Pacing my bedroom, I chew on my thumbnail while debating my options. Flickering torches line the walls, chasing away the chill in the air, but I’m too agitated to feel its bite against my skin. If my father is right, which I suspect he is, we’re in trouble. I can’t just fly over to Daemon’s house and knock on the door. He won’t let me inside, for fucking starters. And if I do manage to make it past the threshold, he’ll scoff at me if I forward my father’s suspicion. “Fuck,” I grumble, pulling at the strands of my hair. “Think, Dmitriy, think.”
Daemon and I have never gotten on. Our rivalry was born the moment we entered this world, a twisted inheritance our fathers gifted us. But somehow, here we are, caring about the same girl.
Mr. Hawthorne, who teaches mind control in humans, once grumbled, “Females bring nothing but trouble,” on his way past my desk. At this moment, I’m inclined to agree.
She’s Daemon’s girl; I know that. Yet I can’t help these unwelcome emotions that have sprung up in me ever since she entered my world. I’ve tried to suppress them. Tried to ignore how my gaze wanders in her direction when she enters a room. At first, when I noticed my cousin’s piqued interest, I planned on using that to my advantage. I even let my father play his weird games, never questioning why he brought groups of humans to the house and let the angel slaughter them like livestock while we watched on in shock, horror, and morbid curiosity.
In my mind’s eye, I can still picture her hunched over a man, hand buried deep in his gut while his pained, choked grunt accompanied the blood that poured from his lips. The way his eyes had popped wide open when she pulled his innards out, as if she was a curious child, playing with oddities.
I knew then that something was wrong.
The door creaks open, and I come to a sudden stop when Aurelia—sorry, Genesis—walks inside. I’m instantly on alert, tracking her like a hawk while she peruses the books stacked on my desk. What if my father is wrong? What if it’s not some girl my uncle murdered? What if it’s actually her?
Hands fisted at my sides, I let my gaze wander over the expanse of her long neck when she moves her hair away to expose the smooth olive skin. She picks up a book, reads over the blurb, then puts it back down. Turning around, her brown eyes land on me, and she smiles.
I don’t know what I expected.
Maybe I thought she’d look different.
“Are you okay?” she asks, her brows pulling down as she takes a step toward me.
Forcing my tense shoulders to relax, I return her smile and rub at my neck. “Sorry, I’m just tired.”
Her frown smooths out, and she trails the tips of her fingers across the navy, silk bedsheets on her way over. I count each step, watching her short skirt dance against her toned thighs.
“I was thinking about that kiss you denied me.”
Fuck me.
I clear my throat, cursing the jolt of pleasure that shoots straight to my dick when she looks at me with those hungry, brown eyes that somehow glitter with a deceptive innocence I can’t place. It does wicked things to my body.
“It’s all I’ve been thinking about,” she admits, coming to a slow stop in front of me. Her wings flex behind her as she reaches out to trace one of the short sleeves with her finger. Her touch grazes my skin and sends electric jolts everywhere she touches.
I grit my jaw, willing myself to stay strong. To not succumb. Not until I know for a fucking fact that it’s not Aurelia. Besides, she doesn’t return my feelings, and fuck if I’m gonna get lost in her while she thinks of my cousin.
No fucking way.
“You have feelings for me,” she purrs seductively, her eyes flicking up to mine and holding me entrapped in that silent siren song of hers that pulls me closer.
“Yes…” There’s no point in lying.
“What would Daemon say?”
The truth is there, in the slight curve of her lips. My father was right. Aurelia wouldn’t want to hurt Daemon.
Stay away from him, sure, but mindlessly toy with fire like this? No… Ever since she found out about the engagement, she’s hidden away, using me as a shield.
As she plasters on a more demure look, I look past her to the open door. I need to get out of here somehow. There’s no question as to her intentions when she looks at me with that heated gaze. Since she feeds on fear and chaos, I also have a sneaking suspicion that she feeds on emotional chaos, too. She’s certainly stirring it now as she steps even closer, her tits pressing up against my chest.
“Why don’t you touch me, Dmitriy?” That small hand of hers encircles my wrist and guides my hand to her soft breast. Fingers twitching, I bite back a groan as I look down to see my hand engulfing her bust. Aurelia’s tits aren’t big; they’re a perfect handful. The urge to pull down her dress is messing with my head.
I’m saved from further torment when the sound of heavy footsteps echoes through the hallway, closer and closer. Daemon comes to a stop in the doorway, bouncing his gaze between us with suspicion written all over his face. That’s when I realize my hand is still on her breast.
Fuck.
I drop it like I’ve been burned, but it’s too late. Fury burning in his gaze, he strides up to me and clocks me in the fucking jaw. Pain explodes, and I stumble back, only just managing to catch myself on the bedside table. He’s on me then, and we go tumbling to the floor, fists flying in a flurry of growls and flapping wings.
“You get your filthy fucking hands off her.” Another blow to my face stuns me temporarily before I get the upper hand and roll us over. With my knees on either side of his hips, I flare my wings behind me and ram my fists into his furious face. Blood explodes from a cut on his brow, and he shoves me off. Spitting a wad on the floor, he swipes the back of his hand over his forehead, wiping away the excess of blood, but it keeps pouring.
I barely duck out of the way when he shoots a fireball at me, the flame singeing my cheek. With a curse, I roll to the side, sit back up, and erect a firewall between us. One he must cross if he wants to get to me.
We glare at each other over the dancing, crackling flames.
“You fucking touched her!” he snarls, teeth reflecting the orange glow. “You had your damn hands on her.”
A cursory glance in Genesis’s direction confirms my suspicion. She’s feeding on the conflict in the room—a true vampire in her own right.
