The Book of Azrael (Gods & Monsters, #1)

by Amber V. Nicole

“Look like the innocent flower but be the serpent underneath.”

monsters and gods.”

I just wanted to feel, and a single touch from her set my body alight. I wanted her hands on every part of me, and I wanted it more than I had ever wanted anything. It was the most selfish desire in the world, but I wanted her more than a crown, more than a throne, more than air.

She had seduced me. More than that, she owned me—and she didn’t even know it.

“Oh, don’t run now. We’re just getting started.”

That was my girl.

She had become a priority for me, and I hadn’t been able to keep myself from monitoring the sounds of her survival. I had dreamed of her death, and saw it as that beast ripped a hole through her. It had happened, which meant the world ending part would, too.

The old ones spoke of absolute peace beyond worlds, beyond realms, and when I held Dianna, I felt it. It was a feeling I had spent centuries searching for. I took a breath, inhaling her scent as she shivered beside me.

“You still have witch breath.” Something snapped in me, and I was afraid it was my self-control. Desire coiled and burned in me, and I let it. “Then fix it,” I dared, throwing down the challenge.

I may not have the words to do justice to her or what I was feeling, but I knew if she would let me, I would happily spend a millennium trying.

voice I couldn’t ignore quietly insisted that she was what I had been missing. It’s her. It’s her. It’s her.

So, that’s what my Dianna liked. She liked to hear the words. Very well.

friend earlier. “That’s eight ways now, because when we leave here, I’m going to fuck the word friend out of your vocabulary.”

“The prophecy remains. One falls, one rises, and the end begins. It was foretold and will remain. One carved from darkness, one carved from light. The world will shudder.”

“There will be a shuddering crack, an echo of what is lost and what cannot be healed. Then, Samkiel, you will know this is how the world ends.”

You make me laugh, make me smile, make me feel. You make me feel normal and allow me to forget that I am the sole ruler, because you see me when you look at me. I hate it, Dianna! I hate that I have known you for what others would consider mere minutes. In the grand scheme of things, our time together means nothing. I have known and bedded others longer than you have been in my life, yet I felt nothing but fondness for them.

hate that you affect me so much, that you care so much when I do not deserve it.”

my brain. “This is how the world ends.” That’s what Roccurrem had said. “There will be a shuddering crack, an echo of what is lost and what cannot be healed. Then, Samkiel, you will know this is how the world ends.” But it was not this world. No, it was mine. It was Dianna.