I was so lost in thought I almost didn’t notice the presence at my elbow until Azazel leaned in to kiss my cheek, his fingers stroking the mark on the nape of my neck.
“Can’t sleep?” he asked, standing behind me and wrapping his arms around me. I tucked my wings in tight and leaned back against him.
“It’s hard to sleep when there’s so much to see.” I reached up to stroke the hand he’d pressed against my chest. “And when I’m wondering if Vyra is okay.”
“She’s fine. Belial wouldn’t allow the other half of his Circle to descend into anarchy just because you’re gone.”
I exhaled, watching the shimmer of lights on the water. If I let my eyes unfocus a tiny bit, it almost did seem like I could see visions in the water.
I knew perfectly well that Vyra was probably cracking the whip right now. All of the Chainlings had probably been manicured. Haru was probably trailing around behind her, carrying dress-forms and boxes of makeup.
She was fine. If there was one thing I had faith in, it was that Belial wouldn’t let everything go to shit if Satan showed his ugly face again.
I had to worry about what was in front of me, the single mission I needed to accomplish. If I returned without the raw ebonite, this would all have been for nothing, and I’d be back at square one.
“You’re right,” I murmured, lacing my fingers through Azazel’s. “I’m just nervous about what’s coming next.”
“I don’t think the smith had any reason to lie to us.”
“Not that. He seemed a little too gleeful at the prospect to send us on a wild chase. What if we can’t find the oracle? What if she’s already dead?”
Azazel squeezed me a little tighter. “She’s not. We’ll get the ebonite and fly back. You’ll be home with everything you need.”
“Everything we need,” I automatically corrected. “How long have you two been planning this?”
He shrugged. I felt his muscles contract with the quick, smooth motion. “Only about a thousand years or so. We didn’t come to a truce on our differences until recently.”
“Define ‘recently’.”
He smiled, burying his face in my hair as he did it. “Only about fifty years or so. We’ve had a complicated friendship over the eons. Lucifer and I have found ourselves on opposite sides too many times to count, but in the end, we always seem to end up on the same side again.”
I brooded, still staring at the water. “That’s a long time to plan this. I don’t have a thousand years to wait.”
“You don’t need a thousand years. All we needed was you. We’ve made more progress in the past few months than we’ve made in years.” Azazel raked his fingers through my hair, making me shiver. “Perhaps we were just missing sufficient motivation.”
I didn’t get a chance to answer. Seer Antava was scurrying down the path on the far side of the seeing pool, and Tascius and Lucifer were both still sprawled on the bed inside, dead to the world.
“Let’s go wake them up.”
Azazel kept his arms around my shoulders as he opened the door, and I discarded the robe before leaning over the bed.
Lucifer looked angelic in sleep, every line of tension smoothed out of his face. I stroked his forehead, tucking a blond curl away and straightening my feather, and his eyes flicked open.
He smiled lazily and pulled me down on his chest. “Good morning to you, too,” he breathed, rolling over and trapping me beneath him for a deep kiss.
“I’m trying to wake you up.” I tried to squirm away, but where these men were concerned, there was no squirming out from under their bulk. It felt like being trapped under a very warm and rather breathtaking boulder. “The seer is almost here.”
Tascius stirred from less than a foot away, coming awake almost instantly. He yawned and stretched, showing off the ripped muscles in his stomach and sides. “Are we doing this again?”
“No,” I hissed, as the seer knocked on the door. “Do not show her your morning- well, your evening wood.”
Tascius craned his head to grin at me. “Don’t worry, no one else is allowed to touch it.”
It was pretty impressive, and I pictured telling Seer Antava to tell the Visionary she might have to wait a few hours.
But no. We were here for a reason.
“Damn right they’re not. I don’t want them looking at it, either. It’s a feast for my eyes only.” I finally managed to squirm away from their limbs, and heard Azazel answer the door and quietly respond to a feminine voice.
“I guess if you don’t want to join us, we have no choice.” Lucifer faked a sad sigh, and I balled up his shirt and threw at his head with perfect accuracy.
While they were pulling their clothes on, I smoothed out my hair in the mirror, and Azazel came up behind me.
“You look as beautiful as always,” he said in my ear, running his fingers through my feathers. I shivered under the delicate touch.
I caught sight of Tascius and Lucifer, the darkness of my feathers against their light-toned hair. “You’re missing something,” I said, turning around to face Azazel. He raised an eyebrow.
I might have a permanent token from him, but I wanted to make sure it was extremely obvious that I had just as much of a claim on him.
I plucked a feather from my wings and reached up to unclasp one of his raven-skull lapel pins, working the sharp point of the pin through the shaft of my feather, and re-pinned it. He watched with an unidentifiable expression as I smoothed the feather, which almost blended in against his black suit.
“There,” I murmured, making sure each pin was straight.
Azazel looked down at the feather, then pushed me back against the wall and kissed me hard, tilting my face up as his
