And he saw himself…burning.
What felt like hours later but was likely only several minutes, Murmur’s eyes cleared, and he blinked as the door in front of him returned to focus.
His face morphed into a scowl.
A new vision to decipher. Delightful.As if I don’t already have enough to do.
The images had come too fast for him to immediately recall, but with careful concentration, he would be able to revisit them until he pieced their meaning together. But the vision had left him with one immediate conviction:
Someone was coming to steal something of his.
He flexed his claws and flicked his tail. No one stole from him. No one dared to cross the Necromancer who had visions of the future and an army of souls at his bidding. No one was foolish enough.
And yet he had the certainty that someone intended to do just that.
Very well, then.He would ensure it was the last thing they ever did.
7
Fight Or Flight
“So?” Raum lifted a brow. “You going to let me out of this sigil now?”
They stood in weighted silence, palms still held aloft, blood dripping to the floor, gazes locked. Outside, the pink dawn had become the pale blue of a cloudless morning.
He was exhausted, but it made him numb, which was a good thing. If he’d been able to feel and think clearly, he’d probably have a Belial-level rage attack at how fucked up this situation was and how easily he’d been duped.
Yeah, he still wasn’t over that. And who could blame him? The sweet woman in a sundress who climaxed on his leg on the dance floor was actually a fucking angel. Who was going to murder his family if he didn’t do what she wanted.
He didn’t miss the way Sunshine kept an eye on him as she approached the edge of the sigil. He supposed an instinctive wariness around demons was smart. He’d just sworn a very complicated, detailed vow not to betray her…and was still planning on doing just that.
His plan was simple. And possibly stupid. But it was the best he could do on short notice. He had to make it look like he wasn’t planning a coup or Sunshine would have added more clauses to the contract. And she might have corrected the tiny loophole she had accidentally created.
Contrary to her assumptions, he wasn’t that big of a manwhore.
He didn’t disappear for days on end with random women, and when he was with a woman, he wasn’t a dick about it. He looked for girls who wanted what he did, and he was always straight up with his intentions.
If Raum told his brothers he was going to hook up with a random club girl for a week straight and then ditch her like trash bags on garbage day, they would definitely be suspicious. They might have believed it for Meph before he met Iris, but for Raum, it was totally out of character. There just weren’t any people he wanted to be around for that long.
He was going to use Sunshine’s judgments about him against her. He’d agreed not to do anything to arouse his brothers’ suspicion, butshehad suggested the lie about his week-long hook up, which made it exempt from that clause.
He’d tell his brothers with a straight face exactly what she’d told him to say and then hope like hell they figured out something was off.
The minute any of them suspected an angel was involved, they would prepare accordingly. Belial would get the angel trap set up and get Sunshine to walk into it. Once she was stuck, it wouldn’t matter if Raum was still under contract.
Bel would do what needed to be done.
Raum was just protecting the people he cared about. If Sunshine hadn’t come after him in the first place, he wouldn’t have been forced into this. Sometimes surviving meant making hard choices, and he reminded himself that she wouldn’t show him any mercy were their roles reversed.
The angel stretched out one of her long, curvaceous legs and smudged the edge of the sigil with the toe of her high-heeled sandal. The blue glow extinguished, and he was free.
Except he wasn’t. Not even close.
Sunshine smiled sweetly. “So. Where do we begin?”
Good question.“I have to tell my brothers I’m going away.” He shot her a look. “We’ll meet back here later and I’ll draw the hellgate to get us to Hell.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Anywhere you go from now until your half of the bargain is complete, I will accompany you.”
