Chapter 4
Iris
The sky glows in a kaleidoscope of colors. It creates a bruised background for the dipping sun as I descend the stairs to the first floor of the penthouse.
I woke up half an hour ago, alone this time, and after I called my aunt, I shuffled to the bathroom, wincing at how tender the area between my legs still was.
An array of brand-spanking-new women’s toiletries greeted me from the counter—the packaging looked so luxurious I was afraid to touch anything.
After making myself presentable, I made my way to the dressing room to grab another one of Kaiden’s T-shirts.
However, I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw that half of the room was now filled with women’s clothes—rows upon rows of designer dresses, shirts, pants, jeans, athletic wear, and all types of shoes, from stilettos to sneakers and flip-flops.
Let’s not talk about the luxurious, color-organized lacy lingerie.
Flustered, I grabbed a pair of seamless panties and one of Kaiden’s black button-downs and dashed out of there as if hellhounds were nipping at my heels.
My eyes land on Kaiden’s spectacular back when I reach the last step.
He’s dressed in his usual classy black attire, his strong, tattooed forearms flexing as he fixes a plate at the kitchen counter.
All the moments we shared in his bedroom—consumed by pleasure—replay in my mind, and I flush all over.
“Why did you get out of bed? I was going to bring these to you,” he says as he turns to look at me, a taco in his hand. “How are you feeling?”
I lean my hip on the cold marble of the bar. “I’m good. My ribs still hurt like a motherfucker, but that thing Sam made me drink is amazing. I can’t believe how well it worked despite the disgusting taste. The bruises are already fading.”
From the bag on the counter, I notice he ordered tacos from Tu Tía Loca, my favorite Mexican restaurant in Ashville. It’s a hole-in-the-wall type of joint, and the food is exquisite.
“Go sit on the couch; I’ll bring these to you.”
“I can eat at the bar,” I say and pull out the bar stool closest to me. I’m always messy when eating tacos, and I don’t want to ruin his cream couch, which I’m sure costs more than the GDP of a small country.
“The bar stool is too stiff for you to sit comfortably, given the state of your ribs. Couch, now,” he commands in a gruff tone with no room for argument.
“Fine, but if any sauce gets on it, it’s on you,” I huff before striding to the couch, gingerly taking a seat.
Kaiden joins me a few minutes later, then hands me a few napkins and a shrimp taco-filled plate. He pops off, only to rematerialize a few seconds later with a glass of Sam’s healing concoction in one hand and another taco-filled plate in the other.
His satisfied gaze roves over my body languidly as he places the glass on the coffee table, then his eyebrows furrow.
“You didn’t like the clothes I picked out for you?
Don’t get me wrong, you look sexy as fuck, and I only want to see you wearing my shirts when we’re at home, but if you want, we can get other clothes,” he says before lifting a taco to his mouth to take a huge bite.
When we’re at home?
“The clothes are beautiful, but Kaiden, it’s too much. All the skincare and makeup products. You shouldn’t have spent so much money. I can’t accept any of—”
“Don’t tell me how to spend my money, Iris. I wanted to get the best for you, so I did. Plus, I’m richer than God; what I spent on the clothes and toiletries didn’t even scratch the surface of my finances.”
Warmth filters through me, but there’s so much to unpack there.
He’s acting as if we’re in a long-term relationship and we live together.
His words imply that we have a future together, but that’s impossible; I’m a hellseeker, and he’s a demon.
There’s no future for us. However, too quickly I realize that’s exactly what I want.
Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck.
I know I have fallen for Kaiden over the past few weeks, but it suddenly feels much deeper than that—as if I’ve been in love with him for years.
No, that’s crazy! He’s a demon. Plus, I’ve just met him.
I should end things before one of us gets hurt, but I can’t.
Only the thought of being away from Kaiden sears like acid in my veins.
He asks me something. However, it passes right over my head since I’m too busy freaking out on the inside. “Huh?” I mumble.
“I asked if you’re not hungry.”
“Yeah, I am…I um, I got lost in my thoughts for a second there.” I bite into a taco.
He got my order to a T, down to the extra avocado and Oaxaca cheese.
It’s delicious, but it’s hard to swallow through the knot in my throat.
Still, I finish it because I need my strength back, and I can’t even remember the last time I ate something.
