Infernal Games by Jenna Wolfhart

3

“What in the actual hell is going on now?” Serena bustled into Az’s glittering penthouse wearing a pristine pantsuit in shades of glorious blues, the bright color popping against her dark skin. Her hair cascaded around her shoulders in perfect waves, and the light makeup she’d applied highlighted the deep color of her eyes.

She looked like an absolute boss.

One that was not happy to see me.

She glared and dropped her briefcase by the door. “Mia, please tell me that Az’s text was some kind of joke and that you didn’t decide to snoop on the actual King of Hell tonight.”

I grimaced. “Well…”

Her eyes practically rolled back into her head as she sighed. “Mia, why? I thought we all made it clear you couldn’t go near the place. What about the deal you signed?” She shot Az a panicked glance. “Is she going to lose her soul? Did she break the deal?”

“No,” he said around his clenched jaw. “She took a tumble while she was spying. She could have very well fallen through the window. But thankfully, she only slid off the top of the dumpster and landed on the pavement.”

Serena wrinkled her nose as she drew closer, her eyes flicking across my stained blouse. “Clearly.”

“Oh, don’t let him fool you.” I shot Az a glare. “I look—and smell—like this because he tossed me into the dumpster.”

Arching her brows, she turned back to Az. “You did this to her? Don’t make me get out my claws.”

“It was to get rid of her scent.”

“Ah.” She nodded, relaxing. “Good going.”

“We need to find a more permanent method,” he said as he gave her a meaningful look. For a moment, all they did was stand there staring at each other while a weird, tensed silence peppered the air. Every now and then, one of them flicked their eyes my way. For a good, oh, ninety seconds, before I’d had enough of it. With a frustrated sigh, I pushed up from the stool and stepped between them.

“I don’t like this. It’s like you two are having a silent conversation.”

Serena lifted her shoulders in a small shrug. “We are. Kind of. He’s trying to make a suggestion to me, and demons can be very suggestive.”

My stomach did a little flip. “Suggestive?”

“It’s one of their powers. The Princes are especially good at it. However.” She smirked at him. “It doesn’t work on everyone.”

“Hold up.” I whirled on Az and jabbed a finger into his chest. I winced when my skin met unyielding rock. Ouch. “Are you telling me you can convince people to do things just by looking at them?”

“No. I can suggest things.” He smiled, though his dimples didn’t make an appearance. They hadn’t all night other than during the dumpster incident. Typical. “That’s much different than convincing someone to do something.”

“It can be pretty convincing,” Serena muttered. “But not to me, or most supernaturals. It works best on humans.”

“Please tell me you’ve never done that to me. Convince me to do something with your demon magic.” I couldn’t help but ask, thinking back to the many times I’d felt drawn to him. When he’d pressed me against the wall. When I’d climbed on top of him, on the very dining table that sat just behind us. I flushed, horror twisting in my gut. Had all that happened because he’d messed with my mind? Surely not…

Az pressed his lips together as his expression went dark. “You still don’t trust me. After all this time.”

A pang went through my heart at the betrayal in his eyes. Az, I’d learned, could not stand it when anyone questioned his integrity. He’d been burned in the past, just like I had. Only what had happened to him had been far worse. A woman he’d trusted had destroyed one of the demons in his Legion. And the Legion was his family.

“You just tried it on my best friend,” I pointed out.

“No,” he said evenly. “I made a suggestion to her. Nothing more than that. The truth is, Mia. We are in a terrible position. Lucifer wants you, and he doesn’t believe the story I’ve tried selling him. He especially won’t believe it after tonight. And when he finds you, he will take you to Hell and force you to become his bride. Serena told you, didn’t she? What he wants with you?”

I winced. “Yeah, she might have mentioned the bride part. But what I don’t get is why?”

“I don’t know.” He shook his head. “He won’t say.”

“Doesn’t that strike you as a little odd?” I said, edging off the stool to take a step toward him. “I mean, I’m just a random human he’s never even met. What would be the point? Surely he doesn’t just take brides from humanity all the time.”

Or did he? Was that his thing? Pretty weird if so.

“Not typically, no.” Az strode toward the floor-to-ceiling glass door that opened out onto his balcony. My eyes caught the tension in his back and the way his suit jacket stretched tightly across his broad shoulders. Something was bothering him. Something more than what he said. It seemed like there was always another secret to uncover with him.

“Well, then why? It doesn’t make any sense,” I tried, casting a quick glance at Serena. She merely shrugged. Her life might be firmly entwined in the supernatural world, but she knew as much about Lucifer as I did at this point.

“Unfortunately, Mia, I don’t think we can worry about the whys right now.” His hands fisted by his sides, his back still facing me as he stared out at the twinkling city lights. “None of that matters more than getting you to safety. We need to mask your scent and get you out of New York before he can find you.”

“No,” I said, taking a step back. “I told you before. I’m not leaving New York.”

It was my home. The only one I had left. Sure, my only friends were supernaturals who I couldn’t see or contact for fear of being found by the literal King of Hell. And sure, I was going by a fake name and hiding out in an empty apartment most of the time. New York was loud and hard and often reeked of a million different disgusting things. But it was still the only place in the world I wanted to be.

When I walked down the streets, I could feel the pulse of the city beneath my boots. This place was alive, and it made me feel that way, too.

Plus…it had Az.

“Mia,” Serena whispered from beside me. I twisted toward her to find unshed tears bubbling in her eyes. “Lucifer has caught your scent. He won’t give up until he finds you. Staying in New York will mean…”

“Hell,” I whispered back, my gut twisting.

