“You could have showered,” he says.
I grin through the blood and grime. “You said it was urgent.”
“I think I have something.”
“An aversion to sunlight?”
He snorts, unimpressed by my quip. I join him at the table and reach for the scroll he’s pinning to the wood.
“Whoa.” He bats my hand away then wipes his own on a handkerchief. “No touching the precious.”
I snort. “What am I looking at.”
He runs his fingers over the paper. “Nothing, right now. But there’s something here. I can feel it. Beneath the surface.”
“A hidden message?” Conah has a penchant for the hidden. Memories, messages, artefacts. He can find them, sense them. “You think it’s a map of the pit?”
“It’s something. It could be.” He turns it over and points to a name scrawled on the outer edge of the scroll.
“Samael?”
“I think he’ll be able to unlock it,” Conah says.
Fuck. “Samael can’t unlock his own chamber doors half the time.”
“He can when Lilith is about. She seems to anchor him, and you’re the closest thing we have to her right now.”
“You want me to speak with him?”
“I do.”
I reach for the scroll and he slaps my hand away again.
“No. Shower first, scroll later.”
“Yes, Mother.” I sneer at him in jest and then leave him to his musings.
In truth, it’s good to be back at the Keep. The world beyond is falling apart. More attacks. More death. We’re running out of demons to hold the line. Mammon’s sneak attacks are debilitating us.
Mal and Asmodeus have taken to the training grounds in efforts to bring new soldiers up to speed. Leviathan is in negotiations with neighboring lords for manpower. Saying no to my father isn’t easy. In a week we’ll have an army to be proud of, and if Mammon attacks, he’ll be met with true force.
In a week Imperium will be fortified, and we’ll be able to focus on finding Lilith. I take the stairs to my chambers two at a time, eager to get out of the grimy layers and sluice off the dust and blood from the battlefield
Lilith spares no expense when it comes to creature comforts, and my bathroom doubles as a wet room with several power jets eager to do their job. I adjust the temperature and step into the spray.
Azazel…
Fee’s presence tugs at my soul.
I miss you.
I don’t hear the words. I feel them.
I want to feel her. I close my eyes and imagine pressing my lips to hers, soft but firm. My pulse speeds up when I sense an answering pressure. Her lips are on mine. I fucking feel her. I close my eyes and slide my hands into her hair, sensing the silken strands slip through my fingers. My tongue rasps against hers and then her fingers are trailing down my chest, lingering over my abs, making them tighten in reflex and anticipation as she moves south. I gasp as her hand closes around my arousal.
Her mouth is no longer on mine, but she’s still here. I can sense her presence, and then hot wet heat slides down my shaft.
My hips jerk and I slam my palms against the tile. “Fuck!”
Her hot mouth is on me. Taking me deep over and over. I close my eyes and I see her on her knees, hands grasping my hips, head moving back and forth as she drives me insane. I’m so hard I think I might explode. Then she cups my balls and squeezes. Breath rushed from my lungs and my body is no longer my own. My hips thrust as if propelled by an insatiable force, heat spirals through me, tight, desperate and ready. I come hard. My groans are eclipsed by the shower spray, and then I feel her arms around my neck, her lips on my cheek.
I love you.
Oh fuck. “I love you too.”
She melts away but she is still here, in my heart, in my soul. And my weary body has renewed purpose. I wash quickly.
I have a fallen original to speak to.
Samael’s quarters are on the east side of the Keep, directly above Lilith’s private chambers. I know enough about my mother to be aware of the secret passage that leads to his rooms. The one hidden in the large armoire in her dressing room.
I take the passage now, climbing the dimly lit staircase to push open the hidden door to Samael’s quarters.
The sun is setting, and the room is bathed in red light. The floor to ceiling windows are open, and the gauzy drapes billow and fall with every icy gust of air. The bed to the left is rumpled and unmade, and clothes are strewn across the floor, but my attention is drawn to the majestic figure standing on the balcony behind the drapes.
Samael is a head taller than me. His shoulders are wider, his stance sturdy, and his wings—even folded against his back—are magnificent to behold. Two sets of wings, unheard of for any other fallen or for any other celestial.
“Samael?” I know better than to approach unannounced. Lilith’s lover has been known to maim when in a delirium. Except there is a calmness to him right now that draws me closer.
“Samael?” I stop at the entrance to the balcony.
He sighs. “How long has it been?”
“How long?”
“How long have I been lost?”
A rare moment of lucidity then. “It doesn’t matter,” I echo the words I’ve heard Lilith say to him. “All that matters is that you’re here now.”
He turns to me with a frown. “Do not patronize me, boy.”
Whoa. His mercury eyes are sharp and intense as they bore into me. “You were a child when I lost myself and now you are a man. How long?”
My pulse thuds hard in my chest. “Centuries.”
He lets out a ragged sigh then holds up his hands. “She’s dead, isn’t she?”
I assume he’s speaking of Lilith. “No. Lilith is alive. I can feel it.”
He turns fully to face me. “Not Lilith. The other one. The one with Eve’s face. She’s dead, isn’t she?”
“Fee? How do you know about Fee?”
“Answer me!”
Shit. What is this? “No. She lives. She died, but she was brought back.”
“Yes, that would also do it. Her death has freed him, and now I too am free.”
“I don’t understand.”
“No, you wouldn’t. You were simply charged to protect what would be mine.”
He looks lucid, but nothing he says makes sense. “Samael?”
“She is my daughter. A seed we cast out into the ether to return when the time was right. Mine and Eve’s insurance that when the time came, when Cain became too strong, there would be a part of each of us in existence to fight him. We linked her to his bloodline, which is why you were charged to protect it. To preserve it so he would remain trapped until… Until he couldn’t be held any longer and our daughter was born.”
He’s talking about Fee. “Fee is your daughter?”
“Yes. She is my blood. Eve’s blood. She is the best of us both, and only she can stop Cain now.“ He rubs his temples. “Cain is my son, but he was troubled and riddled with darkness, so I marked him to connect him to me, to give him strength to fight the dark parts of his psyche. Unfortunately, the mark also unlocked a new power, one which he used to slaughter a whole village. He was unstoppable. Immortal because of the mark. Eve and I locked him away. We used a vast amount of energy to do it, and we knew it wouldn’t last forever, and so we consulted with the Oracle who advised us to cast a seed into the ether.”