Journey held Wraith as he would a brother, his head bowed from hunched shoulders as he cradled the demon’s big body in his arms. Even Maddox looked as if he were trying to keep his emotions in check—his jaw tight, his gaze distant.
The gate opened and, zombielike, they all stepped out.
Hot, humid air engulfed Lilliana in a welcoming embrace. After the events of the last twelve hours, this was exactly what she needed. Well, she needed Azagoth, but if she couldn’t be in Sheoul-gra, then this was where she wanted to be. She loved it here. The warmth, the rhythmic, lulling pattern of the waves, the earthy scent of the olive groves, and the fragrant citrus air from the lemon trees Cara had planted a couple of years ago.
Lilliana inhaled, frowning when she didn’t smell the lemons or the olives. Weird. She glanced around for the familiar landscape and mansion, but all she saw was pristine white sand, some scrub brush, and a few swaying palms stretching along a craggy coastline.
The hair on the back of her neck stood on end. “Uh…guys? This isn’t Ares’ island.”
The very air around them charged with deadly electricity as Maddox armed up, twin scythes appearing in his fists.
Journey went on instant alert and swung around. “Shit. The island is warded. We can’t flash out.” He shouldered her like a ram, shoving her backward. “Into the Harrowgate! Hur—”
He broke off with a grunt. Something warm splashed her face and arms.
Blood.
Journey’s blood.
Wraith’s body fell from his arms and landed with a thud in the sand. Blood poured from Journey’s neck, flowing between his fingers as he clutched at it. Shock and terror shone in his eyes as his mouth worked soundlessly.
“Journey!” she screamed, instinctively moving toward him instead of the Harrowgate.
“Run,” he rasped as he dropped to his knees. “Run.”
His brilliant eyes grew cloudy, and then he collapsed next to Wraith.
As if a veil had been lifted, the island came alive with demons. They were everywhere. Darquethoths, with their razor-sharp teeth and onyx skin slashed with fluorescent orange. Screechers, their eyeless, pale faces consisting mostly of six-inch fangs. Others, things she didn’t recognize and were too horrific to look at, formed a wall around her, blocking her from the Harrowgate.
“Lilliana!” Maddox’s urgent voice was drenched with pain. She caught flashes of him slashing at the demons, blood splattering the white sand.
Terror became the air she breathed as she drew on her rusty angelic gifts and lit up the sky with lightning. Demons screamed as bolts charred them to a crisp or exploded them into raw chunks of gore.
“Maddox!”
She sent a spear of ultra-hot angel glass through a half-dozen demons, knocking them back…and that was when she saw him, one scythe still slashing even as he fell under an onslaught of monsters.
A moment of sadness turned into a renewed desire to live as she swung around, taking down a giant Ramreel demon with a summoned sword.
She could make it to the Harrowgate. She could clear a path and then—
Pain exploded inside her skull, and that was the last thing she knew.
Chapter 9
Patience was not something Azagoth claimed to possess. At all. In any measure known to the human, angelic, or demon realms.
When he wanted something, he wanted it now. Instant gratification.
And right now, he wanted his mate to call.
Where the hell was she?
“It’s only been half an hour since she texted that she was leaving her room and heading to the Harrowgate.” Hawkyn, one of Azagoth’s most trusted sons and the Memitim liaison to Heaven, looked out over the newly installed playground where two of the youngest children from the human realm played. This was where Azagoth’s child with Lilliana would play. Dammit. Where is she? “She probably got hung up talking to someone.”
“Or she’s at Ares’ place and got busy catching up with Cara and forgot to let you know,” Cat said. She’d been strolling down the cobblestone path toward the pond where Lilliana liked to spend hours reading when she spotted Azagoth with Hawk and Suzanne.
“See?” Hawkyn said. “Simple explanations.”
Nothing was ever that simple. “If either of those things is true, then why hasn’t Maddox or Journey answered your texts?”
Hawk shrugged. “If they’re still at Underworld General, they’re busy. If they’re in Greece, Ares is probably grilling the shit out of them before he lets them roam around his island.”
Probably? Definitely. Ares was as cautious as Azagoth when it came to newcomers. Mad and Journey might be Azagoth’s sons, but Ares had lived long enough to know not to trust anyone based solely on his or her relationship to another.
Suzanne, still holding the basket of treats she’d brought for Lilliana, gestured to Azagoth’s phone. “Why don’t you text her?”
“Because I don’t want her to think I’m obsessing.” Azagoth’s cheeks heated at the admission. “She already says I’m being overprotective and that I worry too much.”
“I don’t think a text would hurt.” Hawkyn looked up from his own phone. “Just tell her you were thinking about her. When she gets the text, she’ll realize she forgot to let you know she was safely at Ares’ place.”
Maybe Hawk was right. Dammit, Azagoth wasn’t used to doubting himself or second-guessing his actions. But Lilliana was so important to him that he didn’t want to screw up in any way. He’d lost her once; he couldn’t lose her again.
Ulrike, her long, platinum blond hair brushing the grass as she hung upside down from the monkey bars, smiled shyly and waved. He hadn’t spent much time with his ten-year-old daughter or his eleven-year-old son, Obasi, since they’d arrived a couple of weeks ago, but they were starting to warm up to him. Obasi, small for his age and severely malnourished, had even taken Azagoth’s hand for a moment. He hadn’t spoken a single word yet, the trauma of being raised in a brutal Boko Haram camp still haunting him.
It was shit like that that had made Azagoth lose himself for a while. Lilliana had given him the ability to feel again, and he’d been unable to cope with the onslaught of pain, sorrow, and guilt for his role in the horrors his children experienced while growing up in the worst conditions the human realm had to offer.
It was why, despite objections from Heaven, he’d sent his adult offspring to find every last one of his children left in the care of humans, and instructed that they be brought back here to be raised by their real family.
This hell realm wasn’t nearly as bad as the hell realm the human world had become.
Hawkyn’s phone buzzed. A heartbeat later, Suzanne’s did, as well. Hawkyn looked down, and his mouth fell open.
“Holy shit,” he breathed, his face losing every drop of color.
“Oh, no.” Suzanne slapped her hand over her mouth and let out a muffled sob. “Not Wraith.”
Already jacked up with anxiety over Lilliana, Azagoth wheeled around with an impatient grunt. “What happened?”
Hawkyn looked up. “It’s Eidolon’s brother, Wraith. He’s dead.”
Wraith was dead? Unease centered in Azagoth’s chest as the shock wore off. The demon had sent Azagoth a lot of powerful, evil souls over the years, and he’d made a lot of enemies. Hell, he’d pissed off half the demon population by helping prevent at least two apocalypses. This was going to send shockwaves through both Heaven and Sheoul, and there was no way his death wasn’t connected to something bigger.