Infernal Games by Jenna Wolfhart

9

Sleep was a fickle beast, especially when the fate of the world weighed on your mind. I got maybe two hours tops before I threw off the heavy comforter and padded into the kitchen, still wearing the slinky dress from the night before. It wasn’t like I’d had a chance to pack my clothes. I didn’t even own pajamas right now.

Priyanka’s brows shot to the top of her head when I joined her at the kitchen table. She sat with an open laptop perched next to a bowl of cereal, scrolling through the news. My stomach rumbled.

“Fancy seeing you here.” She pulled out the chair beside her, the wooden feet scraping the stone floor. “Sit. Tell me what’s going on.”

I plopped into the chair and sagged, still blindingly weary. “Valac didn’t tell you?”

“He’s not the best communicator, if you haven’t figured that out yet.”

So, I filled her in. Every gory detail. Thankfully, she already knew most of the story. When I’d finished spilling my guts, she gave me a pat on the back and sighed.

“Az was right. The best option was to bring you here. Smart move.”

“Is it?” My mind was so frazzled, I couldn’t tell anymore. “Won’t Lucifer wonder why I don’t have a place of my own?”

She shook her head and dropped her spoon into her bowl. “You’re not getting it. Lucifer already suspects you’re Mia McNally. He’s going to see if you slip up. It’s a game. He loves a game. He’s like us fae in that respect.”

“And if I win, he’ll go away?” I asked, voice hitching.

“Maybe, if you make all the right moves.” She winced. “It’s not guaranteed, though, to be brutally honest. It depends on why he wants what he wants. If he’s the one behind your fallen angel scent, there might be more going on than any of us realize. And when he gets bored with the game, he might finish what he started.”

I shuddered, my heart twisting. “Finish what he started. So, like, kill me.”

“Nope. He wants to marry you.”

“And then I would become the Queen of Hell,” I said in a tight voice.

“Exactly.”

She said it so matter-of-factly, like it wasn’t the most terrifying thing I’d ever heard in my life. The Queen of Hell. What did that even mean? Would I have to sit on a throne engulfed in flames? And, for the millionth time, why? I hated being so far in the dark that I couldn’t even see my hand in front of my face.

Suddenly Hendrix swooped in from the ceiling. There was a small balcony just outside the open sliding glass doors where an empty bowl sat on top of a wrought-iron table. Snacks, no doubt left for my pigeon. Who had done that? Az? Fondness curled around my heart as I reached out and rustled Hendrix’s feathers. He cooed happily, leaning against my palm.

“Hi, Hendrix. Thanks for coming on this crazy journey with me.”

Priyanka gave me an odd look and went back to her breakfast. We sat there for a while in silence. Me petting Hendrix. Priyanka scrolling through the news. It almost felt normal. It was a much-needed respite in the midst of so much insanity.

“Can you explain something to me, Priyanka?” I asked, turning back toward my new roommate.

After taking another crunchy bite of her cereal, she nodded. “I’ll do my best.”

“What’s the difference between a fallen angel and a demon?” I crossed my legs and leaned back in the rickety chair. “I thought they were the same thing.”

“Ah.” She finished her cereal, pushing the bowl away. “No, humans have that whole part wrong. Angels and demons are entirely different species from another realm. And they’ve been at war for centuries.”

“And fallen angels are…?”

“Angels who end up here. They’ve either abandoned their realm or have been kicked out of it for breaking the rules.” She palmed the table and leaned forward. “I know why you’re asking this. You’re wondering if it’s even possible that you’re one of them. As crazy as it sounds, it is. If your parents were two fallen angels, you could have been born here, same as everyone else.”

“My parents are definitely not fallen angels,” I said with a bitter laugh. “Trust me.”

Her brows arched. “No offense, Mia, but how do you know? Would you be able to tell? It sounds like things have been kept hidden from you. Maybe they were a part of that.”

The question caught me off guard. Obviously, nothing about my parents even suggested they were fallen angels. My mother was an alcoholic, and my father had been absent for most of my life, always off on another business trip. My grades had never been good enough for either of them. My failed attempt at running track had put disappointment into their eyes. I’d succeeded at dancing, but they didn’t like how much time I had dedicated to it. It’s sinful, moving that way, my mother had often said.

And yet she drank herself unconscious multiple nights a week.

“They’re nothing like the fallen angels I’ve met,” I said, thinking of Suriel and Rafael. Those two were opposite sides of a coin, but still very much the same coin. There was nothing human about either of them, and it showed.

