“Fee?” Kiara called out from behind me.

Shitbags. I’d been so close to escaping. The steps to the pinnacle floor were a mere foot away.

“Fee, can I have a quick word?” Kiara asked.

I composed my features into polite inquiry and turned to face her. “What’s up?”

She stood a few feet away, hands clasped in front of her, expression worried. No, not worried, contrite. What the fuck?

“Kiara, is everything okay?”

She exhaled heavily. “Look at you, worrying about me after what I did.”

Huh?

“I ruined your birthday. I ran off like a child when Mal said those awful things. I allowed my emotions to get the better of me.”

“Kiara, you had every reason to be pissed off.”

“No. Mal loves to stir trouble and rile people up. I shouldn’t have allowed him to get to me. He wasn’t actually trying to upset me. He was needling at Conah about … about his attraction to you.”

Attraction … My neck grew warm. “I don’t understand.”

Her smile was small and wry. “I’m not a fool, Fee. I know that Conah is attracted to you. I’ve known for a while, but I trust him. He’s my soulmate, and our becoming lifemates is important to the Underealm.”

She was calm, logical, and reasonable. Nothing like the angry woman I was expecting to encounter.

Guilt, I am thy bitch. “I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t have to say anything. I trust Conah, and I’ve come to trust you. We can’t decide who we’re attracted to, but we can govern our actions.”

She was so right. “I promise you, Kiara. I will never betray your trust.”

She bridged the gap between us and pulled me into a hug. “Thank you, Fee.”

It was weird, but the exchange left me feeling lighter about the whole Conah situation. Men came and went, but friendships were forever. I’d learned that the hard way, and Kiara had just reminded me of that.

“You’re late,” Azazel snapped as I joined him on the pinnacle.

I winced. “Kiara stopped me for a chat?”

Why did that come out as a question? God, did he have to be so intimidating all the fucking time? There had to be an off switch.

The memory of his body pressed to mine and his arousal rubbing against my thigh flitted through my mind. He’d backed off quickly then. Off switch. Ha.

“She’s an honorable woman,” Azazel said.

Huh? What? He said it in a way that implied that I wasn’t. “I’m honorable, too, you know.”

He huffed. “You have too much of Eve in you.”

Seriously? He was comparing me to an immortal I’d never met? “And what is that supposed to mean?”

“Eve is a seductress.”

A ball of indignant heat bloomed in my chest, and my next words were out before I could think. “Really? She’s not the one with several lovers; your mother, Lilith, is.”

Azazel’s expression was suddenly glacial. “Do not make assumptions about Lilith. You know nothing of her.”

“Yeah? Then don’t make assumptions about me. You don’t know me.”

We glared at each other for a long beat. I was damned if I’d bow out first. Who did he think he was saying shit about me? Seductress my ass.

He was the first to blink and drop his gaze. “You should control your temper.”

“And you need to watch what you say. Seductress, pfft. You getting a hard-on isn’t my fault. I don’t control your dick.”

He blinked in surprise. “Agreed.”

“Good.” I released a breath to staunch my annoyance. “Now that we have that sorted, I do need your help with my anger.”

I filled him in on what tended to happen when I got pissed, ending in what happened at my house with Lucas and how Mal had calmed me.

“He kissed you.” Azazel frowned. “He overloaded your body with other sensations and distracted it from the rage.”

“Yeah, but I can’t rely on someone kissing me to control my anger in the future.”

“We’ll work on it. But right now, we should go. Your reapers will be waiting.”

He scooped me off my feet and cradled me to his chest. “Hold on.”

I wound my arms around his neck, turned my face into the crook of his shoulder, and closed my eyes. I knew what was coming. The last time it had almost blinded me because Azazel’s wings were different from Mal’s and the other reapers I’d seen. They were silver and huge and almost blinding in the sunlight. Best to keep my eyes closed.

There was a whoosh—the sound of his wings unfurling, and then my stomach dropped as we launched into the air. His grip on me was firm. I was safe in his arms. Comfort washed through me, followed by longing, which was a tugging sensation in my solar plexus, and then the mark on my chest tingled again.

The mark.

Oh, shit.

Chapter Nine

Azazel landed outside the gates to my house and immediately lowered me to the ground.

He really didn’t enjoy physical contact.

The sun was setting in the human world, but I was getting used to the time differences between the Underealm and this world, so the transition from morning to end of the day didn’t faze me.

The night seemed to wrap around us like a blanket. The ward blocked out the stars, but the sky still looked clear.

