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My human name?
The part of me that had been searching for even a speck of information about my past life sat up in stunned attention while my mind turned the name over and over.
Zoe… It rang with truth, the same kind I’d kept feeling when my visions came true.
“Explain,” I said tonelessly, shock stealing any emotion in my voice.
“Nine years ago,” he rasped, not even making the slightest attempt to swat away the sword pointed at his heart, even though my hold on it now was merely an afterthought, “when you turned twenty-five, I came to you to fulfill a contract you’d made with me when you were a teenager. You’d bound me to marry you should you still be single at twenty-five, and so we married, and I took you to Hell. I had every intention to lock you away and ignore you, but you”—the corners of his lips tipped up in the most indulgent, most affectionate smile I’d ever seen on his face—“you wouldn’t be ignored. You demanded my attention, my presence…my care. And despite my best efforts, you snuck underneath my defenses. You claimed me in a way no one else had ever dared. I fell for you, and you…for me.”
Breathlessly, I stared at him, my chest tingling, my stomach in knots.
“When Lucifer offered you the chance to annul the marriage and send you back to Earth,” he went on, “you chose me.” He swallowed hard, and his jaw flexed, emotion darkening his eyes. “You chose me,” he repeated in a husky voice. “Chose a life in Hell at my side rather than be sent back to Earth and forget me. And for a year, for one beautiful, blessed year, we were together, and those were the best months of my entire life. Until we were caught in the political games that led to the apocalyptic events eight years ago. You got stuck in your ghost form on Earth for too long, and it severed the connection between your body in Hell and your soul on Earth.” His dark lashes lowered, nearly hiding the glistening wetness in his eyes. When he spoke next, his voice cracked. “You died.”
I’d known that much. I had to have died to become an angel, but still, hearing him say it did something to me. Maybe it was an echo of the obvious pain he felt, maybe it was an instinctive reaction to a fact that defied emotional acceptance, but deep inside me, sorrow and hurt chimed together in a melody that made me want to sob.
“But you didn’t just become a ghost,” he continued after a moment. “You turned into a wraith, almost immediately. I held you in my arms as your spiritual form decayed by the minute, and I knew there was no time to bring you home and try to reconnect you to your body. I knew I was losing you. There was nothing I could do to save you…except call my father.”
“Your father,” I repeated numbly.
“Azrael. I begged him to make you ascend, and he did.”
My eyes shot wide, my heartbeat stumbling over itself. I knew it. I knew it! There was a reason they looked so much alike. But…“How? When I asked you, you said you had no family ties.”
“Officially, there are none. He renounced us.”
“Us?”
He hesitated a moment. “My mother, my sister, and me.”
My hands started trembling again as I still held the sword pressed against his chest, a sneaking suspicion making my stomach fizz. “Who is your mother?”
He looked half apologetic, half resigned. “Naamah.”
“Oh, my God!” My shock veered straight into anger again as the full weight of what he’d said settled down on me. I glared at him. “Are you telling me she’s been in on this? That the one real friend I made up here has only been hanging out with me because she wanted to help her son get close to me? That she’s been lying to me from the start?”
His sigh held a note of annoyance. “She really does like you?—”
“Who’s your sister?” I interrupted him. “If you tell me it’s Bifiel, I cannot be held liable for how I use this sword on you.”
He had the bad form to laugh. “No,” he said, inappropriate mirth glinting in his eyes. “I’d let you chop off my head if it were Bifiel.”
I uttered a sound that was half grunt, half growl.
“Her name is Azmodea,” he said after a moment, “and she’s in Hell. Same as my nephew. You were good friends with both. They adore you, and they want you to come home.” His voice lowered, longing etched into the hard lines of his face. “As do I.”
Home. I didn’t even have a concept of that word. It felt wrong to apply it to my place here in Heaven, and I had no recollection of what it had once meant to me when I’d lived on Earth. Not to mention I didn’t remember ever going to Hell and finding something like it there. With a demon.
I couldn’t wrap my mind around that. It all seemed far too fantastical, and considering I was an angel living in Heaven, with unicorns and supernatural powers, that was saying something.
The part of me bruised and beaten by finding out someone close to me had been hiding their identity and deceiving me—no matter the allegedly good intentions—didn’t want to blindly trust what Aziel was telling me. What if this was just another ruse? Just another lie? How was I supposed to take him at his word and accept that he was my long-lost demon husband?
“Zoe,” he said, not missing how I flinched at the name that at once seemed strange and yet strangely familiar. “I’ve been waiting years for this. To see you again, to be able to talk to you, touch you. I’ve been dreaming of the day I’d hold you in my arms again, to see you look at me fully knowing who I am. I’ve missed you. And I need you to come home. I need you to remember.”
I swallowed hard. “You’ve been lying to me since I met you in this cave. Now you want me to believe you, to just accept whatever you say as truth? How do I know you’re not lying to me right now?”
He shook his head. “I lied as little as possible. Most of what I told you is true, if maybe phrased carefully.”
“A lie of omission is still a lie!” I snapped. “You waltzed in here fully intending to deceive me. You hid who—what—you really are.”