I hold out a hand, palm facing up. “It wasn’t like that.”
He snarls, lips peeling back further over his sharp teeth. Alaric and Ronan shadow him, pacing in the background with their eyes pinned on me, awaiting the command to rip me to shreds for laying a hand on their woman.
Fuck everything to Hell. It’s not like I can tell them about Genesis now. How she tried to seduce me and fed on the emotions warring inside me, as well as the sexual energy in the room. I can’t tell him any of that. Not when he’s defending his territory. There’s no getting through to him now. Not when the alpha in him flexes its metaphorical wings in a bid to chase off competition.
“Look…” I say, keeping my voice low so as not to aggravate him further. He’s already snarling like a provoked wolf, and I don’t blame him. If that were me, walking in on a scene like that, I’d do the same. “I am not after your angel, alright? I won’t steal her from you.”
I don’t think.
“Why did you touch her?” Dariana speaks up from somewhere behind Daemon. I’m not sure exactly where. I don’t peel my eyes away from his near-black ones.
“It was a stupid mistake.” I can’t exactly tell them that she asked me to. They’d never believe me.
Another vicious snarl rips loose from Daemon’s vocal cords, and he rises to his feet, towering close to the flames. We don’t have the connection that would see us able to share hellfire. If he touches mine, he’ll hurt himself. Little is known about fire-bonding. Some angels are born with the ability to bond to a mate, while others form that connection as a forging bond blossoms. But whatever binds angels together is distant in the room now. Flames lick up the length of his arms, and his extended wings give an aggressive flap.
The kind of flap that says, “Stay the fuck away!”
Message received.
I climb to my feet, blood dripping from my chin as I put out the flames. Daemon never takes his eyes off me, pacing in front of the angel.
I know better than to look at her now while he’s this triggered. Breathing like a provoked bull, he yanks his hair.
A soft touch to his arm seems to snap him out of whatever mental nightmare he’s stuck in, and everything about him calms at the sight of Dariana.
“It’s okay,” she says softly, her raven hair tied up in a high ponytail. “She’s safe.”
I almost snort at that. Safe?
Now is not the time to have this conversation.
“Missed us, little angel?” Ronan asks, sliding his arm around Genesis’s shoulders with an easy smile.
“What are you doing?” she asks when he steers her out of the room.
“These games end today. You’re coming with us.”
Drawing to a sudden halt, she peels his arm away from her shoulders and throws me a wary glance. I’m so thrown for a second that I question everything. Especially when she looks at me that way, like she’s scared of going with them.
She can’t be. It’s part of Genesis’s plan.
“I’m not going with you,” she says in a shaky voice that stirs the alpha in Daemon and every other man in the room.
“It’s not up for debate,” he growls out, his voice final. Bored, even.
Her mouth falls open in pure outrage, and it’s so believable, I find myself riveted by the scene unfolding in front of me. Maybe my father is wrong?
Poking a stern finger into Daemon’s chest when he tries to sidle past her, she puts enough venom into her voice to sweet-talk every swinging cock in the room. “What part of ‘it’s over’ don’t you get?”
There’s that attitude that reeled in his attention like a fish on a hook in the first place. If Genesis is in there, she has watched and learned.
The air thickens with tension as Daemon flicks his dark eyes to her finger. She pokes him again. Either she’s blind to the rage shimmering behind his onyx orbs, or she’s provoking him on purpose. In a swift move, he bends down and hauls her over his shoulder. With a hard slap to her ass, he carries her out of the room.
Ronan chuckles and shakes his head as he follows hot on their heels. Alaric, on the other hand, lingers, watching me like he’s trying to figure me out. The sound of Dariana’s heels clicking on the floor fades away as she exits the room.
“Daemon isn’t the only one with a mean right hook,” he says, biceps flexing in his arms as he shoves his hands into his pockets. “Touch her again, and you won’t just have one pissed-off male angel, but three to contend with.”
Arching my brow, I chuckle humorlessly. “You three, I can deal with. Dari, on the hand…”
Alaric’s gaze shifts over his shoulder to the door and then he brings his attention back to me. Rocking back on his heels, he drags his eyes down my body and back in an assessing way that tells me he’s measuring what kind of threat I present in the light of things. “Stay away from her, Dmitriy. I won’t warn you again.”
With those parting words hanging in the air along with the scent of burnt fabric, I watch him leave, clueless to the danger they’re about to bring into Lucifer’s home.
“Alaric,” I call out before he has a chance to exit.
He spins around, hand on the doorframe.
“I have information on the angel that you’ll want to know.”
His eyes narrow, cutting me to the bone. Suspicion sneaks into his expression. I scratch my jaw, blowing out a stiff breath through my nose. “Aurelia is gone. That girl, that monster, is not the girl you’re in love with.”
A snarl starts up in his chest, but I hold my hand up in a soothing gesture. “Just be careful, is all. Sleep with your eyes open.”
After he’s left, I turn around and kick over my nightstand. What the fuck am I supposed to do now? I don’t owe Daemon anything. I don’t even fucking care about him. But maybe it’s true that blood runs thicker than water, because the thought of the wolf entering the lamb’s paddock makes my stomach coil tight.
They don’t even know the shitstorm that they’re bringing into their fold.
The Trojan horse.
I let out a frustrated roar, clasping the short strands at my nape in such a tight grip that it borders on torture. I need to do something. I can’t just stay here and watch the girl destroy Hell.
My home.
Fuck the treaty. Fuck the contract. Fuck the damn throne. Who the hell cares?
Swiping up my leather jacket from the end of the bed, I slide it on and stride out of the room. If Daemon wants me gone, he’ll have to challenge me for the girl. Until then, I’m here to fucking stay.
