Samiel watched this argument avidly. I wasn’t sure how much of it he was getting but I already suspected that he was a pretty adept lip-reader. His eyes were wide as he turned his head back and forth between Gabriel and me.

“Why are you trying to pick a fight about this?” I said angrily. “You know I would never consent to such a thing. Samiel stays here with us. End of story.”

“No, it is not the end of the story. I have told you time and again that you do not comprehend Lucifer’s kingdom. His law and his word are absolute. There is no flexing of the rules. Samiel must pay for his crimes.”

Gabriel was white as the moon as he said this, and the corners of his eyes looked tight. Something else was going on.

“This is not about Samiel,” I said. “What the hell crawled up your butt and died? You’d think you’d be happy and grateful that I saved your ass from being used by Amarantha for all eternity.”

“I am indeed happy and grateful, mistress,” Gabriel said tightly.

“What’s with the mistress business?” I said.

“I was Azazel’s thrall until I was taken by Samiel and given to Focalor. Then I was Focalor’s thrall. Then I was Amarantha’s thrall. You have won me from the Maze as your prize; therefore, I am now your thrall,” he shouted.

I looked at him in dawning comprehension. “You belong to me now.”

“Yes.”

I shrugged, relieved that this was all he was upset about. “So I’ll free you, and that’s that taken care of. No big.”

Gabriel stalked forward, his eyes an exploding field of stars on a canvas of black. “You do not understand. It is like you deliberately choose not to understand. How many times must I tell you that Lucifer’s law is the only law? I am a thrall in his kingdom; therefore I am always a thrall. You cannot free me. Only Lucifer can do that.”

“So I’ll ask him to free you,” I argued.

“Which he will not do. It would set a dangerous precedent.”

“Well, so the hell what?” I shouted, losing my temper. “Isn’t it better to be my thrall than Azazel’s or Amarantha’s? You know I won’t abuse you like they would. I’ve always treated you like my equal anyway.”

“But I am not your equal,” Gabriel said, and his jaw was clamped tight. “I will never be your equal. And do you think that I could stand before you as a lover, knowing that I am always below you, that I must submit to your will above my own? Could you accept me thus, never knowing if I was telling you what was in my heart or just what you wanted to hear?”

The anger ran out of me in a rush, my temper deflated. I hadn’t thought about Gabriel’s status in those terms, or really thought about it at all. I’d been so focused on getting him back, and yes, I’d pictured a lot of happy canoodling once we were reunited.

But I didn’t think I would be his mistress. I didn’t think that he would be my slave. It didn’t matter if I treated him as an equal. The fact of his thralldom would always stand in our way.

“Now do you see? You may have kept me from Amarantha, but now my status is a bigger impediment than before. At least before I felt I could speak my feelings to you freely, even if I was unable to act upon them,” he said bitterly.

“You still can,” I said fiercely. “Nothing is going to change between us.”

“Everything already has,” Gabriel said. “And I would advise you not to become too attached to Samiel, for the Grigori will come for him, sooner or later.”

“They won’t take him from me,” I said, and I looked at Samiel as I said it. It was a promise from my heart. “They won’t take you from me. You’re safe here.”

“Do not make promises you cannot keep,” Gabriel advised, and then he walked out of the kitchen.

I rubbed my eyes with my hand. “Really, how many problems can one girl have in a day?”

“Yeah, you totally made an enemy of Focalor and Amarantha, and you broke a bunch of rules by taking in Samiel like a stray dog,” Beezle said.

I turned to see him hanging in the hallway with the phone is his hand.

“Enjoy the show?” I said.

“Not particularly. Contrary to what you may think, I don’t enjoy seeing you hurt,” Beezle said, then he cleared his throat. “So are we having barbecue or what?”

I held my hand out for the phone.

The deliveryman had looked at me funny when he delivered the food, and I realized afterward that while I’d made sure Gabriel was healed by Nathaniel I hadn’t done the same for myself. Most of my aches and pains had cleared up while I slept, but my face was still bruised and my clothes still covered in blood. And my fingers were still missing. I wondered if anything could be done about that, or if I would be a three-fingered lefty for the rest of my life.

After dinner I settled Samiel in for the night on the pullout couch in my living room. He seemed completely overwhelmed by the trappings of civilization. The food—and its method of delivery—was amazing to him. The toilet got flushed about four hundred times in a row once he figured out what purpose the handle served.

He couldn’t stop touching the lightbulbs, the face of the microwave, lifting and lowering the phone from its cradle. His immense pleasure in the sheets and blankets that made up his bed was apparent. I wondered how long he had been living in that cave in the desert.

I turned out the light, resolving to devise some better method of communication with Samiel tomorrow. He could understand pretty much anything, but he had no way of telling me what he wanted. And I wanted to know more about him, about his life before.