And Irena couldn’t allow that.
The demon had been the one to suggest the bargain. And no wonder—Irena would have killed it. The demon had no way out; if it killed Olek, the demon would be dead a second later.
The bargain had been simple: Irena would go into a room with the demon. She wouldn’t fight, wouldn’t try to kill him, wouldn’t use her Gift against him—and at no time would she use more strength than a human. In return, the demon wouldn’t kill either of them. And the bargain would be over when he grew bored.
Irena had known what she’d be in for: pain, torture, rape.
Alejandro had realized it, too. In a voice thick with horror, he’d told her, “You cannot do this.”
She’d had no choice. She’d ordered him to silence.
And again, he’d defied her. Argued with her. If he’d responded any other way, if he’d accepted her decision, she did not know if she’d have hated him. But he fought. She’d known then that she loved him as she had no other. Lovers had touched her heart before, but Olek had wrapped his hand around it and taken hold.
But if he’d felt the same for Irena, it had been her decision that destroyed those feelings.
He’d pleaded. For her, he’d pleaded. “Please do not do this. If you trade yourself this way, Irena, I will be nothing. Let me die here, still a man. With honor.”
She hadn’t agreed. His honor would hold as long as he fought. It hadn’t been his honor at risk, but his pride.
And so Irena had chosen between his pride and his life.
She’d wanted to cry, to scream. But she’d held on to her calm and ordered the demon to give Olek back his hands, so that they would heal quickly. Her heart had ached. But she’d walked into the room and used her Gift to seal it.
Her body would withstand this bargain. But if Alejandro came in, fought, Irena would fight beside him and break her bargain—and her soul would be lost. So she’d locked the room, and locked her heart and soul away, too.
The first form the demon had taken resembled Michael. No one could copy the Doyen’s appearance, but only try to mimic the bronze skin and close-cropped black hair. She’d expected pain, but he’d been gentle. He’d played with her like a lover. He’d licked and kissed, had whispered compliments into her ears. He’d put himself inside her, easing his way with practiced caresses that her body responded to, but that Irena hadn’t
felt
. She couldn’t physically resist him without losing her soul, and so she went to the same place she had when she’d been violated as a human. She’d sculpted in her mind, practiced with her swords, imagined the smile of Alejandro’s eyes. For two days, maybe three, the demon had used her body—but he didn’t touch her. And the only pleasure she’d felt was in his frustration that she didn’t respond.
Then he’d shape-shifted into Alejandro’s form.
It had been her shock and anger that had done it—formed a tiny crack in her defenses. And for an instant, when his lips had touched her neck, she’d wished it was Olek. Had imagined it was him.
And in that instant, she’d lost. She couldn’t physically resist him, and so there was only herself to fight as he’d touched her. By the time his mouth had moved between her legs, she’d raged at him to get off her.
She’d battled the first orgasm—and every one after it. Fighting, resisting her reaction, hating that her need for Alejandro had given the demon a tool to use against her.
She hadn’t stopped fighting. It was the only thing about those two weeks that didn’t shame her.
She hadn’t stopped fighting—but she’d felt the urge to give in. To stop resisting and clutch him to her. To move with him and glory in every physical sensation.
Demons had their own specialties. For that one, it had been destroying humans through their own need. He’d done his job well, and she’d learned what a demon was. Their evil was not just that they hated humans, that they loved pain, that they wanted to destroy mankind; their evil was that they led humans to hurt themselves—and to crave the very thing that destroyed them.
Irena still didn’t know if she’d have broken, or how long it might have taken. It didn’t matter if she could have resisted for centuries—she’d seen the possibility in herself, and that recognition had been more horrifying than anything the demon might have done.
But she hadn’t reached that point. Michael had come looking for them. He’d teleported into the room and beheaded the demon while it labored over her rigid form. Without a bargain to hold her, she’d kicked the dead demon off. She’d snarled at Michael to leave. And when he’d gone, she’d taken out her rage on the demon’s body.
