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CHAPTER2
Becca Murphy had been sitting at her table for more than two hours in the hopes that Ariel would come through for her. With every minute that passed, she had to work to convince herself not to bolt before the angel appeared. In fact, she had purposely arrived early because, if she hadn’t, odds were she’d totally wimp out.
But she couldn’t. As soon as she confessed her intentions to Ariel, a fellow demoness, she’d already done the one thing she knew she never should: she betrayed Lucifer.
She needed the angel’s help or she was totally fucked.
Nerves stole her appetite; the sweet human server with the blonde ponytail and kind smile served her a basket of fresh-baked bread that she nibbled on, and a glass of water spiked with lemon that Becca anxiously sipped. The Twilight Bar & Grille located inside of the infamous Twilight Sphere hotel in Sin City, Las Vegas—or, as the paranormal beings all called it, the City of Sin—was known for its food and its drink as well as the werewolves who owned and operated it.
She’d never been inside before. It was nice, if definitely dark. The walls were a rich purple with silver accents, the bar itself made of gleaming black wood with a white pearl granite countertop. Becca was sitting at a tall table—black with matching high-top stools—near the back of the bar, people-watching and waiting for Raziel.
Working down in Hell, spending the last few years in the Pit… it must’ve driven her crazy. Why else would she have thought turning to Raziel—the eldest of the Angels of Sin City—for help was a good idea?
Then again, it was the only one she had. She just hoped that the leverage she brought with her would be enough to engage his aid otherwise Becca was looking at her second and final death.
The first one hadn’t been so bad. She’d made it to the ripe old age of eighty-six before Lucifer came calling in her debt. After a foolhardy mistake made during her naive youth, the lord of Hell himself owned her soul which meant that, for the rest of eternity, she would be in his service as a low-level demoness. There was no escape clause—at least, that’s what he led her to believe, and up until she thought of throwing herself at the mercy of an angel, she’d definitely believed it.
But before Becca was his, she’d been a devout Catholic who spent the last sixty-six years of her life trying to atone for her fateful mistake. What was done was done. She couldn’t go back and change the fact that she gave up her soul for Gabe, but she could make amends for what Lucifer had planned for her after her death.
If there was another thing that she’d learned to believe, it was that anything was possible with the right amount of faith. Back when she was human, she didn’t know about the factions and the paranormal beings that ran the night. Only after she was turned into a demoness did she realize there was a whole other world out there.
And one of the factions?
Angels.
For years, she tried to figure out how she could get in contact with one of the celestial beings. Of course, no angel ever visited the Pit, but once Becca was promoted to a temptor—a demon who walked on Earth, in Purgatory, tempting mortals to sin—she had one day out of seven to find one.
And, after wishing and hoping and praying, she had finally managed to, all thanks to a born demoness with a penchant for baking cupcakes.
From the moment she walked past the Twilight Sweets Bakery, attached to the very same hotel as the bar Becca was currently in, Ariel recognized what Becca was. Instead of showing her prejudices against one of the turned demons, though, she made friends with Becca. And, through Ariel, Becca discovered that the casino in the Twilight Sphere hotel—the aptly named House of Sin—was owned and operated by the three angel princes known as the Angels of Sin City.
Of course, it wasn’t as simple as calling them up and asking to meet with them. They were powerful beings, and very busy men. Besides, with Raziel’s reputation, she needed to have something worthwhile to trade for what she was really after: her freedom from a contract she signed when she was too young, too lovesick, too stupid to know better.
And, after trying to come up with something, anything that he would accept, Becca was hopeful that she finally found it.
Reaching down to the rosary beads she habitually wore wrapped around her wrist, she rubbed the polished beads and prayed again.
She was still praying when, suddenly, she felt like all of the air had been sucked out of the crowded bar.
Or maybe it was just out of her lungs as she gasped.
Because the imposing man that had just walked through the door? She knew without knowing how exactly that that was Raziel, the angel she’d come to meet.
He didn’t have his wings out. There was no sign of a burnished halo over his tousled, dark blond curls. But that face? That sharp, chiseled face that was so strikingly beautiful it belonged on a statue… it had ‘angel’ written all over it.
And, suddenly, Becca wasn’t so sure this was a good idea after all.
His steely blue eyes roved over the tables before unerringly settling on hers. He was wearing an expensively tailored business suit—black, so it fit in amongst the bar’s decor—and he shook out the perfectly cut jacket before flicking his sleeve, then making his way toward her.
Just as he got to the side of Becca’s table, a tall, fit werewolf with a sharp jaw, brown hair, and vibrant green eyes suddenly intercepted Raziel. He clapped him on the shoulders as if they were old friends, and maybe they were. Something told Becca that only a kinship with the other being kept the angel from using his celestial aura against the werewolf for laying his paw on him.
“Hey, there. How are you, buddy? Wasn’t expecting you to stop by my fine establishment tonight. Can I get you anything? A drink? Whiskey neat, yeah?”
His gaze flickered over the glass of water and the untouched basket of bread set in the middle of the table. Pursing his lips, Raziel shook his head. “That won’t be necessary, Zev. I won’t be here long.”
Becca swallowed the lump lodged in her throat.
Yup. That didn’t bode well at all.
