The Devil's Right Hand

Chapter 4

I turned so quickly my hair fanned out in a loose arc. Sunlight warmed my hip and knee, pouring in through the window. Japhrimel had stood up, and his long dark Chinese-collared coat was back, wings folded tightly as if armoring himself.

As if he was the one who needed the armor.

He watched me, his hands clasped behind his back again. “It seems that once again I am to ask you to face the Prince, Dante. There is… terrible news.”

I swallowed dryly. “Terrible? When you say that, I suppose it means something different than when I say it.” Then the absurdity hit me—I was standing here naked, my entire body gone cold and tense with foreboding, talking to a demon. How did I get myself into these things? “Am I allowed to get dressed, or does Lucifer want to see me in the buff?”

“If you wish to present yourself as a slave, I can hardly stop you.” The edge to his voice glittered and smoked like carbolic tossed across antigrav. “Try to rein your tongue for once. If I have meant anything to you, you must listen to me.”

Slaves are naked in Hell? Yet another demon custom I don’t know about. The mad urge to giggle rose up inside of me and died away again. My jaw set itself like plasteel. “You have no idea what you mean to me,” I informed him, just as flatly as he’d ever spoken to me.

“And vice versa. You are a selfish child sometimes. It could even be your particular brand of charm.”

I lifted the sword slightly. “Do you want a sparring match, or do you want to explain to me why you left me while I was unconscious? And defenseless, I might add?”

“I cannot imagine you defenseless.” Japhrimel stepped forward once. Twice. He approached me slowly, as if I might bolt at any moment. I stood trembling at the edge of the sunlight and let him come near, my hand with the sword dropping. “I gave up my place in the Greater Flight of Hell for you. I am of the Fallen, and I have chosen to bind my fate to yours. Remember that.”

The mark on my shoulder sent a burning tingle all through me. His hand brushed my elbow, slid up my arm to polish the bare skin of my shoulder, then slid under my hair, curling around my nape. He didn’t have to pull me forward, I leaned into him like a plant leans toward a window. “I have fended off the polite requests Lucifer has sent for your presence, and I have parried his less-than-polite requests. He has stopped asking and started summoning, hedaira, and he is an enemy we cannot afford to make. Not if we expect to keep living, and I find I have grown fond of life with you. Even this pale world has its beauty when seen through your eyes.” He dropped his face, spoke the last sentence into my hair. He inhaled, a slight shudder passing through him. My sword dropped the rest of the way, my arm hanging slack, the scabbard resting in my hand. “At the very least, I ask you to come and listen. Will you?”

The lump in my throat made it difficult to talk. “Fine,” I rasped. “But don’t expect me to be happy about it. I hate him, I hate him, he killed you and I hate him.”

The tension running through him drained away. “He did not kill me. I am here.”

I couldn’t argue with that, so I let him pull me back to the bed and run his fingers through my hair. I let him kiss my shoulder, my cheek, and finally my mouth. I sighed as he folded me in his arms and spoke to me the way I understood best—the language of the body, an instinctive semaphore used to tell me once again that he was real. His mouth against mine, his body against mine, and the rough hungry fire of my own desire swallowing me whole—but tears slid down my cheeks as I gave myself up to him.

I should have known things wouldn’t stay perfect forever.