bandages or her injuries. He didn’t want to wake her.
He sank down in the chair Allie had banished him from and watched her, contemplating her injuries. Allie’s gifts as a healer were extraordinary; such was always the case with the Source, and Rachel would be well very quickly, much faster than with normal human medicine. Raziel and Allie had decreed that she would stay. They hadn’t taken her into account.
If he’d learned one thing, it was that Rachel had a mind of her own. The problem was, she wouldn’t be safe anywhere else. Uriel hadn’t finished with her, and only the walls of Sheol could keep him out. At least for now. Uriel had spent millennia trying to figure out how to breach them, and he’d only succeeded with the Nephilim a few years ago. Sooner or later he was going to come up with an answer, though, and there would be little they could do.
She stirred in her sleep, murmuring something, and he jerked his head up, holding his breath. She slipped back into sleep again, and he relaxed, glancing toward the monitors that kept track of her pulse and her blood pressure —only to see that they were spiking.
His eyes swiveled back to her, and she was looking at him with such complete terror that it shocked him.
“Do not scream,” he said, his voice soft so as not to alert anyone.
She was shaking, and he wanted to put his arms around her and pull her against him, soothing her. Except he was the one who was frightening her. “I can’t.” It was barely more than a breath of sound in a raw, damaged voice, and he remembered that Uriel had said her voice had broken.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said, starting to rise, but she shrank back, and he quickly sat down again so as not to spook her. “I wanted to see how you are.”
There was no missing the flash of contemptuous disbelief in her face. “Why should you care?” she whispered.
That was one question he couldn’t answer. “Allie is a very gifted healer.” By now he’d gotten used to praising Allie, though it still stuck in his craw just a tiny bit. “She brought you back from the brink of death.”
“No thanks to you,” she whispered. He’d forgotten she didn’t remember he’d saved her. It was hardly enough penance for allowing them to put her through such hell in the first place.
“No thanks to me,” he agreed. “But I promise you, you have nothing to fear from me. Not ever again.”
“And you lie so well.” Her voice was getting weaker, and he knew he was putting a strain on it.
“I never lied to you. I am incapable of lying.” It was the truth. He’d explained nothing, but he hadn’t lied.
“Get out of here.” The words were barely audible, but there was no missing the hatred in them.
It was no more than he’d expected. Not the fear—that had been a surprise. But the hatred and anger were normal. He’d betrayed her in every way a man can betray a woman, sent her off with torturers with his seed inside her. In truth, he was the monster.
No, he wasn’t going to tell her he’d changed his mind and gone after her. Too little, too late.
He rose, and stretched out one hand to touch her, wanting the feel of her to be absolutely certain, but she shrank away in such terror and revulsion that he pulled back, knocking against the chair as he went.
“Don’t come back,” she whispered.
He closed the door silently behind him.
I STILL COULDN’T CRY. GOD, if ever there was a time when I needed to weep, this was it. He was the monster, not me. How could anyone make love with someone and then hand her to her executioner? Not that it was making love. In fact, it was sex, hot and rough and primal, and I’d wanted it just as much as he had. I couldn’t remember much—maybe I’d even instigated it. I knew I’d been waiting, longing for him to touch me again, kiss me again.
But I couldn’t remember where we’d been. There was water, and a door behind my back. It was night, but it seemed as if it was always night in the Dark City. Wasn’t that what they’d called it?
Beloch had been nowhere to be seen. My memory was full of holes—he’d been kind, hadn’t he? Almost fatherly, in his book-lined study with the comfortable smell of pipe tobacco. He couldn’t have known that they were—
I couldn’t think about that. About the things they’d done to me. I’d discovered I could refuse to allow certain things into my memory. There were too many lifetimes, too many horrors to withstand, but I could choose to banish those I couldn’t bear. I needed to banish the Truth Breakers, and the knives, and the cooing sound they made.
Gone. It was that easy. Just as I’d banished the hundreds upon hundreds of years of lying down with monsters. It wasn’t this body, and it was over. Gone as well.
I could get rid of Azazel just as easily. Wipe out the memory of his strong hands touching me, his mouth against mine, the way he lifted me on top of him and pushed inside me.
I could get rid of that memory in the pouring rain, when I’d wrapped my legs around him and fought to get more of him. The memory of the climax that had shattered me, thrummed through my body in waves as he’d slowly released me.
And the Nightmen had come.
It would be the wise thing to do. I could remember other sex, unsatisfactory sex with humans, and maybe that was part of my curse. Though wasn’t Lilith supposed to arouse men? And I had, but not for myself. I’d aroused them for their wives, for the babies that hadn’t yet come. While I had been raped by monsters.
Gone. That was gone. And yet, in the Dark City I had only followed my natural course. I had had sex with a monster, although this one was beautiful, and he had been smooth and strong and hard. I’d learned pleasure at his hands—maybe that was worth remembering.
Allie and Raziel would protect me from him. I hadn’t asked who’d saved me—someone must have known there was trouble. I had no illusions about it: Azazel was important here. They had more than likely been watching him, and had come to save Azazel as much as to save the Lilith.
The reasons didn’t matter. I was safe, and would continue to be. Azazel would never hurt me again. Never touch me again. Allie had promised me, and her word was law.
So why did I want to weep?
