He stepped in close behind me, his lips a breath away from my ear. “Not quite. This is one of our bedrooms.”
My stomach dropped at his words while my connection … my connection flared to life.
“What’ve you done?” I whispered.
He came around to face me. As he did so, our connection throbbed. The devil’s—shit, Hades—and mine. “Many things, little bird. Elucidate me on which you’re accusing me of.”
I edged away from him and clutched my heart, which thumped beneath my hand. I had no time to marvel over the fact that I once again had a heartbeat. “Why do I feel you here?” I asked.
He took another step forward. “You were made for me.”
Not an answer.
“But, Andre—”
“Do not speak the vampire’s name to me,” the devil hissed.
How could this happen? Making a deal with the devil, coming to hell, that was one thing. But to be bonded to this man, to have a part of me joined with him …
Sickness rose within me. My body had betrayed me in the most fundamental way.
“Come, my queen.”
“No.”
He took my hand without asking and our surroundings disappeared, only to be replaced with those of a grand dining room.
Hades led me to an intricately wrought chair. I sat, thinking he would take his own seat, but instead he knelt in front of me.
“I will take care of you and cherish you the same way I do my power,” he said.
I searched his eyes. They were beautiful, just like the rest of his features. Beautiful, foreign and frightening.
“Why?” I asked. The devil wasn’t supposed to have a caring side. He was sadness and despair and loneliness and anger and violence and—
He sighed. “I can burn away a soul but apparently not your human misconceptions. You think I’m incapable of anything but hate and pain.”
You are.
“I am everything and nothing,” he continued. “Cultures have never agreed on a definition of me because I exceed language and logic. But, know this, Gabrielle: I am not the devil. Not with you.”
“Then what are you?”
“Your soulmate.”
That word implied so many things. I sorted out which ones I thought the devil meant and which he probably didn’t. The result left me cold.
“I know what you want from me,” I said.
The subarctic temperature of the room warmed. Literally. The devil’s eyebrows rose. “I’m no human man, but yes. I would take your flesh along with your heart and soul.”
He saw my terror, and I swear it looked like someone slapped him before he recovered his composure. Then the expression was gone as fast as it appeared, leaving me wondering if my eyes had played tricks on me.
“What do I call you?” I asked, pretending to go along with his declaration that I had things all terribly wrong.
Our connection throbbed. His face gave nothing away, but I realized as I stared at him that the pulse came from satisfaction. His. He liked that I asked, that I wanted his opinion on something.
“When we are alone, you may call me ‘Asiri.’”
I’d never heard of that name. “Did you just make that up?”
He laughed, and the sound rose the hairs on my arms. More disturbingly, it also seemed to caress me like soft velvet. I enjoyed the sound of his laugh.
This situation was so messed up.
“No, I did not. Men and women who lived and died thousands of years ago addressed me as such. They liked me better then. They liked you too—not as much, but we can’t all be favorites.”
That didn’t even deserve a response.
“Asiri.” I tried out the word. It echoed in the cavernous room, and hot, phantom winds ruffled my hair, then resettled. In this realm, the word itself had power behind it.
I might call him this. So long as he didn’t piss me off. Otherwise, it was back to the usual gauntlet of names. Only I’d find which one annoyed him most, and I’d use that one over and over again.
The devil—Asiri—smiled at me, whether from my thoughts, which he sometimes heard, or my saying this archaic name.
There was something intimate about the name he gave me. Asiri. A name no longer spoken by humans. It was mine and his alone. My heart beat faster. I knew he could hear it because he reached up and covered the skin over it with his hand.
“Are you nervous?”
Staring at this beautiful, evil thing? This ageless god who shared a secret name with me?
“I’m petrified.”
He smiled, not unkindly, and kept his hand on my chest until the thump of my heart went back to normal.
“Better?” he asked.
“No. Your hand is still touching me.”
“It is.”
I could feel the heat from his palm seeping into me. Our bond tugged at us, beckoning us closer. Before, when the cord connected me with Andre, my soulmate had fought to keep his physical distance, fearing that if he didn’t, he’d rush me and I’d regret it.
Now that my bond had somehow attached itself to the devil, I found myself pulling away, fighting this force of nature that tried to eliminate the distance between us.