Page 28 of Infernal

Thiswould have been a good time to run, to drop the whole thing and high-tail it out of there, but I didn’t. Something inside of me held me there. It kept my fear at bay and urged me to keep trotting forward into the bleak unknown.

“Then do it,” I taunted as a dark need nestled in my heart. “Bleed me dry, Dominic. Show me how much I don’t matter to you.” I pushed my hair away from my neck, clearing the path for him—daring him to follow through with it.

The glass he was holding in his other hand shattered as a low guttural growl escaped his throat.

He didn’t make a move, though, and neither did I. We were in a standstill of epic proportions.

I licked my lips, searching for a drop of moisture in my dessert mouth. His hungry eyes immediately dropped to my mouth, though this time they lingered there.

I could see the desire in his eyes now—almost taste it on my tongue. The wrath that had clouded his expression only a moment ago had dissipated into nothingness, replacing itself with something that was just as dangerous. He stared back at me intensely, his smoldering eyes narrowing as he studied my face. And then he pulled back from me, defeated.

“Leave it alone, angel.” His voice was softer now, almost pleading.

“I can’t,” I said, my heart thumping hard in my chest as I righted myself. I needed to know the truth.

He looked down at his bloodied palm and shook away the tiny shards of glass that had wedged themselves into his flesh. “What would it change if I was?”

Everything inside of me clenched up. “I…I don’t know.”

“Then why do you want to know?”

“Because…I want to know how you feel about me.” Saying the words out loud made me realize I’d been trying to figure that out since the day I met him, and possibly every day since then.

He opened his mouth to say something back, but the sound of approaching footsteps quickly cut him off. After a few beats, Gabriel appeared at the doorway wearing his black leather jacket and signature frown. His eyes shuffled between us, silently gathering intel before settling his troubled gaze on me.

“Are you okay? Is everything alright?” he asked, his tone terse as I straightened out my shirt.

“Why yes, brother. Everything is just peachy,” answered Dominic, sliding his injured hand into his pocket.

I avoided making eye contact with either of them and instead picked imaginary lint off my sleeves.

“Well?” Gabriel waited, his face still jacked with unease. “Is anyone going to tell me what happened?”

“Nothing happened,” I quickly defended, my cheeks warming with embarrassment. “We were just talking.”

His eyes shifted between me and Dominic, and I swore I could see a flicker of judgment brewing. “At All Saints,” he clarified, his tone letting me know he had already passed said judgment.

“Right. All Saints.”Damn it. If he wasn’t suspicious before, he certainly was now.

“Dominic said Lucifer was there,” he added, waiting for me to fill in the blanks.

“Yeah, he was there alright...impersonating Trace.” My mood quickly nosedived as the awful memories came crashing back in. “He did a really good job of it too. Acted as if he had no idea what I was talking about when I called him out.”

“He pretended to be Trace?”

I nodded. “He tried to convince me that Dominic compelled me to imagine the whole thing.”

Gabriel crossed his arms. “And you believed him?”

It wasn’t my shiniest moment, but what the heck else was I supposed to think? “Peter Macarthur backed him up. He said he was at work all week. How was I supposed to know he was lying?”

Gabriel looked at Dominic for clarification.

“He’s been compromised,” said Dominic as he sat back on the sofa, resting his ankle on his thigh.

Gabriel’s eyes slammed shut, because he knew what that meant: a demon was now inhabiting the body of Peter Macarthur, with or without his permission. “Dammit.” He had a hard time meeting my eyes just then, as though he’d lost all confidence in my judgment.

“They caught me off guard,” I said, still defending myself. I hadn’t exactly been ready to see Lucifer masquerading in my boyfriend’s body at that exact moment, and I certainly didn’t expect for him to pretend none of it ever happened. There was no training for that kind of thing. “It’s not going to happen again.”

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