Page 51 of Touched By Death

“Sorry. I knocked, but no one answered.”

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Daemon crosses the room in a flurry of movement, too fast to catch. “How fucking dare you enter my house?”

Dmitriy’s eyes skate past him to Aurelia on the bed and back. He swallows thickly. “Believe me when I say that I’m not here to start a fight, for once.”

Unconvinced, Daemon steps into him, forcing him back a step. “Then why are you here, looking at my angel?”

Ronan clears his throat, and Daemon stiffens, then concedes, “Our angel.”

With a chuckle, Ronan pockets his phone. “That’s better.”

Dmitriy stifles a chuckle at their exchange, and I study him closely before sliding my gaze to the angel on the bed. I do a double take. There’s something in that gaze of hers that feels… wrong.

The way she tracks their exchange and smirks when she thinks no one is looking.

She notices me staring, and I narrow my eyes to let her know I don’t buy her act. Something is up. And while I don’t want to let Dmitriy drive a wedge through this fragile bond, I can’t help but study her. Something is off. I can sense it with every nerve ending in my body.

“Daemon,” I speak up, not taking my eyes off the shackled angel on the bed. “I think you should hear him out.”

In my periphery, Daemon burns a hole through the side of my face before turning that lethal gaze on his cousin. The cogs in his brain turn over while he considers my words. With a final exhale, he steps back.

Dari and Ronan almost choke on their own spit when Daemon concedes. I have to admit, I didn’t think he’d listen.

Not that he does it willingly, and the scathing look he levels at Dmitriy as he enters the room would see a lesser man run for the door. “You have two seconds to make your fucking point, or I’ll make you regret ever setting foot in my house.”

Dmitriy looks at the angel on the bed, his gaze flicking from her face to the bedpost, taking in the handcuff that keeps her restrained. “I might need more than two minutes.”

Daemon opens his mouth to retort and spew some unhelpful bullshit, no doubt, so I raise my hand to silence him. “We’re listening.”

In my periphery, Ronan shoots me an amused glance, while Dari throws her hands out as if she’s fed up with this song and dance and just wants to feast on the angel’s cunt.

“I spoke to my father—”

Interrupting him, Daemon lets out a loud, frustrated groan.

“Like I said,” Dmitriy says, injecting his voice with enough dominance to make Daemon stiffen and narrow his eyes, as if sensing the challenge in the air, “I spoke to my father.”

Intrigued, I straighten from the desk. “Go on.”

“When Lucifer and Amenadiel escaped Eden, a sacrifice was required. Lucifer murdered a female angel, called Genesis.” He looks between us pointedly and crosses his arms. “That’s how they got the gates to open.”

“So?” Daemon asks impatiently.

Waving a hand at the girl on the bed, Dmitriy says, “She’s Genesis.”

Daemon stares at him incomprehensibly for a moment, the cogs turning in his brain. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

On the bed, Aurelia laughs, and the sound sends chills down my spine.

“You’ve seen the darkness claim her firsthand.” Dmitriy steps closer to Daemon with a look of determination burning brightly in his dark eyes. “I know you have. And I know you’ve seen the depth of the evil that lurks behind those shadows. We seduce our meals and place them under a spell to make them pliant. We don’t torture them for hours and prolong death. We don’t feed on their fear and pain.” With a finger aimed in her direction, he says, “Yet that’s what she does. She doesn’t need blood. That’s an assumption on our part. What she needs is something far more evil than what we can begin to comprehend.”

“So what are you saying?” I ask when Daemon continues staring at Dmitriy.

“I don’t fucking know,” he concedes, throwing his hands out defeatedly. “But I do know that Genesis is not Aurelia.”

“Genesis is not Aurelia?” Dari sounds confused as she walks closer to us with a deep frown between her brows. “I don’t understand.”

“When Genesis died that day, true evil was born by Lucifer’s actions. Heaven and Hell. Light and Dark. Genesis and Aurelia are born of the same flame. Genesis is the darkness to Aurelia’s light—the part of her that was called home by the forest outside the gates.”

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