He stared down at her with barely any expression. “Makes sense that you’d be worried about her.”
Oddly, Gali’s first thought was of Nana Darling. She was going to have to tell her grandmother everything, the truth of what Deziel was and what she’d done. Michael’s involvement. Gifty Williams’s murder. Celestial would want to find his bones, give him a proper burial. All the Kincaids would be horrified. Gali had never really kept important secrets from her family, but maybe they didn’t need to know every little detail, like Gali being washed in Gifty’s blood as he died. What good would that do? Come to think of it, if they knew about Michael and how some of his power might have trickled down to Gali, that could putthemin Michael’s crosshairs. Secrets like that needed as few people in the know as possible.
All these calculations clattered through Gali’s mind as she looked at the empty bathroom. “Will you keep me company?” she found herself asking.
Leviathan raised an eyebrow. “In thebath?”
Gali rolled her eyes. “I’m not asking you to get in with me, Leviathan. I just—”
She broke off. The bathroom was large, with stone tiles on the floorand a black porcelain tub. The shower was a large glass enclosure. There was no one there, and the house was warded against Deziel. Gali would be safe. If Leviathan said it was safe, then it was safe. Probably. Her nervous system simply didn’t believe any of that, unfortunately, and she desperately did not want to be alone. Visions of Deziel’s smile kept flitting through Gali’s head. Would she return to punish Gali for spoiling her plans with the hellgate? Would she hunt Gali down, smash a bathroom mirror, and slice Gali’s throat like she had Gifty’s? Would Gali even see her coming?
Leviathan was watching her face. Gali didn’t bother picking up the rest of what she’d been saying, but he nodded anyway and entered the bathroom ahead of her, starting the water both in the shower and the tub. He pulled a stack of thick white towels from a closet and placed them on a teak bench, then passed her a washcloth.
“Get in the shower,” he said, turning his back. “I’ll run the bath.”
From the steam already fogging the glass, Gali could tell the shower water was scalding hot, exactly how she liked it. Levi shook bath salts into the tub, and Gali surreptitiously watched the corded muscles of his forearms. She had only vague memories of his other form back in the vault; he hadn’t held it for very long before returning to the human form he wore now. Gali had so many questions about how it all worked—how many times had Leviathan abandoned this human form and reclaimed it? Did he choose the details himself—the vitiligo, the build—or was it modeled after a vessel? Could princes even take vessels the way that angels did?
She tugged off Lucifer’s tunic and stepped into the shower, sighing with relief as the water burned a path over her skin. Leviathan paused at the sound of her sigh but didn’t turn around. Gali ducked her head under the spray and soaked her hair. It felt both illicit and thrilling to be naked in the same room as this prince of Hell, even if his back was turned. Wiping the water from her eyes, she looked at the products on the bathroom shelf and choked back a laugh at the number of bottleslined up. He had soap, shampoo, conditioner, shower oil, scrubs and face wash, mud masks and even a body serum.
“Levi,” she said, trying to keep the amusement out of her voice. “You be having spa showers in here or what?” The prince nearly turned his head before he caught himself, but Gali could swear she glimpsed a flush on his cheek. “I thought you nonhumans didn’t need all this.”
Leviathan kept staunchly looking away from her, watching the water filling the tub instead. “I find there’s something in the rituals of the flesh,” he replied. “Tangible comforts, exercises in care.”
Itwassoothing to be wrapped in the scent of his body wash while steam rose and the heat loosened her muscles. Gali soaped herself down with the washcloth, then worked some conditioner through her hair, detangling the curls with her fingers.
“Thank you,” she said softly.
“It’s just a shower and a bath.”
“Not for that.” She rinsed her hair and wrung it out. “I remember what you did for me back at the hellgate, protecting me from the others.” It was hard to admit Leviathan had done the one thing she’d wanted Lucifer to do from the start, but Gali forced the words out anyway, because they were true. “You drew your sword on them,” she said. “I never thought you’d do that for me.”
The prince shrugged, still with his back to her. He was resting his arms against the lip of the bathtub, and his pale hair fell in ropes down his back. Gali found herself wanting to see his face, his yellow eyes, as she spoke to him. He’d chosen her and Lucifer over his own team. That had to mean something.
“Leviathan,” she said, bracing one hand against the shower glass. “Look at me.”
He stilled, his head bowing.“Galilee.”Her name spilled like a warning prayer out of his mouth, but Leviathan didn’t turn around, didn’t look. Gali closed her eyes. She had dematerialized at the hellgate, and it felt like she had turned into someone,something, else. Sure, her flesh hadbeen slapped back together, but Gali didn’t feel like who she used to be. She felt like she was both the haunted thing and the haunting. She felt like her skin was a lie, like her body was a lie, and the power whispered to her that only the storm was real, was true, and everything else could be sloughed off.
“I don’t know if I’m real,” she admitted, her words slow and careful. “I’ve been in this body all my life, and then this angel shows up and sets me off like I was nothing but a bomb. Not a person.” The water beat against her skin and steam rose around her. “I lost control just like y’all thought I would. Shit, I lostmyself.”
“But you found yourself again,” Leviathan said, his head bent as he looked into the swirling bathwater. The tub was almost full.
Gali wondered if that was true. “I mean, you walked me back from the edge and all, but I still feel like a shell,” she said. “Is there a reason why you won’t look at me?”
The prince laughed, and it was a bitter sound. “You know why, Galilee.”
She tipped her head back, thick curls wet and heavy on her neck. “Tell me.”
Leviathan shook his head, and she saw his hands clench the edge of the tub. “What do you want from me, Galilee? What’s this game you’re playing?”
Gali slammed her palm against the glass, and the sound slapped through the air. “It’s not a fuckinggame,” she snarled. She was so tired and so angry, and it felt like she was scrabbling on the edge of something, a yawning mouth beneath her.
Leviathan scoffed. “You don’t know what you want. Is this because you’re mad at Luci for that shit about your soul?”
Gali took a step back, and water crashed over the side of her face. She ducked her head away from the spray. Leviathan turned then, his yellow eyes cold as he met her shocked gaze.
“You want to notch off both the Devil and his prince? Will that make you feel better?”
“I didn’t say nothing about—”
