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“Zev? I think I’ll take that drink after all.”
* * *
Was she lying?
Demons lie. It was what they did. Whether they were born into the faction like most of their kind, or turned like some others—the demons came to mind, as did the vampires—demons had a few defining characteristics.
They lied. They cheated. They tricked. If the devil’s in the details, then the trap lies with his henchman. Lucifer might have been the most infamous of Raze’s kind once upon a time, but he’d become something different in the millennia since. Something evil. Chaotic.
Cruel.
The lord of the demons, and an enemy of most of the factions—including Raze and his brothers.
There was definitely no love lost between the former fallen angel and the Angels of Sin City. Though they were all kicked out of Heaven ages ago, Lucifer relished his new role as the lord of Hell. He didn’t understand why Raze, Sam, and Micah were so desperate to find their way back home, and if Raze suspected that Lucifer had something to do with their missing talisman, he kept it to himself.
Raze ruled his corner of the City of Sin. The humans he was forced to interact with thought of him as a god; truth be told, they weren’t too far off. He controlled House of Sin, making money, making deals, making plans. But even if he was the most powerful angel in Las Vegas—a fact his two brothers would undoubtedly agree with—he wasn’t strong enough to take on Lucifer.
And, honestly? He didn’t really want to. Whatever Lucifer was up to, so long as he didn’t interfere with Raze and his brothers, Raze couldn’t care less.
Until now.
Until he reluctantly agreed to meet with a woman and he found her.
With her angelic features, her wary grey eyes, and the rosary she wore like a bracelet ‘round her slender wrist, she was nothing like the demons he’d faced off against—but no matter how weak his senses were these days, Raze was sure of it: she was a demoness, and she was risking everything by coming to him.
Zev returned with two glasses in hand—well, paw. A whiskey neat for Raze that he sat in front of him, and a fresh glass of lemon water that he placed next to the female’s barely drunk first one.
Raze drew his glass closer to him. “Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it, Raze.”
“Raze.” Her brow furrowed as Zev went to talk to the bears at the next table. “I thought your name was Raziel.”
After taking a sip of his drink, Raze nodded. “It is.”
“Oh. Um. I’m Rebecca, by the way. Becca, really. No one ever calls me Rebecca.”
She was still nervous. Raze felt her anxiety like needles pricking his skin.
Another sip, then he drawled, “What do you know about angels?”
She toyed with the straw from her first glass, not quite meeting his eyes. Fidgety female. “Angels in general,” she asked, “or the Angels of Sin City?”
Ah. So she’d heard about him and his brothers. He’d expected as such; all of the local factions knew about them. He’d wondered when Ariel insisted that he be the one to meet with her friend if it was because he was one of the Angels of Sin City—considered a prince among their kind due to their (formerly) potent celestial auras and how long they’d managed to survive in Purgatory—or because he was the wealthy owner of the House of Sin casino.
For millennia, it was his wings and his aura and his angelic senses that made Raze untouchable. This last century, things shifted. He couldn’t remember the last time he spread his wings and took a flight just for pleasure and not for business. So consumed with running the casino, it had been easy to fall into the guise of a powerful mortal businessman more often than not.
The fact that the three angel princes’ powers had been noticeably waning over the last few years made it easier to pretend. It didn’t do a damn thing for the homesickness, or Raze’s stubborn determination that he’d bring his brothers back to Heaven one day, but his dulled senses had him at least questioning the undeniable way he was drawn to the redheaded demoness.
“Forget about that.” Telling her about soulmates and what it meant to be bonded to an angel could wait—and not just the minute and a half left from her initial five. It had been a dick move to hold her to it, mainly because he was still stunned at his realization, but now things were… different. “You mentioned a curse.”
She nodded. A strand of her wavy red hair fluttered over her shoulder, curling against the pale skin of her cleavage.
The sudden desire to brush it away had Raze fisting his hand. He wasn’t sure which was the bigger temptation: to see how silky soft her hair was or how nice her skin would feel against his fingertips.
Forcing his hand open, Raze flexed his fingers before reaching for his glass. Tilting his head back, he swallowed the last of his drink. He relished the slight burn, then narrowed his gaze on her.
“I won’t insult either of us by pretending that my senses haven’t confirmed you’re being honest with me. Obviously, there’s another curse. Lucifer’s fucking with the rest of us again. Now, tell me how you know about it.”
Becca bit her bottom lip, and the cynical male that Raze had grown into over the centuries wondered if it was a calculated gesture. Was she trying to entice him? If so, she’d have an easy job of it. From the moment Raze walked into the Twilight Bar and Grille, he’d been drawn to her. The longer he sat across from her, the harder it was to ignore.
God, he needed another drink.