“Maybe someone hid them like they hid you.”

“Maybe,” I murmured, frowning.

Just as I opened my mouth to ask another question, Az strode into the kitchen. Caught off guard, my cheeks flushed with heat. Like always, he looked impossibly impeccable. His smooth dark suit highlighted his muscular physique, and the stubble scattered across his jawline was trimmed and neat. There were no bags beneath his eyes. No sagging shoulders. He looked ready to take on the world.

Me, meanwhile…well, I was a fucking mess.

“You’re not ready to go?” he asked me, forgoing any pleasantries, just like always.

I simmered beneath his gaze. “Go where?”

“I see.” He sighed. “Valac didn’t tell you.”

“There you go.” Priyanka took a sip of her coffee. “Valac strikes again with his communication issues.”

Az’s eyes darkened. “We have an appointment at nine, and we can’t be late.” His gaze swept across my face. I hadn’t removed my makeup last night, and I could feel the mascara clumped to my lids. Lovely. “How quickly can you be ready to go?”

I motioned at the sequinned dress. “Um, never? I’m not wearing this, and I don’t have any other clothes here.”

He frowned. “We don’t have time to go shopping.”

Priyanka pushed up from the table, tossing Hendrix a piece of her cereal. He caught it midair with a little flick of his tail feathers. “You can borrow something of mine. Come on, let’s get you ready to go.”

Stubbornly, I didn’t move an inch. “No one has even told me where I’m going.”

Much to the shock of no one, Az merely smiled as Priyanka bustled me out of the kitchen, keeping the information to himself. Ugh. Demons.

* * *

We stood in the glittering, golden lobby of Parkins, Weller, and Smith while a fresh-faced receptionist murmured into a phone. Az stood tall beside me while my borrowed clothes hung oddly on my body. My damp hair curled around my shoulders, frizzed by New York’s summer heat. There hadn’t been time for me to use a hairdryer.

Serena bustled into the lobby in her pristine pantsuit and heels. Her shoes clicked along the floor, echoing in the silence. When she reached us, she held out a hand. “Good morning, Mr. Asmodeus.”

I bit back a laugh. Mister Asmodeus? Oh, he would never hear the end of this one.

“Good morning, Miss Mason.” They shared a firm handshake, and nothing in either of their eyes indicated they were at all acquainted. Let alone that he’d saved her from a psychotic, supernatural serial killer. Serena had kept that little adventure under wraps. The partners of the firm frowned upon their attorneys getting involved in supernatural affairs outside of the office. That meant accidentally dating one and then being used as a lure.

For me.

And, rumor had it, I wasn’t their favorite person on the planet.

“This is my assistant,” Az said, turning toward me with a smile. It might have been convincing if he didn’t look ready to growl at me. “Sansa.”

“Sansa?” Her eyes bugged out of her head as she momentarily forgot herself. I winced. Serena was the reason I’d blurted out the name in the first place. Her obsession with those books had wormed its way into my head. Quickly, she recovered, pressing down on the front of her suit with nervous fingers. But when she spoke, she did so through gritted teeth. “Beautiful name. I wonder where I’ve heard it before. It sounds so familiar.”

“Nowhere,” I quipped. “It’s pretty rare.”

A low rumble sounded from Az’s throat. “Miss Mason, my assistant and I need to do some research into the demon contracts your firm has on file. The request comes from Lucifer himself.”

Lies.

Serena dropped her voice to a whisper. “You know, I’m really supposed to contact him and confirm that.”

“I am Asmodeus,” he said with a dangerous smile. “The First Prince of Hell. That’s all the confirmation you need.”

She glanced over her shoulder. The receptionist was engrossed in her phone call, and no one else was in the lobby. With a tsking noise, Serena turned back to us and nodded.

“If anyone asks, I contacted him,” she warned. “People have been fired here for way less.”

“Thanks, Serena,” I mouthed back. “Winter is coming.”

Shaking her head, she motioned for us to follow her through a pair of glass doors. Our shoes clicked against the marble floor, the echo like thunder in my ears. Or maybe that was my heart. It was throbbing against my ribs like a fist. I was way more nervous than the situation called for. We were here to look through the demon contracts. Totally fine. Totally legal. Totally not dangerous.

Mostly.

Serena led us into a small meeting room enclosed on all sides by more clear glass. As we settled around the table, she bustled from the room, returning moments later with a towering stack of paperwork. She plopped it onto the table before us and backed away. Her eyes were wild, like they sometimes got just before she shifted into a wolf.