I looked up at the house through the bars on the gate. “Where are the reapers?”

“They’ll be at the operations house across the street,” Azazel said. “It’s where Peiter usually met with them.”

I glanced longingly at the house. We had it set up just how I liked it. One of the humans who worked at operations had brought in a bunch of DVDs and a DVD player a couple of weeks ago, and then they’d come over to watch movies after work. As much as I enjoyed the company and the movies, there was something missing. Action. Purpose. All this potential power and all the threat out there, and they had me hanging out at my Voralex and making friends, which was great, but still.

I looked up at Azazel’s hard jaw. “Is this really all Pieter did?”

“What do you mean?” Azazel asked.

“Stayed in the house and collected and delivered souls? What about the Dread and the mouths and the vampires, didn’t he help hunt them on a regular basis? I mean, I’m pretty sure he did, so why can’t I?”

“Focus on training,” Azazel said. “You don’t have to worry about the rest. Just yet.”

“I can handle it, Azazel. You can come with me. It can be on-the-job training.”

“I’ll tell you when you’re ready for on-the-job training.”

Anger licked at my chest, but I staunched it. “You’re trying to protect me. I get it with the whole Lilith thing, but I’m a Dominus, and we have a job to do. If you ignore that, you’re messing with the balance. You need four Dominus for a reason. Four scythes for a reason.”

A flicker of doubt crossed Azazel’s face. This was my moment to act, to push him to see reason.

“My wonderful boy!”

The doubt winked out. The moment to pounce was gone.

A small, gray-haired ghost crossed the street toward us. “It’s been a whole week, and you haven’t been to visit.”

Azazel, hard-nosed, impassive Azazel, smiled. He actually fucking smiled at the woman, and my heart did a flip in my chest because fuck, he had dimples. Two cute dimples in his cheek when he smiled and that smile sent an arrow straight to my heart.

Fuck off, Cupid.

The mark on my chest prickled.

Hell no. None of this soul mark mojo shit. I rubbed at it through the fabric, eyes on Azazel as he continued to beam at the woman.

“Bea, you know how it can get,” he said amiably.

He said something amiably, which proved he could. Which proved he just couldn’t bother to be amiable with me.

Well, fuck you, too, silver-haired, dimpled monolith. My thoughts must have shown on my face because the ghost woman, Bea, looked at me, pushed her spectacles up her nose, and gave a little gasp.

“Oh, my boy, what did you do? She looks upset?” Bea smiled sweetly at me. “He’s a big softie really, dear. I’m sure you’ll work things out. My boy is a catch, after all.”

Softie? Azazel? A catch? Softie? Yeah, that one deserved a double-take.

“I hope he’s being a gentleman,” she continued. “I didn’t raise him to be anything less.”

Raise him? I shot Azazel a what-the-fuck look, and he returned it with a stern glance that screamed just-go-along-with-it-or-suffer-my-wrath.

I smiled politely at Bea. “It’s so nice to meet you.”

Her brown eyes twinkled. “Oh, call me mum, dear.” She tapped the side of her nose. “I’m sure we’ll be great friends. My boy has excellent taste in women.”

Okay, something was very wrong here, but Azazel was acting as if nothing was up.

“Have you got time for tea, sweetheart?” Bea asked.

Azazel looked apologetic. “Not today.”

Her face fell. “Oh.”

“But how about I walk you home, and you can tell me all about your week.”

She brightened.

“I’ll meet you at operations in half an hour,” Azazel said to me in his regular gruff tone.

Bea pursed her lips. “Isn’t your girlfriend coming with us?”

“No,” Azazel said. “I want you all to myself for a bit.”

This was obviously the right thing to say because her face broke into a huge smile, which she aimed at me. “Maybe one day, you’ll have a son that loves you this much.”

Azazel led her off down the street without a backward glance.

She thought he was her son, and he was allowing it. Why?

I didn’t get Azazel. Not at all.

I popped my head around the office door where the humans worked, and Jennifer and Thomas both raised a hand in greeting. Jennifer looked immaculate as usual in her pantsuit and blouse, hair up in a French braid while Thomas was rocking the jeans and cream tee vibe. There was no official dress code here, and they were free to be themselves, which at first glance looked like they were opposites. But over the past month, I’d gotten to know these two, and they were pieces of a whole waiting to slot together, not in a sexual way, although that would probably happen at some point too, but in an I-have-found-my-other-half way.