“Sam mentioned Malik went after Adramelech,” I tell him.
Kaiden nods and swallows his bite. “Yeah, he did a location spell, but it was a dead end. By the time he and Dominic arrived, Adramelech was gone, and they weren’t able to pick up his trail anymore.
A dark witch probably helped him disappear.
He owns a few houses all over the country.
They’re checking each one before coming back. ”
I scarf down the second taco before saying, “What if they don’t find him, and Lucifer learns we kidnapped his chancellor? Have you thought about that?”
“It crossed my mind once or twice,” he responds, as composed as ever.
“Well, what if he retaliates? What are we going to do?”
He lifts an eyebrow. “We will not do anything because I’m going to take care of it, and you’re going to rest and heal.”
I scoff. “How will you take care of it?”
“I’ll go to Hell and search for him.”
“Oh,” I murmur. “But I don’t understand how he got away. The basement in your building is safer than the freakin’ Pentagon.”
“He manipulated two of the wolf shifters working security—Adramelech’s serpentine eyes have the magical ability to hypnotize people.
I forgot to tell you about it because his influence doesn’t work on lightborn or me, so I didn’t deem it important at the time.
But my head of security warned the wolf shifters before bringing in a…
different prisoner not to engage with him or throw a look his way.
However, the bastard lured them to his cell regardless of their precautions.
All hell broke loose. He got his hands on a knife and sliced their throats.
Not before compelling them to spill all the security codes to access the locks and the elevator. ”
“Fuck. Did Malik erase his memories, at least?”
Kaiden’s jaw clenches. “No. We were afraid it would affect his long-term memory, so we wanted to wait until I was sure I couldn’t get anything more from him.”
I gulp. “So now, on top of everything, I have to look over my shoulder for that bastard, too. I imagine he’s not too happy I gouged out one of his magical eyes.”
“Iris, I would never let anything happen to you. Trust me.”
There’s a pause as I absorb his words because I do trust him, even if I shouldn’t. Heaving out a weighted sigh, I say, “We need to find out what the prophecy says. We need an oracle.”
Before Adramelech escaped, he gave up information about a prophecy and that the seraphim had put a secret clause in the Celestial Treaty that obligated Lucifer to banish the umbra into the farthest corner of Hell.
He also implied my mother’s death was not caused by a demon because her name was never written in some stupid ledger Lucifer keeps in his Hell palace.
This reminds me that the first thing I need to do when going back to the compound is search for my mother’s file.
“I agree,” he muses, sliding his empty plate onto the coffee table.
“But it’s not going to be easy. Oracles are fae, and there hasn’t been one in the human realm in hundreds of years—that we know of, at least. However, now that the war is driving the fae back here, maybe we’ll get lucky. I already put feelers out.”
Kaiden’s right. The only oracles known to history were fae.
Even hellseekers are aware of this fact.
Because of their highly addictive blood, vampires hunted the fae almost to extinction.
So, five hundred years ago, they fled back to Faerie.
However, according to Ophelia—the fae woman I met when the vampires kidnapped me—a war started about fifty years ago between the Seelie and Unseelie courts.
Trying to escape its harrowing consequences, some of the fae crossed back into the human realm.
So, I guess the only thing we can do now is wait and see what Kaiden’s contacts find.
After a few beats of silence, I’m not able to hold back my curiosity. “What is Hell like?” I ask. “The Order didn’t teach us much about it aside from it being split into the Kingdom of Shades, the City of Ghosts, and the Desert of Despair.”
“Well, first off, it’s hot as fuck, but it’s the kind of dry heat that seems to scorch your lungs from the inside out before coating them in tar.
I fucking hate going there. The sulfurous smell still clings to you for weeks on end after you cross back to the human world.
And it’s like the topside’s dark mirror, so you can also find cities and mountains, a sea, and a desert.
But the buildings are ramshackle, and they’re brimming with vermin and various demons.
Also, the sky is a deep crimson—as if made of a river of blood.
” There’s a pause as he gathers his words.
“You already know that Lucifer is the ruler above everything and everyone, except the City of Ghosts. His gargantuan gothic castle sits right in the middle. Then, the lands expand from there like spokes on a wheel toward the nine citadels that form the Kingdom of Shades. Each of them belongs to a king of Hell. It’s in the Kingdom of Shades I do my business. ”