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finally blurting, “I heard a bird.”
    He looked at her like she was daft. “And that’s significant...why?”
    Heat flooded her face. She must be as red as a Sora demon’s butt. “They have wings.” Geez, could she sound any dumber? “I guess I miss mine.”
    “If you miss them that much, you could just enter Sheoul.” Massive black, leathery wings sprouted from his back and stretched high enough to brush the ceiling. Blue veins that matched his hair extended from the tips to where they disappeared behind his shoulders, and now that his wings were visible, the veining appeared under his skin, as well. It was as if he were a marble statue come to life.
    Cat’s breath caught in her throat as she took in his magnificence. He’d transformed, and for the first time, she could see why the demons in the Inner Sanctum would kneel before him.
    I’d kneel , she thought, but for far different reasons.
    That image burned itself into her brain, and she wondered if her face went even redder. Then, to her horror, she found herself reaching out to skim her fingertips along the edges of his wings. He went taut, but her body did the exact opposite as shivery, wild sensations jolted her system and coiled between her thighs. Damn, this male was a danger to everything that made her female, and she stumbled back on unsteady legs.
    “Sorry,” she whispered, hoping her voice didn’t betray her lust. “Like I said, I miss them. I want them back, but I want to get them by earning my way back to Heaven, and I can’t do that if I become a True Fallen.”
    “Not joining me on the dark side, huh?” Now that she was no longer touching him, he’d relaxed, probably relieved that the crazy, horny Unfallen was keeping her hands to herself. Shrugging, he put away his wings, and the veins under his skin faded away. Good, because her fingers might have been all about his wings, but her tongue had wanted to trace every vibrant vein on his body. “Suit yourself. More evil cookies for me.”
    Shooting her a wink, he sauntered off toward one of the portals that allowed travel between Sheoul-gra proper and the Inner Sanctum. Cat watched him––and his drool-worthy butt––until he disappeared around a corner.
    Outside, the bird of prey screeched again, but now that she’d seen Hades’s wings, she wasn’t sure anything else could compare. As she contemplated her next move, she eyed the castrated statue and, unbidden, her mind popped an image of the bulge in Hades’s pants. She glanced down at the sad little male appendage on the floor and laughed.
    Nope. No comparison.
     

Chapter Four
    It had been three days since Cat had opened the portal from the human realm and allowed souls into the Inner Sanctum, and as far as she knew, nothing catastrophic had happened. Maybe no one had noticed. After all, there were millions of souls imprisoned in Sheoul-gra. So what if a handful had slipped through without Azagoth’s stamp of approval?
    Rationalizing the whole thing didn’t make her feel a lot better, so she took out her frustration on the floor of the Great-Hall-slash-Hall-of-Souls at the entrance to Azagoth’s mansion. Why the hell did she have to polish the obsidian stone by hand, anyway? Did Azagoth not believe in buffing machines?
    Okay, in all fairness, he’d never told her to clean the floor. The big jobs, like landscaping outside and maintaining the floors inside, had been assigned to the dozens of Unfallen who, like Cat, had come to live in the safety Sheoul-gra provided to those caught in the gap between Heavenly angel and True Fallen. But footprints on the floor drove Cat nuts, and today, some jackass had tracked in dirt and grass, completely ignoring the new mat she’d placed at the entrance that said, in bold red letters, WIPE YOUR DAMNED FEET.
    She thought the play on “damned” was funny, given that almost everyone who came to Sheoul-gra was some sort of demon. Hades had gotten the joke, had laughed when he saw it. She still