And through it all, there were no voices in my head. I heard none of his thoughts, sensed none of his feelings. I was alone—alone with my own reactions, simply enjoying the way my body felt with no other interruptions. It was glorious.

I at last managed a break that let me pull his shirt off, and then my hands moved to his pants, putting us in a brief deadlock as he tried to move his lips to my nipples. I won and watched his pants fall to the floor. With that concession, he pulled me down as well and continued his efforts to kiss my breasts, almost kneeling before me as he did so. I ran my hands through his hair, gripping his head while his mouth sucked and teased. As he did, his eyes glanced up and met mine. I saw the desire in them and—something more.

Something I hadn’t expected to see. There was…what? Love? Adoration? Affection? I couldn’t quite pin it down, but I recognized the general category. It was a slap to the face. I hadn’t anticipated it. Lust, I’d expected. A primitive instinct to throw me down and fuck me, in order to relieve his body’s need. For so long, I’d operated on the assumption that he kind of liked me and kind of wanted to hate me. Yet, now, I realized those nice moments we’d had recently weren’t coincidence. His sharp attitude had been a facade, meant to hide his feelings.

Roman still loved me.

I identified it for what it was. He wasn’t doing this just because he wanted my body. He wanted me. This was more than just fulfilling a physical instinct for him, and suddenly…suddenly, I didn’t know what to do. Because I realized then, I didn’t know why I was doing this. There was a fair amount of lust on my part, and I’d grown closer to him since his return to Seattle. But the rest…? I wasn’t sure. There was so much going on right now: Maddie, Simone, Seth…Always Seth. Seth, who even now made my heart ache while I was wrapped in the arms of another man. My emotions were a tangle of confusion and hurt and desperation. I was with Roman as some sort of reaction, some attempt to fill the hole in my heart and seek false comfort. My feelings didn’t match his. I couldn’t do this with him. I didn’t deserve to do this with him.

I pushed him away and jumped to my feet, backing off toward the hallway.

“No…” I said. “I can’t…I can’t. I’m sorry.”

He stared up at me, understandably confused and a little hurt after the ardor I’d displayed seconds ago. “What are you talking about? What’s wrong?”

I didn’t know how to explain it, didn’t know how I could even begin to articulate what I felt inside of me. I just shook my head and continued backing. “I’m sorry…I’m so sorry…I’m just not ready.”

Roman sprang to his feet in one graceful motion. He took a step toward me. “Georgina…”

But I was already moving away, off to the safety of my bedroom. I slammed the door behind me—not from anger, but from a desperate need to stay away from him. From the hall, I heard him call my name and feared he’d come in anyway, despite my refusal to answer. I had no lock, and even if I did, it wouldn’t stop him. He said my name a few more times, and then silence fell. I think he returned to the living room, backing off and giving me my space.

I flung myself onto the bed, gripping the sheets tightly and trying not to cry. That horrible despair that plagued me so often filled me now. It was an old friend, one that I would never be able to leave. All my relationships—friends and lovers—were a mess. I was either hurting them, or they were hurting me. There was no peace for me. There never would be, not for this servant of Hell.

And then, through that horrible, clenching pain inside me, I felt the lightest of touches. A whisper. A breath of music, of color, of light. I lifted my head up from where I’d buried it in my pillow and stared around. There was nothing tangible, not exactly, but I could sense it all around me: that warm, comforting siren song. It had no words, yet in my despair, I could hear it perfectly. It was telling me I was wrong, that I could have peace. And not just that—I could have comfort and love and so much more. It was like arms beckoning to me, a mother welcoming home a long-lost child.

I slowly rose from my bed, moving toward that which had no form. Come, come.

Outside my door, I heard Roman shout my name, but the tone was different from before. This wasn’t confusion or pleading. It was frantic and concerned. The sound was grating to my ears as I stepped closer to that beautiful warmth. It was home. It was an invitation. All I had to do was accept.

“Georgina!” The door blew apart, and Roman stood there, blazing with power. “Georgina, stop—”

But it was too late. I had accepted.

All that joy and protection wrapped around me, taking me into its arms.

The world dissolved.

Chapter 10

I woke to blackness. Blackness and suffocation.

I was in a small room, a box really, crammed in so tightly that my arms wrapped around me and my knees were drawn to my chest. Weirdly, my limbs seemed too long. My whole body did, actually. My body changed all the time with shape-shifting, but this wasn’t what I’d been wearing with Roman. This was different. For a moment, that horrible space seemed to close in around me. I couldn’t breathe. With great effort, I tried to calm myself down. There was enough air. I could breathe. And even if I couldn’t have, it wouldn’t have mattered. The fear of suffocation was a human instinct.

Where was I? I didn’t remember anything after the bedroom. I recalled the light and the music and Roman bursting in too late. I’d felt his power build up, like he was about to take action, but I hadn’t seen the conclusion. And now, here I was.

Before my eyes, two identical luminescent forms suddenly appeared, like torches being lit in the darkness. They were tall and thin, with willowy, androgynous features. Black cloth wrapped around their bodies, seeming to glow with a light of its own, and long black hair flowed from their heads, blending in and losing itself in the cloth. Their eyes were a startling radioactive blue, too blue for any human, and seemed to bug out of those long, pale faces that were neither male nor female.

It was weird too because it was like they stood before me in a large room, as though they were ten or so feet away from me. Yet, I was still crammed into the confines of my box and its unseen walls, barely able to move. Aside from them, everything else was pure, unfathomable blackness. I couldn’t even see my own body or any other features of the room. My brain couldn’t get a grip on this spatial hypocrisy. It was all too surreal.

“Who are you?” I demanded. “What am I doing here?” I saw no point in wasting time.

The duo didn’t answer right away. Their eyes were cold and unreadable, but I saw a bit of smugness in their lips.

“Our succubus,” one said. His—my brain decided to assign them a gender—voice was low and raspy, with a lisp that reminded me of a snake. “Our succubus at last.”

“Harder to catch than we thought,” added the other, voice identical. “We thought you would have succumbed long ago.”

“Who are you?” I repeated, anger kindling. I squirmed in a futile attempt at escape. My confines were so tight that I didn’t even have the space to beat my fists against the nonexistent walls.

“Mother will be pleased,” the first one said.

“Very pleased,” confirmed the other.

The way they alternated phrases reminded me of how Grace—Jerome’s former lieutenant demoness—and Mei used to interact. That had had a charming, moderately creepy The Shining feel to it. This…this was something else. Something terrible and icy, burning my senses like nails on a chalkboard.

“Mother will reward us,” the first said. I decided to call them One and Two for the ease of mental processing. “She will reward us when she is free, when she escapes the angels.”