All Chapters of A year to love the devil: Chapter 21 - Chapter 29

AZREAL'S POV Yasmine tilted her head, letting her fingers brush the bracelet I’d fastened on her earlier, her voice smooth and cutting. “Yes. My husband. The one who doesn’t need to be leashed at home because he actually wants to be with me.” The women around them chuckled, some covering their mouths, others nodding. And Yasmine wasn’t done. She leaned closer, her voice dipping to something silkier, sharper. “Tell me, Aileen—where is yours? Oh, right. Maybe he’s… busy. Too busy cheating to walk by your side.” The laughter that followed wasn’t quiet. It was the market’s laughter, the kind that spreads fast, women whispering and snickering as they passed the words along. Aileen’s face blazed, her lips trembling between fury and humiliation. She tried to speak, but every sound drowned beneath the murmurs—“cheating,” “too busy for her,” “what a shame.” She shot Yasmine a glare that could have killed a lesser woman, then turned sharply on her heel, her skirts whipping the air as sh

YASMINE'S POV There was a look on his face I couldn’t name. Concern, maybe, or a tiredness that sat behind his eyes. I felt my stomach flip at it, like a small animal sensing weather. For a moment, I almost told him about the dream—the lash, the girl on the ground, the way it had felt like it belonged to me—but the words died behind my teeth. Some things stayed buried because speaking them made them true. Instead, I kept the conversation light. I told him about a woman at a stall who’d insisted a fabric would make my cheeks brighter, and he laughed at my joke about replacing his curtains with something gaudy and pink. He laughed like he meant it; the sound was rarer than it should be, and it did something in my chest I couldn’t name. When I pushed my chair back to stand, he reached across the table and caught my wrist—gentle, not a grip that demanded. “Stay,” he said simply. I froze because when Azrael said a single word and meant it, it felt like an order and a promise all at onc

AZREAL'S POV She tugged the pendant at her throat, a small habit she’d picked up. “What do you mean by small?” “False sightings,” I said. “A shadow in the corner of his office. A voice on his voicemail that sounds like Yasmine, saying things that only she would know.” I watched her as I listed the ideas. “Documents. Little notes delivered where he can’t help but see them. A file that reappears on his desk after he deletes it. Friends who swear they heard him talking to himself on calls. The absence of sleep eats at the mind like rust.” She smiled then, cold and sharp. “Make him think I’m alive. Make him see me in places I never would be. Make him imagine the things he did.” “Exactly.” I tapped the wooden table once. “And make him watch. We’ll leak his mistakes at first—emails, payment trails, forged evidence implying he’s been embezzling from his own company. Not enough to kill him financially; just enough to get the board sniffing. Then a call from an anonymous source. Then a c

AZREAL'S POV Yasmine's smile was a blade, small but sharp, and for the first time in centuries I realized I preferred it to softness. She wasn’t trying to heal, wasn’t begging for mercy — she wanted blood the way a starved wolf wanted meat. And gods, I understood it. I pushed away from the doorway, the boards sighing under my weight. “Shadows are louder than screams,” I said. “He’ll start looking for them everywhere.” Yasmine propped herself up on her elbows, hair falling loose over her shoulders. “You make it sound like an art.” “It is.” I crossed the room, letting the pale light fall across my face. Her eyes tracked me with that familiar tension — part revulsion, part curiosity. I’d stopped trying to name which part was winning. “Fear works best when it doesn’t know when it started or where it ends. A single crack in his certainty… and the rest of him will crumble.” She didn’t argue. That, more than words, told me she was learning. Francis would not die quickly. No — quick wa

Yasmine’s POV The first thing I noticed when I woke up was how cold the room felt. Not the kind of cold that comes from an open window or morning air, but the kind that creeps into your skin, quiet and heavy. Azrael wasn’t beside me. The sheets were still warm where he’d been, but the warmth was fading fast. He’d said he thought he saw something by the door last night. Smiled like it was nothing. But the way his voice had sounded, low, distant amd I knew it wasn’t nothing. Something was wrong. I sat up slowly, pulling the blanket around my shoulders. The curtains moved, even though the windows were closed, and for a second, I thought I heard someone whisper. Maybe it was just my mind playing tricks again, but lately, things around him didn’t feel… normal. Sometimes the shadows looked thicker when he walked by. Mirrors turned darker when he stared too long. He’d catch me watching and smile like it was all in my head, and maybe I wanted to believe it was. I stood, my bare feet b