Azagoth hadn’t seen his mate in four months.
Everyone expected him to go full Grim Reaper over it. And, as he stood in his office, black clouds churning overhead and lightning striking all around him, he couldn’t blame them. He was known for his temper.
But for all these months he’d managed, more or less, to control his inner demon. When he needed to release it, he went to the Inner Sanctum and tortured a few evil souls. And not just tortured them, but scared them. He became their worst nightmares. He’d spent a full day on a new resident of the 3rd level, a serial killer from the human realm who’d gone by Jason Drayger. Hawkyn would be happy to know about it.
So, yes, he sometimes got to release the monster within, but on this side of Sheoul-gra, he’d kept his displays of fury limited to shit like this.
Except this shit was just for show.
Mostly.
Jim Bob, one of his Heavenly spies, had just revealed the identity of the person who had helped Lilliana get out of Sheoul-gra, and after four months without her, he really wasn’t in the mood for this.
“I know you’re a big fan of killing the messenger,” Jim Bob said, his face nearly obscured by the hood of his cloak. “But if you fry me, you’ll miss me.”
Azagoth snorted, but the angel was right. Jim Bob was, by far, his best source of Heavenly intel, and it would be a shame to electrocute him. It might even take a little more effort than usual, given that the force of the guy’s angelic ability was tangible even here in Sheoul-gra, where Azagoth limited all power except his own.
“Then maybe,” Azagoth said, shutting down the storm, “you should bring me better news.”
Jim Bob shrugged. “I would think that learning Reaver helped your mate escape would have been good news. You know he’ll keep an eye on her.”
“Lilliana didn’t escape,” he snapped. “She’ll be back. And fuck Reaver.” Reaver, the most powerful angel in the universe, had been a thorn in Azagoth’s side for years, so it was no surprise that the haloed bastard had answered Lilliana’s call for help in getting out of Sheoul-gra.
He’d have to get Cipher to find out how she’d contacted Reaver. That was assuming he could get the Unfallen away from the flaxen-haired female he’d been doing every chance he got. Flail, a True Fallen, had been living here for a couple of months now, paying her rent in the form of intel gained from high-level demons and from cleaning toilets.
According to Hades’ mate, Cat, cleaning toilets was a great way to knock arrogant fallen angels down a peg.
There was a rap at the door, and Zhubaal stuck his head in. “Hawkyn wants to talk to you. Says it’s important.”
“It’s time for me to go, anyway.” Jim Bob moved toward the doorway, his black cloak flapping around his boots. “Be well, Azagoth.”
He ducked out, and Azagoth gave Z a nod. A moment later, Hawkyn entered.
“Father,” he said, bowing his head in greeting. “Thank you for seeing me on such short notice.” His formality said he was here for Memitim concerns, but the worried thread in his voice said it was personal.
Which meant Azagoth was probably going to make it personal as well. “What is it?”
“It’s Suzanne. She’s gotten in too deep with her Primori, and she won’t listen to me. I was hoping you’d talk to her.”
If Hawkyn was asking Azagoth to talk to his favorite sister, the situation must be bad. “What do you want me to say? I’m going to need more to go on here.”
Hawkyn hesitated, and Azagoth resisted the instinctive urge to snap. But Lilliana had left for a reason. She’d left so he’d learn to deal with his children and his emotions without using her as a crutch.
It pissed him off.
But he wasn’t going to get her back until he figured this shit out, so instead of giving in to his impatience, he was going to wait for Hawk to speak.
He waited two more heartbeats. Fuck it. “Fucking spit it out, son. I have a backlog of souls to inspect and Lilliana is going to Skype me in”—He glanced at his watch—“five minutes.”
She Skyped every day, and seeing her face was the only thing that kept him sane. Yes, she was gone, but he had to admit that their chats had been...fun. Almost as if they were dating over the Internet. They’d skipped the whole dating routine, what with Lilliana being forced to mate him. Things had been rough at first, but they’d found love quickly. Maybe too quickly.
As much as he hated to admit it, he liked the way things were going between them. Lilliana was always flirty and full of laughter, and they sometimes talked for hours, learning things about each other that they hadn’t known before.
And the Skype sex was incredible.
But it was time for her to come home, and he was going to tell her that today.
“Suzanne is living with her Primori.”
