopped his heart.
“Looks like we both have messes to clean up. Pity. Shax is a rather useful creature, and he just got here. If I keep having to sacrifice members of my horde for this, I might have to reevaluate our arrangement.”
Aeshma was going to kill him.
Shit, shit, shit.
His heart thundered in his chest, and he broke into a cold sweat. He needed to get out of here.
“Are you sure you’ll be able to kill Kheone, Michael? I understand if you might need assistance. You’re not one for casual fucking, and you’ve really fucked her this time.”
He froze as Aeshma laughed at her own joke, a silvery giggle at odds with the words spewing from her mouth. The weight of what he heard sunk into his heart and stopped his breath. Michael. Aeshma was working with Michael. The archangel was going to kill Kheone.
His head spun from the sudden upending of his world.
“You don’t have a choice. If you want to keep the gates closed, you must kill her. The last thing either of us wants now is Lucifer free to seek his revenge. If you can’t do it, I’ll send Peth over later. This might be the reward he needs.”
Shax broke through the fear keeping him frozen and crept from the bedroom door. He did not have long to escape, let alone to rescue Kheone. His mind raced. He could run right now and have a better than fifty-fifty shot at saving himself. If he tried to rescue Kheone, go up against Michael, he put his odds as a snowball’s chance in Hell.
He couldn’t do it. He cared too fucking much. The angel had scaled the walls built long ago around his heart and made him care. Shax had no choice. There was only one way he could reach her before Michael—Jesus, Michael!—killed her.
He picked up a pen and jotted down a note. Fetching Irena. Back soon.
If he was very lucky, it would buy him a few minutes to get to Kheone first. Shax stuck his hand in his pocket and pulled out the coin. For the first, and hopefully only time, he sent thanks out into the universe for this cursed piece of silver.
“Very well—”
Aeshma’s voice cut off mid-sentence as Shax whispered Kheone’s name.
His best bet at staying alive was to run. Run far, run fast, and never stop. But Shax had figured out a very important thing about himself since he had saved Kheone from Serel’s falling body. No matter the cost to him, he had to help Kheone first. He had to try. He could never live with himself if he left her to this fate. The only thing in his entire, miserable existence that made any sense to him was a very simple, very hidden fact. He loved Kheone. And she needed him.
The coin dropped him a hundred yards from the burned-out dorm. The darkened windows stared at him, no sign of movement inside or out. The barest blush of pre-dawn brightened the sky in the east. So much had happened in less than twelve hours, his whole world upended, in the best and worst ways. Shax had to be prepared for anything, even the possibility his mission would end before it had even begun.
Where would Michael hold Kheone? Motion caught his eye. Speak of the archangel. Michael strode out of the building next door and disappeared into the shadowed wreckage of the dorm. At least he knew where Michael wasn’t. Shax ran for the building the archangel had left as though Kheone’s life depended on it.
It was the longest damn run of his life, all ten seconds of it.
Shax pulled on the door, expecting it to be locked. It was not. His brain screamed at him to take off, leave this mess behind, and survive another day, another month, another year. The thought of living with himself should he make that choice filled him with disgust. His heart told him he could not. He would end up taking his own life, one way or another, should he stare at an eternity without Kheone.
Because it boiled down to some sick, cosmic joke. A demon in love with an angel. Shax imagined Lucifer’s cruel, knowing laugh. And if God could see him now...
He followed his heart. Stalking silently like his alter ego, he passed the gym, full of sleeping angels, crept downstairs, and stopped halfway down the hall in front of a door.
There was nothing special about the gray industrial door. But behind this door was Kheone. His soul knew it, a certainty he had only experienced once before in his immortal life. That time had been a mistake. This time he was wiser. This time he knew what real love looked like. It wasn’t some false idol, trapping him in torment of the body and the soul. It was Kheone.
Shax took in a deep breath, preparing for whatever lay behind the door.
She could be dead, said the realist in him.
Shut the fuck up, said his heart.
There was only one way to find out. He tugged the door open, crouching down to make himself a smaller target in case Michael had left a guard.
Kheone’s body lay in the middle of a circle of ashes, covered in a ratty blanket. It took him a moment to notice the slow rise and fall of her chest as she breathed. She breathed. She was alive. Oh, thank God, she was alive.