Page 31 of Princess of Bael

“You’ve been working with Ashmedai?” I asked incredulously. “Why?”

“It’s not like I had a choice,” she muttered, her expression hardening as she narrowed her gaze. “I also don’t need to explain myself to you.”

I arched a brow. “Your recent interior decorating job in my office says otherwise.”

She snorted. “Whatever. Do you want to find Kristina or not?” Her focus shifted to the map on the table. She called a flame to her fingertip and used it like a flashlight to highlight the map beneath the red dot. “Vancouver. Great. Shall we go?”

Shutters seemed to fall around her, closing me off from the real Kayla beneath and telling me there was no way in Hell she intended to say another word on the topic.

Because she didn’t find me worthy of the knowledge, even though upholding the balance between humanity, Hell, and Heaven was my unequivocal purpose in life.

Rather than push the topic, I allowed her the moment to hide.

She’d already revealed a great deal through all these sketches. They confirmed she knew a lot more about our situation than I could ever have anticipated.

Which meant she could be a valuable partner in this quest.

Or a very dangerous one, I thought, looking her up and down. “All right.” I enjoyed a good challenge. Might as well see how this played out.

I picked up the map from the desk, folded it down into a perfect little rectangle, and slipped it into my back pocket. The parchment hummed with magic, telling me it was still working to keep an eye on Kristina’s location.

I’d used a similar one to find Johanna all those years ago after Bael had taken her. It was how I’d navigated the underworld. But Kayla had been the reason I’d survived down there, the intense atmosphere not meant for angelic beings.

Our bond had provided me with a literal lifeline, allowing me to thrive in my mate’s home environment.

Which was how she’d been able to recover so quickly in Heaven—she’d pulled on my essence to strengthen herself. Not that she seemed to have noticed, but I’d definitely felt it.

Walking past her, I headed toward my bookcase to pull on a book and key in a code on the panel behind it. A door whirred to life, revealing a hidden armory.

Kayla gasped behind me, the only indication that she’d followed me.

Then she brushed by my shoulder to go fondle a pair of my favorite scythes. “Ohhh,” she marveled, the sound unmistakably erotic. “This is my kind of kink.” She skipped over to a table of daggers before moving on to the wall of ammunition and various mortal guns. “It’s really too bad I hate you, Ez,” she said, a note of true sadness in her tone. “Otherwise, you would have just become my type.”

Type?I repeated to myself, my gaze narrowing at the back of her head.She has a type?

That indicated she’d discovered atypethrough trial and error.

Which suggested she’d taken sexual partners.Plural. Sexual partnersplural.

My jaw ached from clenching it so hard, my desire to wrap my palm around her nape and shove her up against the wall a sudden need that clawed at my insides. I wanted to know who had dared to touch what my soul considered to bemine. I wanted to slay them and fuck her in a pool of their blood. I wanted to erase every damn memory in her head and replace them with ones ofme.

Of course, the only true memories she had of me were unpleasant.

Because I’d used her and then left her in Hell.

A realization that doused cold water over my irrational ire.She’s not really mine. Our souls were joined, forcing me to remain celibate, but that didn’t mean she had to remain faithful to me. Just as it was my spirit that slowly withered and died in her absence, not the other way around.

Had she been a being of Heaven, then our bond would be something else entirely.

But instead, I’d engaged in a forbidden link to bolster myself in my quest, not caring at all for my eventual future.

I didn’t regret it.

At least, not in terms of what it did to me.

However, a part of me… a small part… grieved over what I’d done to Kayla. My mate. The female I was supposed to protect.

I hadn’t cared about her when we’d engaged in the blood exchange. She’d been a means to an end. A nuisance with a mohawk and a childlike spirit.