Azagoth blinked at Hawkyn’s blunt statement. “She’s what?”
With a frustrated growl, Hawk jammed his fingers through his hair, which was already a mess, probably from doing just that. “A Siecher demon is after her Primori, and its psychic attacks don’t trigger her heraldi. So she thought it would be a good idea to hire her Primori as a bodyguard to keep him close. And I think she’s falling for him.”
Azagoth cursed, but he wasn’t surprised. Suzanne had never been cut out to be Memitim. She was too soft-hearted. Too...human. Of all his children, she was the only one who made a special effort to see him every day, even if it was just to say hi or ask how his day went. She’d once told him that it was “a thing” she’d done with her human father. She’d either seen him or called him every single day from the time she was six until the day she was plucked out of the human world and deposited into the Memitim one. Only she hadn’t called the human her father. She’d called him Daddy.
And he just now realized that he hadn’t seen her in days. Shame at not having noticed clawed at him, and his inner demon stirred. He tamped it down with the promise of blood later and addressed Hawkyn. “Why is the Siecher after her Primori?”
“We weren’t sure, but I just got back from going through some of the records filed by his prior guardian. Looks like during the near-apocalypse Declan killed the head of the demon’s family. He slaughtered a lot of demons. He was a surprisingly lethal and prolific demon slayer for a human.”
“This...Declan. He’s aware of our world?”
“No.” Hawkyn glanced over at the massive fireplace, where flames as tall as Azagoth licked at the inner walls. Since Lilliana had gone, the flames had been cold. “His memory was altered afterward.”
“Huh.”
Hawkyn stared. “Huh?”
Azagoth glanced at his watch. Lilliana was going to call at any second. “I’ll talk to her,” he assured Hawkyn.
But he didn’t need to. Unless Suzanne was in physical danger, he probably wasn’t going to. As someone who could read souls, he’d come to sense when one was in flux. Suzanne was at a crossroads, and she needed to be in charge of her own destiny. Whatever mistakes or successes she made, she had to own.
“Now,” Azagoth said, as his laptop beeped, “I need some privacy. Oh, and Hawkyn?”
“Yes, sir?”
“Keep an eye on your sister. I would be…inconsolable…if anything were to happen to her.”
“Of course.” Hawkyn bowed his head. “Thank you.”
Azagoth barely heard Hawkyn leave. His entire focus was on Lilliana now, and somehow, he had to convince her to come home.
* * * *
Lilliana missed Azagoth so much it hurt, and as she looked down at him on her cell phone’s screen, she absently stroked her finger over his cheek.
“You’re at the beach today, I see.” She missed his smoky, deep voice, too.
“Ares’s island is lovely.” Waves lapped at her feet as she sat in the warm sand, a salty breeze teasing her chestnut hair.
Azagoth frowned, his eyes narrowing. “Is that a hellhound behind you?”
She looked over her shoulder at the pitch-black creature watching her from behind a dune and sighed. “That’s Maleficent. She’s been following me around for weeks.”
“I don’t like that,” Azagoth growled.
“It’s fine. I feel sorry for her. She’s really small for a hellhound, and the rest of the hounds torment her.”
Ares’s mate, Cara, was some sort of hellhound whisperer, and their island was crawling with the things. Maleficent had latched onto Lilliana from almost the minute Reaver had brought her to stay with the Horseman and his mate. Lilliana had yet to be able to pet the young hound, but she hadn’t pushed it, content to let Maleficent come to her when she was comfortable.
Azagoth cocked a dark eyebrow. “How small is small?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. About half the size of a normal one?” Considering the damned things were the size of a bull moose, Mal was still big at half of that.
“You shouldn’t be there,” he said, the change of subject giving her whiplash.
Feigning ignorance, she rolled her eyes. “The beach is perfectly safe.”
“I’m not talking about the beach and you know it. Come home.”
She twirled her hair around her finger and flipped the subject around again. “How are the children you brought from the human realm settling in?”
His expression said they’d come back to his choice of topic but that for now, he’d humor her. “Some of them are handling their situation well.”
“And the others?”
He frowned, his frustration putting deep creases between his dark brows. “They’re troubled. And strange. Their slang is obnoxious.”
She bit back a laugh. He’d had the oldest children brought in first, which meant he was dealing with teenagers. She’d actually like to see that.
