Sweet Peril

“No, it’s not like that.” I swallowed hard. “He doesn’t forbid me or anything—he’s just looking out for me. He knows . . . how carried away I get if I’m not careful.”

She huffed and poured another, then sat in a chair across the room from me, placing the knife on her lap. We watched each other across the space.

“I remember you,” she said. “And the angels. I believed the Dukes planned to kill me that night.”

“I thought the summit was about me, too,” I admitted. I wondered if every Neph feared they were the cause of that summit, only to feel relieved when Gerlinda was called forward.

“You should not have spoken out that night,” she said.

So I’d been told. I breathed a small sigh.

“May I ask a personal question . . . about your sin and how it manifests itself?” I asked. “I mean . . . do you feel hate for people in general?”

She raised an eyebrow, and I squirmed a little on my cushion.

“I detest men.” Her eyes widened as she spoke freely of her sin. She rolled the knife in her palm, jolting me with a memory of how Kaidan used to do the same thing. “Men are vain, selfish fools. Every one. I enjoy when they fight and hurt each other. I wish they would kill one another completely and be done with it.” Zania wiped her mouth and watched for my reaction. I swallowed hard and cleared my throat.

“Do you know of my father, Belial?”

“I have not met him. But I know his sin.” She held up her drink and sipped it. “How do you so easily deny the drink I offer?”

“It’s not easy.” No, in fact, before Kope’s whistle I’d been trying to talk my good conscience into it by telling myself it would be inhospitable not to have one. The key word there was one. And moderation really wasn’t my thing. “It’s harder for me with drugs,” I admitted. “The thing is, my father doesn’t force me to work for real, so I mostly pretend. That makes it easier because I don’t have to fight the addiction.”

Her arm froze midair as she read my face with incredulous disbelief.

“My life is very different from other Nephilims’, Zania. It’s my hope that during our lifetime, all the Neph will have the option to stop working.”

“Impossible.” Her voice was a hoarse whisper.

I smiled. All things were possible.

We spent three hours talking, and Zania would not commit to helping. I don’t think she believed or trusted me, even after I showed her the hilt. But I didn’t know how else to prove myself to her in two days. She refused to be seen out in public with me when I invited her to lunch, and she adamantly refused to see or speak with Kope.

At one point the call to prayer sounded on speakers outside—a soulful warble of Arabic song ringing over the town. I’d learned about the Muslim prayer times and heard the morning call to prayer before leaving the hotel. Zania seemed not to notice.

“Do you ever join the prayer time?” I asked out of curiosity.

She gave a shrug. “When I am in public I perform the prayer motions like the other good women. In my home I do not.” She took a drink.

She drank so much during our three hours, I didn’t know how she stayed coherent. She brought me one of her shirts to change into and then told me it was time to leave.

“Can we talk again later?” I asked. “After you’ve had time to think about everything?”

“I do not think that will be necessary.” She stood by the door with her hand on the knob. A horrible feeling of failure spread through me.

“What will you do today?” I grasped for something, desperate. “And tonight?”

“I will work, of course. He has been known to send his dark ones to watch me while he travels, so I must always work. And now, you must go.”

She opened the door and squared her shoulders before looking down at me. I walked out and turned to say good-bye, but she shut the door in my face. I stood there for a minute, shaking inside. What was I supposed to do? Looking down the cobbled road, I began walking back in the direction we’d come. By the time I sensed Kope step out of an alley and follow me, I was biting the insides of my cheeks, keeping my head down. I wanted to cry. Or kick something.

To add to my mood, I almost got hit by a car when I thought I saw Kai and froze in the intersection. Pedestrians definitely didn’t have the right of way here. The guy on the sidewalk had the same exact height and build, but when the stranger turned his unfamiliar face toward the sound of the honking car, an absurd feeling of disappointment settled inside me. I jumped out of the way just in time. My head was a mess.

Kope spoke from behind me as we neared the hotel. “You did well, and she has much to think about. Tonight we will follow while she works. Perhaps there may be another opportunity to show we mean no harm.”

“Okay,” I agreed, and I clung to his optimism.

The sun had set when we approached Zania’s street as silently as possible that night. Using my special senses, I heard the ruffling of clothing and clinking of glass inside her house. When she came out, she stayed on her doorstep for a moment. Kope and I stood very still in a pathway where she couldn’t see us. We waited until she’d rounded the corner at the end of the street before following. Other people were out, so I hoped our footsteps would go unnoticed.

After a ten-minute walk we ended up outside the touristy restaurant Zania was in. Kope waited outside while I peeked through a window. She’d gone to the bar, which had a large dance floor separating it from the dining space. Most of the patrons looked to be college age.