Page 8 of Princess of Bael

Immortals like Eve.

She probably wouldn’t have missed, I thought sourly, thinking about my three pitiful throws.I should have brought a gun.

“So, what, you came here to warn me?” He phrased it as a question, but his tone suggested it was a mocking one.

“No, I came here to kill you,” I admitted without missing a beat. “My warning is for Johanna from Archdemon Bael. He’s worried about her.”

And I need to borrow one of the Divinity for Alastor,I added to myself.Then he’ll give me a holy blade made of angel bone that will allow me to kill you.

Up until that moment, none of the Divinity had bothered to spare us a glance, too wrapped up in their weaving and trusting that Ezra would keep them safe. But at my father’s name, Johanna paused and glanced over her shoulder, zeroing in on my face. If she recognized me from our one encounter years ago, she didn’t give any indication. “Bael?”

“My father,” I replied, eliciting yet another arched brow from Ezra. I ignored him, my focus on Johanna. “He’s worried about you.”

“He’s not worried about her,” Ezra interjected. “He’s worried about himself.”

“Sounds familiar,” I muttered, unable to stop myself. Then I looked at him again. “You don’t know my father like I do. He’s worried, so much so that he was considering breaking the vow to see her. I came myself instead.”

Not that my father knew that.

He thought I was visiting Prince Alastor to learn more about his governing techniques. But that hadn’t gone the way my father had planned, mostly because Prince Alastor had seen through my concern almost immediately.

And that had led to what I’d sensed about the shifting balance, something he’d admitted to feeling as well.

Which had prompted me to travel to Earth to find Eve.

Only to be caught by Ashmedai.

And yeah, it’d been a whirlwind of demonic politics.

Anyway…

“Something’s coming. I don’t know what, but it doesn’t feel natural. It feels—”

A blast cut a swath between the realms, tearing through the quiet street and interrupting my explanation.

I froze, too startled by the sudden violence to react, and then a split second after the first blast, a second explosion lit up the night.

Ezra whirled away from me and drew a sword out of thin air. He held it aloft, his shrewd gaze sweeping the shadows around us.

I knew he was capable of “calling” his weapons from thin air, because he’d done it once in Hell when we were traveling to Bael’s realm. But it hadn’t occurred to me that when he’d demanded I show myself a few moments before, he hadn’t bothered pulling a weapon on me.

Because he’d never actually considered me to be a threat.

I’ll be annoyed by that later, I decided, my gaze dropping to the quaking ground beneath my boots.What the fuck is that?

A magical shimmer crackled around us, the sound reminding me of static electricity, only louder and humming dangerously close to my skin.

I blinked hard and shook my head, trying to brush off the weird static hum. But it grew in intensity, until every inch of me vibrated along with the ground.

My insides twisted with the need to vomit.

The horrific reverberations dampened my senses, making it so I couldn’t quite see or hear. I thought I heard Ezra shouting, but I couldn’t make out his words, and when I tried to focus on him, he was nothing but a blur of colors.

The Divinity’s bright light, which still shone on the asphalt a few feet away, was exacerbating my blurry vision. I rubbed my eyes, then glanced away into the darkness for a reprieve.

And found the Tracker demon standing about a hundred yards to my left, entirely too close to the Divinity, staring up at the sky with triumph. His body was encased in a weird sort of armor that seemed to be reflecting the electricity.

It was the same Tracker who’d been following me since Fargo—I recognized his signature.