Page 18 of Princess of Bael

“That’s convenient,” Ezra replied, interrupting my thoughts. “And obviously bullshit. I’m not the gullible one in this relationship, Kayla.”

My jaw ticked, the urge to punch him riding my spirit. But we needed to fix this first and argue later.

Despite what he thought about me, I didn’t want to make any of this worse.

After everything Ashmedai and I had reviewed, I actually thought giving Alastor a piece of the Divinity would help in the long term. The Archdemons needed a strong partner to ground their powers. They were growing exponentially, something I didn’t want to admit to Ezra because my own abilities were also strengthening at impossible rates.

Ashmedai, Alastor, and Bael were all experiencing the same phenomenon. Which meant the other Archdemons likely were as well.

And not all of them were reasonable leaders.

Some valued anarchy and literal world domination.

Hence, we were trying to get ahead of this to stop the eventual war.

But if Kristina had been taken by the wrong Archdemon… then I’d just worsened everything.

Which I firmly blamed on Ashmedai.

And also myself.

Ezra was right. I had acted selfishly. At least a little bit. But I’d thought the phone would just send up a beacon or something, not create a damn hole in the sky.

Regardless, debating the hows and whys was a waste of time.

We could solve this case right now if I located that damn Tracker.

Then Alastor would give me the blade.

And I’d use it on Ezra.

“Are you listening to me?” the asshole Archangel demanded. “We’re doing this my way.”

I snorted. “We did that last time. It’s my turn now.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you.”

I ignored him in favor of the coordinates populating the space above my cuff.Got ya, I thought, grinning to myself. Then I met Ezra’s gaze and held out my arm so he could see the location. “Want to tell me how a Tracker ended up in Heaven?”

His brow furrowed, but those pretty gold-brown eyes of his slid to my glowing cuff and the location hovering in the air above it. “How…?”

“Runes,” I answered. “And, as I said, I put a tracker mark on my knife. This is where it’s at right now.” I rotated my wrist, drawing the power back into the metal, and folded my arms. “I think we both know I would never willingly go to Heaven. So. Either you accept my lead and whisk us up there. Or we can stand here and continue to waste time. Up to you.”

His square jaw ticked as he studied me. “I don’t trust you.”

“Likewise,Ez,” I said, using the nickname Johanna had given him. They were clearly close, and I didn’t want to think abouthowclose they were. Nor did I want to consider how she felt about him being mated to someone else.

His gaze narrowed. “Don’t call me that.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re not worthy,” he returned.

“You issue these insults like they should mean something to me,” I told him, doing my best to pretend like nothing he’d said had bothered me, while knowing full well he’d already struck several chords inside me. “But all you’re doing is wasting my time and yours. It’s making me wonder if you’re purposely drawing this out because you don’t want to solve the case.”

He grunted. “I’m not drawing anything out. I’m saying I don’t fucking trust you.”

“Which is fascinating, considering you’re the one who betrayed me,Ezra, not the other way around.” I met and held his gaze. “If you’re not willing to follow this lead, then I’ll find someone else who is. You have five seconds to decide before I disappear.”