“Don’t take too long, alright?” she hissed through her teeth. “I really don’t want to get fired.”

She had fought tooth and nail for this job. Even in middle school, she’d wanted to work at a law firm in New York City. At the time, I hadn’t known it was this one and what it meant. Parkins, Weller, and Smith specialized in supernatural legal issues. And Serena had worked her ass off to end up exactly here.

And now she was risking it all to help us find answers about my past. Hopefully, it would also give us a hint about Lucifer’s involvement in all of this. The more we knew, the better we could beat him at his own game.

Az had filled me in on his plan during the drive here. The law firm kept records of the contracts between demons and humans, particularly when the deal resulted in the loss of a soul. Or a win, depending on which way you looked at it. Az believed a demon was behind my apparent memory loss when it came to the fallen angel scent. If that were true, there might be a contract with my name on it.

“You take that stack.” Az shoved a pile of contracts toward my side of the table. “And I’ll take this one.”

I nodded and flipped open the first file. “Do you really think we’ll find answers here? If Lucifer is involved in this, would he have left behind a trail of evidence?”

“Lucifer loves paperwork. It helps him keep a running tally of souls.” Az scanned the first file and then tossed it onto the left side of the table. He opened the next file and did the same with it. “This is my ‘no’ pile. Are you going to start looking?”

I hadn’t even looked at the name on the first contract. My mind was too fried to focus. Az was acting like this was just a normal, everyday trip to a supernatural law firm when it was anything but. We were trying to find out if I was a fallen angel whose memories had been wiped clean by the King of Hell.

I couldn’t even wrap my mind around it.

“I don’t understand why he needs contracts,” I continued, ignoring him. “Isn’t there, like, a magical tally somewhere?”

His lips quirked. “We’re demons, Mia. That doesn’t mean everything we do is magic.”

My name curled across his tongue. Shivers stormed down my spine. The heavy look in his eyes took me back to that night. His chest against mine. His lips between my thighs. Everything about it had felt so right, even though it had been so terribly wrong. Even if he’d been pretending.

“Relax.” He reached under the table and palmed my knee. Heat shot through my core. “You look tense and on edge. If any of the partners walk by, they’ll wonder why you look like a deer in headlights.”

I swallowed hard. “How? I’m not okay, Az.”

Although I was pretty okay with his hand on my knee.

Okay, more than just okay.

“Pretend,” he murmured, leaning so close our foreheads touched. “You remember how to do that, don’t you?”

“Yes.” My voice came out raspy, like the very obvious idiot I was. But maybe he’d just think it was part of our new show, which was…pretending again, apparently. Fine with me. I didn’t mind. In fact, I more than enjoyed it.

“Good.” His lips curled as his scent consumed me. Fire and smoke. It filled my head until that was all I could focus on. Az. Me. The flames. His eyes darkened as his lips brushed my cheek. Everything within me tightened. Need clenched my thighs, so thick I ached.

I shuddered against him, letting go of my inhibitions. Our lips came so close that I could practically taste the toothpaste on his tongue.

And then he pulled back, leaving me a panting mess.

“I can’t get your scent on me,” he said, his voice going hard. “Lucifer would smell it the second he saw either of us. We can pretend to be a couple without touching.”

“Oh.” Disappointed, I slumped back in my chair. That had been a nice distraction, dammit. “Wait a minute. Why are we pretending to be a couple in Serena’s law firm?”

He turned his eyes to the next contract, ignoring my question. His gaze pierced the page, and he crumpled the paper in his fists. “I’ve found you.”

I gasped and leaned forward. “Seriously?”

“It doesn’t help.” With a growl, he tossed the contract onto my side of the table. My name was clearly at the top, along with an address in Hell’s Kitchen. Everything else had been scribbled out with black marker. I let out a shuddering breath. The answers were here on this page, I was sure of it. But any important information had been stripped away.

Slowly, I lifted my gaze to meet his. That familiar look was in his eyes again. The one that made it clear he planned to rip off someone’s head. And I had a pretty good idea who.

“What does this mean?” I dared to ask.

“Someone made it here first.” He shoved back his chair, stood, and offered me his hand. “We can ask Serena, but I already know what she’ll say. There will be no record of anyone else being here.”

“So, that’s it?” I motioned at the pile of contracts before us. “We’ve only looked through a dozen or so. Maybe there’s more somewhere.”

“No, that’s the one we needed. The answers are there, Mia. We just can’t see them.” He shoved his finger at the address left unmarked. “That’s the only lead we have. We have to go there now.”