She had no memory of tearing it apart. Only of how shocked she’d been when awareness had returned, and she’d seen what she’d done. There were a few pieces of the demon larger than her fist—but not many.
And so she’d learned that about herself, too—that she could completely lose herself to anger.
Devastated, she’d staggered out of the room to find Alejandro attempting to melt his way in through the thick walls. The deep well in the iron had shown how long he’d been trying. His hands had been burned down to stumps.
The pain that had descended on her then crushed her. She’d wanted to kiss his hands, to hold him—but she’d also been burning with a rage and need that wasn’t only for him, and she hadn’t been able to separate them. And how could she tell him that she’d almost been broken? She could not. Shame had added its weight. She barely remembered cutting off her braids, vanishing the blood-spattered iron, and telling him to burn it all.
Then she’d flown, and hadn’t stopped until she’d crossed an ocean, mountains—until a great forest passed beneath her.
She’d landed between the pines and sobbed until she had no more tears. When she was done, she’d begun to walk. She’d traveled between the two continents almost six times in those two hundred years. And when she’d seen that so much of it had become as Europe had been—when the same languages had been spoken—she’d flown back.
The devastating weight had still weighed on her, but not as heavily. And she’d been so careful when she’d seen Olek. She’d spoken to him, not as mentor and novice, but on equal terms and in the language of the city they were in—and in a language that had always forced her to consider her words, to think about their sound and order before they left her mouth.
But despite that care, despite the need, anger, guilt, and shame stood between them like an enormous wall. The blow to his pride had been too great—as had the stain on her soul.
And so the demon had won.
Irena sighed and opened her eyes. Yes, the demon had ruined something good. Something right. That was all demons offered—ruin, pain—no matter the faces they presented. Their kind corrupted everything they touched. Good might come out of an agreement with one—such as saving Alejandro’s life—but something else was always destroyed in the process.
She didn’t know why Alejandro couldn’t see that the alliance with Rael would taint them, and that they should kill the demon before it was too late. Eventually, the demon would exact a price—one that she feared would be too dear to pay.
The whisper of feathers added to the sounds from the city. She glanced left. Michael touched down on the ledge beside her, the wind blowing at his white tunic and loose pants. His black wings folded and disappeared.
She hadn’t expected him. “How did you find me?”
“I came to the highest building in the city.” He looked over the edge, straight down. She didn’t like doing that unless her wings were already formed—she looked out, but not down. “Alejandro said you would be here.”
Her laugh came out soft and raw. Olek knew her so well. And he still did not guess what she had hidden from him.
Hidden from him—or had she lied to him?
Her fingers clenched. Guilt coated her throat. Guardians often lied, both directly and by omission, and they often hid truth. But would Olek see her omission as a betrayal?
A betrayal of what? What had been left after the demon was done with her?
But was she only splitting hairs to protect herself from more pain if Olek reacted to the truth as she feared he would?
Whatever it was, her omission was not the same as Michael’s, who’d still led them, who’d still allowed them to think he’d been a human man before he was a Guardian. Who’d never told them he was the son of a demon.
When she looked at him, she felt a different weight, but one almost as crushing. Michael had trained her himself. For sixteen centuries, she’d looked up to him. She’d admired his quiet and restraint, his ruthless skill. She hadn’t always agreed with him, but she’d always valued his opinion and the millennia of experience behind it.
But those sixteen hundred years had been a lie. And in sixteen hundred years, she had learned to deal with physical pain, but she still could not handle emotional pain. She knew that about herself. But it didn’t make her any less angry, or see his deception as any less a betrayal.
And the hell of it was, she took comfort from his presence now. Even knowing how he’d lied, she was glad not to be alone on this ledge.
The wind stung at her eyes. “Why come to me?”
“I have just learned about Julia Stafford. And that Lilith has asked you to help Alejandro.”
She laughed. How much of a help she’d be remained to be seen. But she could start now. “What can you tell me of Rael?”
