Entice: An Ignite Novella by Erica Crouch Read Free Book Online Page A

us. Tables hush as they track Azael’s and my progress. Whispers bloom behind us and I catch several clipped words.
    Lucifer. Michael. Twins. Trusted, dangerous, and a sneer of derision from one of the male sirens.
    I turn my head toward his voice and glower at him, immediately shutting him up.
    This is just the beginning, Pen , Azael says to me. If they think we’re famous now, wait until we get back from Eden. We’ll go down in history as the siblings who sullied Heaven’s precious man.
    The sinning, sullying siblings. Tarnishing twins. Axing Az and poisoning Pen.
    Enough with the alliteration , he laughs. Though, I’m liking the idea of poison. Hold on to that.
    Halfway across the cavernous hall, we spot Naamah and Botis. They’re sitting together, heads bent over a series of carvings on the large, wooden table. When Az and I step up to them, Naamah slides her dark hand over the mahogany, erasing the etched words and smoothing over the wood.
    “Secrets, secrets are no fun...” Azael tsks as he slides into the bench across from them. I join him without a word.
    “How can we help you two?” Botis asks.
    I study him. He’s a shapeshifter—one of the most famous—and his appearance is subtly serpentine, even in his regular form. His skin is the palest shade of red, as if he’d been too close to the sun and it scorched him scarlet. Across his scalp is a shadow of cropped hair. The most unsettling of all, though, are his eyes. They’re a flat purple with vertical slits in the centers that look like thin, black pits.
    From what I’ve read of shapeshifters like Botis, his strange eyes are able to detect heat. I look around us at the icy walls and the warm bodies of demons, imagining the blues, greens, yellows, and reds he must see everyone in.
    If you don’t look closely at him, you might miss the fact that he’s a shapeshifter. The most obviously serpentine thing about him is his tongue. It is forked, split in two, and black. When he talks, it peeks out from his lips, tasting the air to sense our reaction.
    I wonder what my temper tastes like. Probably bitter or smoky. Azael’s probably tastes like decay, pungent and putrid.
    Botis watches us, distantly amused and calculating. I want him to choke on my darker emotions and not dwell on the skittishness that skips below my skin. I conjure up as many loathsome things I can imagine. He twists his mouth and straightens his back, as if he swallowed something revolting. I grin.
    Not the most handsome devil , Azael mocks him in my mind. The red clashes with his eyes.
    He smells like sulfur. And that damn tongue of his is repulsive.
    I should rip it out of his skull, maybe make a nice necklace for Naamah.
    Very fashionable. She’d be the envy of every siren this side of stupid.
    Naamah leans into Botis and whispers. His split tongue peeks out again to smooth over his lips. It’s disgusting. When he sits up again, he lowers his chin and unleashes the full force of his unsettling countenance on us.
    I’ve seen Botis talk to other people before and noticed he uses his appearance to intimidate others. His sharp teeth are always out on display, and he has a way of staring people down until they wilt before him. I lean forward, making a point that I am unafraid. “Actually, I believe it is you two who need the help.”
    He smiles. “Is that so?”
    “Eden,” Azael says under his breath. “We’ve been told that we are teaming up to take down Adam.”
    “I heard differently.” Naamah shapes her words around a sly grin.
    Her eyes slide over to me and she takes in my appearance with disdain. I want to claw that look off her stupid, smug face.
    She is intimidatingly beautiful, with dark, smooth skin and sleek brown hair that falls past her waist. Her chest swells beneath her shirt, and her waist is the exact shape of an hourglass. Self-consciously, I worry my hand through the tangled knots of my hair and try to sit up a little straighter.
    “And what did you hear?”