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“Don’t you fucking say it.” His throat is in my hand and I’m squeezing before he can even blink. “Everything that happened between Azizia and I post-kidnapping was nothing but consensual and actively agreed upon.” I let go as the veins in his neck start to bulge, then grab his cheeks and squeeze his lips into a fish face. “And it’s the only fucking way we’re going to find her, so if I were you, I’d be pretty goddamn grateful your sister was fed from and fucked by a vampire.”

Patting his cheek and royally pissing him off, I turn away from Azrael seconds before he disembowels me, and as soon as my back is to him, I pull a face.

What the fuck was that?

Never, and I do mean never, have I been a cocky shithead who picks fights with anyone. Not even when Davina let me loose on—

I shake my head. This isn’t like then, but it isn’t like me, either.

Sure, there was a time when I had more confidence, if you will, and far less restraint, but even then I didn’t play around the way I have been.

Playing isn’t the right word.

Or… Maybe it is because honestly, I feel a little like I’m playing with my food, and though I don’t plan on eating Zia’s brother, that’s how this feels.

It feels like it used to.

Shaking the thought from my head for a second time, I check the clock, again, as I wear a path into the linoleum floor.

I swear some days are actually longer than others.

The seconds are moving like molasses, slow as hell while they drip from the proverbial tap, sticking to every surface including each exposed inch of my skin. I can almost feel time moving at a snail’s pace and the more I focus on it, the angrier I become.

I shouldn’t have let her go alone.

I had to. Zia couldn’t have been found inside the studio with me, but sending her to the car without any sort of protection was moronic considering the situation we’ve found ourselves in.

And I should have known better.

Of all people, I know what it’s like to have a target on your back while trying to hide.

“Tell me more about Xadrian.” I don’t take my eyes off the clock but I stop directly in front of the door, waiting for the sun to set so I can kick the damn thing open and start looking for that unhinged little vixen.

“What is there to tell?” Rae grunts from behind me. “He’s dangerous, he’s a bastard, and he’s got my fucking sister. That’s all anyone needs to know.”

I fold my arms against my chest with a sigh. “He’s a warlord, right? Relatively high ranking?”

“Yes…”

“And he’s had control of the same section of Hell for a couple of centuries?”

“He has,” Azrael says slowly.

“As sadistic as they come, right?” If memory serves, anyway. “With an affinity for control and unorthodox means of gaining it?”

I hear both of them shift around behind me before the demon speaks. “Did Zia tell you this?”

Rolling my lips between my teeth, I pause and think over my answer.

It wasn’t until I fed from Azizia the second time that things started to click. Her so-called husband does have a reputation, one that made it all the way to Purgatory and intrigued Davina, but I’ve never made contact with him. I didn’t get the chance to before that half-assed truce was put into effect and that bullshit treaty was drawn up.

Demons stay in Hell, vampires stay in Purgatory, no one goes to Heaven, and the surface is sort of a gray area. Though we all know we aren’t welcome.

It was very simple, very straightforward, and within a week of signing it, Davina had me exiled.

I don’t need to share any of that with the demon currently staring daggers into the back of my head while he simmers behind me, not now. But I can tell he’d be both shocked and angered to find his sister had shared so many details with me in such a short time.

Not that finding out I’d been given sensitive information regarding Hell, or that I was relatively familiar with his homeland, would make Rae very happy, either.