Michael lowered to his heels beside her. “He’s ambitious. When he lived in Hell, he battled his way up Belial’s ranks. He’s ruthless. It did not matter if the demons were Belial’s or Lucifer’s; if they stood in his path, he found a way to destroy them.”
“With his sword?”
“Sometimes. Other times he arranged events so that the demons would fall in status, or be killed by another.”
Not just a warrior—a cunning schemer. “And since he has left Hell? When was that?”
“Two or three thousand years ago. I don’t know the exact date.” He smiled slightly. “And since that time, he has lived as a saint. Apparently.”
And appearances were almost always deceiving. “Because that is what Lilith knows of him.”
“Yes.”
“Do you know of anything different?”
“No.”
But Rael had been successful in Hell. Why move to Earth and remain here? Why not defend his position Below? Did he have his own reasons—or did he follow Belial’s orders? “Why the change? What does he gain?”
“I don’t know.”
She met his gaze. His eyes were amber—and they appeared so human. “Why haven’t you killed him?”
“He concealed himself well. Not just psychically, but physically. He knows human habits. He was not in the public eye until after the Ascension—and after the Ascension, he was not a priority. Those demons who were trying to harm humans were.” His gaze didn’t waver from hers. “Now, he is useful.”
Useful? Irena clenched her jaw and seethed.
“It makes me no more happy than you.”
“But less angry.”
He smiled. “Perhaps I should be angry, too.”
She wanted something from him, but it wasn’t anger. She wanted to believe in him again. “Is Rael’s change genuine?”
Michael brows rose, as if she’d surprised him with the question—not the question itself, but that
she
had asked it.
He took his time answering. “Demons cannot be judged by their actions, because even those might have a purpose.”
Manipulation. As she’d always thought.
But now, it was why she didn’t know if she could take Michael’s actions—and his history as the Guardians’ leader—for what they appeared to be. “You have said your father was a good man. How do you judge that?”
He looked out over the city. “When the rebelling angels were tossed down from Heaven and changed into demons, I don’t know if they were given the corruption that is in all of them, or if the corruption had always been there, and the transformation merely stripped the layers that hid it.”
“So you don’t know if he was truly good,” Irena said.
“I don’t know if the dragon blood changed him in the same way,” he countered. “It allowed him to have children with a human, but like the transformation from angel to demon, it might have been more than a physical change. His treatment of us—Anaria and I—was not what Lucifer had asked of him. I say with certainty that he loved us—and my mother, too.” A quick smile curved his lips. “Loved my mother more than us, perhaps. She was . . . a good woman.”
He paused. Irena tried to imagine him as a young grigori, growing up among humans, with a human mother and a demon father . . . and could not. “But that didn’t last.”
“No. As time passed, he became more demonic again, even though his form returned to its angelic one.” He glanced at her. “And, yes, it is true I don’t know if the dragon blood changed him for a time, or if it just allowed him to hide what he was—so well that Anaria and I couldn’t see it in him—and let him become the father I knew. Perhaps he was not a good man. He was a good father.” His mouth twisted in a wry smile. “Once.”
“And your sister? The
light
one.” She couldn’t hold back her sneer. All the grigori were twins. One dark, one light. And Anaria was the one each of the grigori had thought of as the best of them, the most
good
. Yet she was the one who’d studied with Lucifer, who’d created the nephilim, who’d killed humans. “Is she truly good, or just a good sister?”
“Demon blood runs through us, but the human side gives us more choice in the matter than demons. Anaria’s choices have not always been what I would have wished.” When Irena did not respond, he added, “I have been searching for her.”
“What will you do when you find her?”
He didn’t answer. Perhaps he couldn’t.
“And Khavi?” Irena asked, and lost interest in the past as she felt her anger well up again. “Did she tell you of the woman she foresaw? The one we are supposed to protect?”
“No.” His mouth tightened. Michael did not like Khavi’s Gift, either. “Who?”