“Well, remember, they’re usually taken for fifty years of training at Memitim centers before you ever meet them.” She smiled. “They’re civilized by then.”
“I don’t have the patience for it. What if this was a mistake?”
What he was really asking was, “What if I make a mistake?”
Azagoth was so wracked with guilt for allowing his children to be abandoned at birth in the human realm and raised in the worst conditions imaginable. Once upon a time, he didn’t care. He had been an evil, unfeeling monster until Lilliana had come along. Since then he’d opened his realm—and his heart—to his children, and for the most part, it had gone well. But emotion was a new drug to Azagoth, and it was taking time to figure out the right dosage.
“It’s not a mistake,” she said gently. “These are the older ones, and they’re going to need more time to adjust. You’ll feel differently when the little ones start arriving.”
“I don’t think so. Children don’t belong here, Lilliana.”
“And you think they belong in the human world, in the worst possible homes they could have?”
“So it’s a choice between Hell and hell.” He shook his head. “What if I lose my temper and whip out my demon or decapitate someone in front of them?”
She’d tell him to stop being dramatic, but there was actually a decent chance of either of those things happening.
“You’ll just have to work on controlling your temper,” she said. “And it isn’t like they don’t know what you are. I think you’re going to find that they’ll be pretty accepting. After all, you’re a legend, and they’re going to be powerful angels. All in all, I’d say this is an amazing thing for them.”
Azagoth blew out a long breath. “There’s another bright side. Hades did point out that I get to be the one to fuck ’em up instead of some other asshole.”
“That’s the spirit,” she said, trying to keep things light. Azagoth’s mood seemed a little grim, and she didn’t want to fight. “Hades is wise.” The Jailor of the Underworld was a jackass, but he wasn’t stupid. “Oh, and I have news. Cara is pregnant. She told Ares this morning.”
A shadow passed over his face, his expression going as dark as his mood, and her gut clenched. “How’d he take it? Was he upset?”
“Was he upset?” she repeated, incredulous. She hadn’t expected him to jump for joy, but this? “Are you serious? He was thrilled. Why would you think anything different?”
“Ares has lost children before,” Azagoth said. Just dropped that bomb in the space between them.
And now she got it. She understood his reluctance to completely let his children in. On top of his guilt, Azagoth had been dealing with the grief of losing his children. Meera might have been the most recent to lose her life in the service of Heaven, but there had been hundreds before that.
She wanted to go home right this instant and hug him, but she couldn’t. Not yet.
“Poor Ares. I didn’t know,” she said softly.
“It was a long time ago. Before he became War.”
A bird called out as it soared along the beach toward Ares’s Greek mansion, where a Ramreel demon was playing tug o’ war with a hellhound pup on the lawn in the very spot where Ares had learned he’d be a father.
“Well, you’ll be happy to know that he was so excited by the news that he whisked Cara away to go tell their family.”
“So you’re on the island alone?”
“Azagoth, I’m fine. Ares’s island is hidden from all eyes, and only a few approved people can pass through the wards. Plus, the place is crawling with Ramreel guards and hellhounds.”
“Oh,” he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm, “if you’d only told me the island is infested with demons at the beginning, I’d have felt much better.”
“Hon, you’re being a bit of a jerk, so I’m going to go. I love you.”
He opened his mouth to argue, but she didn’t give him the chance. She disconnected the call and took a deep, calming breath. She wanted to go home, but she had to be sure that he’d gotten control of his emotions first. She couldn’t be blamed for his pain again.
A warm nose nudged at her hand, and she nearly screamed. Then she froze as Maleficent nudged her again before moving a few feet away and plopping down in the sand to look out at the waves.
That was the first time the canine had gotten this close, let alone touched her. Cara said the things were sensitive to the emotions of those they bonded with. But surely it hadn’t bonded with her. Not that Lilliana knew what was involved with the bonding process.
“Well, Mal,” she murmured. “What do you think Azagoth would say if I took you back to Sheoul-gra with me?” The hound turned to her, tongue lolling. “Yeah, he’d freak.”
But that would be nothing compared to what he was going to do when he found out that telling him about Cara’s pregnancy had been a test of the waters.
Because Lilliana... Well, there was another reason she’d left Azagoth while he dealt with his inner demon.
She was pregnant too.