“To find the truth at any cost. I changed my mind.”
“Why? Because we fucked?” I used the crude word deliberately. Sex without love was fucking. “Suddenly you care about me?”
“No. Because suddenly I despise Beloch.”
I’d wanted answers—it wasn’t his fault if I didn’t like them. Then again, I wasn’t sure if I believed him. There had been a strong undercurrent of animosity between the two of them when he’d first brought me down to Beloch’s deceptively cozy apartment. This was nothing new.
“So what are we going to do about it?” I asked in my most practical voice.
“I have yet to decide.” He rose abruptly, glancing around the room, and I suddenly remembered the cameras. Were they throughout the house? “I’m going for a walk,” he said in that take-no-prisoners tone.
I didn’t like feeling like a prisoner. “Can I go with you?”
“No,” he said flatly. “You’ve already seen what can happen when you wander around alone.”
“But I’d have you to protect me,” I argued.
He looked at me long and hard. “If I were you, I wouldn’t count on it.”
THE COOL AFTERNOON AIR WAS heavy with an approaching storm as Azazel strode toward the old restaurant and made his way into the warren of rooms beneath it. Beloch had been his enemy for as long as he could remember. He was far more powerful than he should have been. While Azazel knew that the Dark City had existed as long as the Fallen had, possibly longer, the details were unclear. The memory of his own incarceration here was impossibly vague—he could recall the pain and the despair and his determination to survive, and not much more.
He refused to ask his enemies for favors—particularly when they were like Beloch, delighting in power and torture. Yet here he stood in Beloch’s lair, the supplicant. If he wanted to bring her safely out of here, he would need Beloch’s agreement.
“Please,” he said, and the word cost him.
Beloch looked at him and laughed. “Have you fallen in love, Azazel?” he cooed from his chair by the fire, his gnarled fingers stroking the angry cat. “How darling! I thought you were determined not to fall prey to the Lilith. In fact, earlier you insisted that you had managed to bed her without emotion. Clearly you were lying, either to me or to yourself.”
Azazel stared back, keeping his face cool and blank. “Falling in love is for weak-minded humans,” he said. “Besides, the Lilith has no memory of her seductive powers—she’s as awkward as a schoolgirl.”
“I gather schoolgirls can be quite delightful,” Beloch murmured. “Though I’m afraid I wouldn’t know. The lure of the flesh disgusts me. But here’s the question that really interests me. Did you drink from her, blood-eater?”
“No. You know the curse as well as I do. She isn’t my mate, and we only feed from our mates. I felt no desire for her blood at all.” He wondered if that was the truth. He could smell her blood pulsing beneath her skin, and his fangs had begun to lengthen reflexively. He’d fought it. It was profane enough that he’d fucked her. To drink her blood in the sacrament reserved for bonded mates would be the greatest travesty.
The only reason he’d even been tempted was that he’d been away from Sheol for so long. Away from the nourishing gift of the Source. It was only natural that he should begin to react to her on a purely visceral level. Only natural that he would fight it.
“I wonder if I believe you,” Beloch said meditatively.
“I don’t care whether you believe me or not. I want you to let her go. We can find other ways to get the information we need from her.”
“Don’t be silly,” Beloch said. “The moment you entered the Dark City, you placed yourselves in my hands. I don’t relinquish what is mine. You brought her here for the Truth Breakers to discover the secrets she keeps hidden inside, and they will do just that.”
“They’ll kill her.”
Beloch smiled. “Yes, they will. Very few survive the Truth Breakers. You were one of the rare ones. I’m certain they’d love another chance at you.”
He didn’t move. The room was stiflingly hot, and the fire crackled like a laughing witch. He could offer Beloch a trade. He had no reason to live, no desire to continue. If Beloch would send her—Rachel—back to Sheol, Azazel had complete faith that the Fallen would find out what they needed to know, sooner or later. It would simply take more time, but in the end the truth would come out. She would live, and he would die. It seemed a fair trade.
“What do the Truth Breakers want from me?” he said.
“What you refused to give them the last time, of course. You don’t remember? No, of course not. I saw to that. The Truth Breakers want nothing less than the secrets of Sheol. How you survive and thrive in the face of God’s disapproval. What are the walls that keep everyone out? How many are there? Who would be most likely to repent and return to the fold?”
“Like Sammael the traitor?” He knew his voice was icy and uncompromising.
“Like Sammael the martyr,” Beloch returned. “Your little girl could go free if you are willing to open yourself to the Truth Breakers.”
There was something so familiar about that smooth, tempting voice. It would be so easy to give him what he wanted. “No,” he said. “Those are not my secrets to reveal.”
“Instead you’ll see your lover ripped to pieces by the Truth Breakers?”
His face felt as cool and hard as the marble floor beneath him. “She is not my lover. And her fate is hers.”
“And it has the added advantage of breaking the prophecy that terrifies you so much,” Beloch pointed out. “Bring her to me tonight.”
“You said she could stay—”
“I changed my mind. She weakens your resolve. The kindest thing I can do is remove temptation. You needn’t