She nodded. “If you don’t leave, you’ll be ripped away from here, anyway. Lucifer will not stop until he finds you.”

I let out a shuddering breath. This day really had not gone according to plan. Maybe it had been a bad idea not to choose Friends reruns over spying on a demon club.

“You know why I asked you here, don’t you?” Az asked quietly, finally turning to face us. His frame was back-lit by the city lights, drowning his face in shadows.

Serena nodded. “I have a pretty good idea. And I’m not convinced it’s the right move.”

“She’ll be safer that way,” he replied, avoiding my gaze. “Hidden. Stronger. If he ever figures out what we’ve done, she’ll have the means to protect herself.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Um, could we possibly not talk in riddles, please? What exactly are you suggesting we do?”

Serena took my shoulders in her hands and squeezed tight. Her eyes searched mine with an intensity that sent shivers down my spine. I’d been on edge before, but something about the way she looked at me shook my soul. Whatever Az had come up with, I wasn’t going to like it. It was probably dangerous. And it would leave me reeling for weeks.

Anything he did had a tendency of doing that.

“The only way to mask your scent is to change you in some fundamental way,” she said in a harsh whisper. “As long as you are you, Mia, anything we do is temporary. This disgusting dumpster smell will fade quickly even if you don’t shower.”

My heart flipped over. “So, I have to jump into a dumpster every day. Maybe live in one? That’s what this is all about, right? Nothing more than that…right?”

Not that I liked the sound of living in a dumpster. Talk about hitting rock bottom.

She pressed her lips together and flicked her gaze toward Az. With a heavy sigh, he trailed over to us and placed a firm hand on my shoulder. For comfort and solidarity, no doubt. But his touch had the opposite effect on me.

That eerie, familiar zing shot through me, singeing my core and making my ears ring. I sucked in a sharp breath, tensing. His eyes met mind, flames flickering deep within the ice blue shards. Those flames bored into my soul, filling me, consuming me, until I wasn’t entirely sure where I ended and the fire began.

“Ahem,” Serena said.

My cheeks flushed, and I ripped my gaze away from Az. What was it about him that caused that kind of reaction in me? Was it because he was a demon? No, it couldn’t be. As fond as I was of the Legion, being around them never made me feel like this. Like I was unmoored.

“Your blood needs to change,” Serena said in a rush of words, cutting through my thoughts. “It’s the only way to permanently change your scent. That means turning you into something else. It means saying goodbye to your humanity, Mia.”

“What?” I whipped my head toward her, certain I would see laughter in her eyes. But her face was as cold and stony as the steel buildings of Midtown. Her lips were flat. Her eyes hard. She meant every word. My heart pounded my ribs. “You can’t be serious.”

Az tightened his grip on my shoulder. “Trust me. This is the last thing I want to do. If there was another way, I’d choose it in a heartbeat.”

“There is another way,” Serena said. “The fae. But there’s no guarantee they’d say yes, and they’d probably ask for something in return.”

“And we might not get to them in time. I don’t want to risk taking Mia back out on the streets until her scent is fully gone.”

“Plus, Lucifer might suspect that’s what you’d do.” Serena frowned. “He’d probably never guess you’d be willing to hand her over to a vampire or werewolf.”

I tried to take a step back, but Az held me firmly in place. “So, that’s what this is all about,” I whispered, wildly casting my eyes from one face to the next. “You want to make me a werewolf.”

Those were absolutely the most bizarre words I’d ever spoken aloud, and I’d said some crazy shit over the past couple months. My best friend and my former fake boyfriend wanted to turn me into a furry, full-mooned beast.

“Yeah, kind of,” Serena whispered. “Sorry, Mia. The best way to mask your human scent is to turn you into something else. Something that could not only hide you but help you protect yourself.”

Something else. I would be…a supernatural.

With a strange prickling sensation rushing across my skin, I lifted my eyes to meet Az’s intense stare. “Alright.”

He blinked, confusion rippling through his eyes. “You’re agreeing to this?”

“What did you expect me to do?” I whispered, fisting my hands by my sides. “Let Lucifer hunt me down and kill me? No thanks. A werewolf sounds like the better option to me.”

He shook his head. “I thought you would run screaming out the door.”

A wan smile lifted the corners of my lips. “I don’t run screaming, Az. I thought you’d figured that out by now.” And then I turned to Serena, who was regarding me with an expression I couldn’t quite read. “So, what now?”

“I have a strange feeling,” she whispered, her dark eyes widening. “Something’s off.”

Az jerked his head her way. “What do you mean something’s off?”

She shook her head, stepped in close, and then dragged a sharp, painted nail across the width of my shoulder. I winced as pain lanced through my arm. Blood bubbled up in the wake of her mark, bright red and angry.

I held my breath and waited for something to happen. Was that…it? Would I transform right now? Would they be able to control me? For the first time since Serena had suggested this crazy plan, a lump of unease rolled through my gut. We hadn’t prepared for this. What would happen if I turned into a beast right here and now?

They’d need to chain me. I’d seen Serena when she’d first turned all those years ago. She’d been out of control.

Serena huffed out a breath. Az’s jaw clenched tight.

“What’s happening?” I asked, half-hoping they’d refused to answer. They both looked like a baseball bat had smacked them in the face. “Have I sprouted fur on my face or something?”

“No,” Az growled. “It’s worse than that. You’re immune.”