Page 99 of Demons & Damnation

“You old bitch,” he shouted. “I’ll kill you for this. I’m not done, Lily. I will be back.”

Lily gave Malcolm a brief look.

“Take her,” Malcolm said, handing Kyla over to Azazel.

Azazel took her, gladly, keeping her close to his chest. Dylan narrowed his eyes, spikes of jealousy coursing through him at a rate of knots.

“Not the time, boys,” Malcolm said, moving to Lily’s side in two steps.

Lifting one of his giant hands, he tapped Tony in the middle of his forehead. “You still in there, fucker?”

Lily rolled her eyes and stepped away, going to Azazel to check on Kyla. She pressed the back of her hand to Kyla’s forehead. “How is her heartbeat?”

“Still weak,” Azazel said.

“She drained herself doing what she did to her mother,” Lily replied, casting an eye over the devastation that was her daughter’s body. “I shouldn’t have let her out of my house until she had learned some real magic.” Lily shook her head, tears clouding over his vision. “I had no idea she would come here and do this. Not this quickly.”

Azazel pressed his lips together, trying to think of an appropriate response. “She’s been very haunted by what happened for a long time. I think she just wanted it over with. As soon as she had the means to do it, she grabbed the opportunity with both hands.”

“Are you listening, Tony?” Malcolm said, slapping the man’s face. “I hope you’re seeing me, you sick little bastard. I might even take a special return trip to Hell just to tear you apart for the next century.”

The corner of Lily’s mouth quirked up into a half smile. “He will do that,” she said, glancing up at Azazel.

Azazel nodded and grinned. “I know he will.”

Malcolm thumped his right hand against Tony’s chest, his palm flat against him, his fingers splayed out. “I hope you feel every second of this, you miserable oxygen thief.”

Digging his fingers into Tony’s chest, he forced his way through the skin, grabbing at his ribs, crushing them as he clenched his hand into a fist.

Pulling his hand back out, he threw the handful of tissue and bone across the room before going back into the bloody hole and punching his way through the sternum, accessing Tony’s heart. In the blink of an eye, he ripped it out, pressed it to his lips, and bit a chunk out of it before then spitting it in Tony’s face.

“You’re mine now,” he said, pointing his index finger at Tony right as the light of life left the man’s eyes.

Throwing the heart across the room, Malcolm wiped his hands on his trousers, rubbed his mouth clean on the bottom of his jumper, and then turned around to Lily and Kyla.

“Is she awake yet?”

Lily shook her head.

Dylan moved over to Kyla, Malcolm’s presence making him feel somewhat restrained towards Azazel. Standing at her head, Dylan began stroking her hair softly, in a calming rhythm, as if he were comforting a young child.

After a couple of minutes, he leaned down and pressed a kiss to her forehead, his eyes closing as his lips lingered against the coolness of her skin.

Azazel watched Dylan, the tenderness in his touch hard to miss. A shred of guilt clenched at his heart as he realised just what Kyla meant to this man. There would be a lot worse fates for Kyla than being with a man like Dylan, hell, a werewolf like Dylan. Azazel knew the man would fight for her until his last breath, he could see it in him. After all, it was exactly how he’d felt about Cassia.

Suspecting what he did about his and Kyla’s ties, Azazel didn’t know how to process this. How would he have felt had some random guy come along and professed to Cassia that she was his demi-soul and needed to be with him?

Kyla’s fingers twitched, pulling him from his thoughts. When she let out a soft moan, her lips parting as she stirred in his arms, Azazel couldn’t help but wish that when she woke, his name would be the first on her lips, even if that would push a dagger of pain into Dylan’s gut.

Dylan leaned down and kissed her forehead again. “It’s ok,” he whispered. “We’re all here. You can come back to us now.”

Kyla opened her eyes, blinking several times. Then she said, “Azazel?”

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