Hell's Phoenix Read Free Page A

but Nix refused to back down. “I spent five years breathing her in, worshiping her, adoring her, wanting her. I learned everything about her, the small details, like how she bites her bottom lip when she’s nervous. The way her breath stutters when I kiss her. The small strangled sound she makes right before she climaxes.” Micah’s eyes widened before narrowing. “I know her scent. I know what she tastes like. Every power has a particular sensation to it.” Micah couldn’t discern between powers. They’d discovered that talent was unique to Nix. “I sampled Mads’s mojo when you came for me in the hotel room, both sides of it, her succubus”—it’d been muted—“and later mixed with Pandora. I’m telling you, she was distinctly wrapped up in that power just now.” Nix motioned to the ocean.
    Micah’s forehead was gouged with lines as he contemplated the horizon. A moment later, the King’s fingers fisted in Nix’s cotton shirt and yanked him closer. “Madison and Amos are the two most important beings in this universe to me. I had to watch that goddamn immortal blast her with his magic while I could do nothing to save her. You cannot imagine how that feels.”
    “Don’t I? I remember trying to save her from you more than once and failing every goddamn time.”
    “She died, Phoenix,” Beliel said between clenched teeth. “I don’t wish to relive it.”
    “If her life is covenanted to yours as you claimed, why aren’t you dead now? Or at the very least suffering? It’s been four months, Micah.” Nix gripped his demonic friend by the back of the neck. “Four months, and you’ve suffered no ill effect.” The King said nothing, just clasped Nix’s face between his hands as he went on. “I believe she lives. It won’t hurt to investigate. What do we have to lose? We’ve both already lost the most important woman in our lives. The worst that can happen is I’m wrong. The best, we regain her.”
    “If she’s alive, I won’t share her.”
    “You will share her, my friend.” If he didn’t, Nix would start a revolt in Hell to make the battle in Heaven which led to the angel’s fall look like a military standoff. “If Mads is alive, challenging Zen directly will draw her out.”
    The King’s eyes ignited and his slow smile would’ve chilled a normal soul. Nix found comfort in it because he recognized it as a call to action. “You have a suggestion?”
    “Yes.”
    Micah ran his thumb over Nix’s bottom lip. “You might be the best demon I ever created.”
    Nix grinned at the compliment.

 
     
    Chapter Two
     
     
    Madison blinked and groaned at the too-bright glare of the sun peeking through the curtains. The hammering in her head had her biting back vomit. At this rate, Zen’s stunts would kill her before she got a chance to save Nix.
    “We’ve got problems.” The sound of Zen’s voice stabbed against her temple.
    “No kidding,” she whispered, but the tempo sounded way too loud. “And please don’t yell.” Madison rolled onto her side and pulled the spare pillow over her head with a groan, muscles aching from the movement. If she didn’t know better, she’d conclude she’d taken on a recently launched NASA rocket and lost.
    “I’m speaking normal.” He tugged the pillow off her head. “We must talk now.”
    “My head is splitting open. Can’t it wait?”
    “The world has already split open.”
    How long had she been out? Shouldn’t she be dead if the world came apart? Shouldn’t they all be dead?
    Her eyelids snapped open, and she stared at the immortal. Zen stood beside her bed, returning her scrutiny. No emotions touched his silver eyes or his features. His dark hair lay in disarray over his forehead.
    “Split open how, Zen?”
    “A sinkhole consumed part of a neighborhood in Birmingham, Alabama.” Madison pushed into a seated position and swallowed back a surge of bile the movement caused. “There is a home located at the center of the sinkhole,