Chapter 18 #2
“That’s why you ran off to visit the White Rabbit. And now you want to go see him again to help go to war against the Queen. Why do you think he’d help you?”
I licked my lips. Being asked such a serious question from a lava bear was kind of intense. “He didn’t kill me, so the Zombie Queen will kill him once she realizes what I am.”
He studied me for another long moment before he leaned closer and carefully nosed my forehead. “I don’t want the Zombie Queen to know what you are. But having the White Rabbit as an ally against the Mad Hatter would be deliciously ironic.”
“So…Why are you a bear?”
Dorian bear shook his large head. “I have no idea. There were some ancient cave drawings of fire bears, but I thought that was mythological.”
“Right. The demon thinks the bear is mythological.”
He smiled his terrifyingly cute bear smile at me. “Fire bear. You may bite me any time you like, but it will probably result in more interesting transformations. I’m sorry that I can’t be human for you.”
“I want you, whatever you are.” I frowned and thumped his nose. “But I thought you hated angels! You’re notorious for hating angels because they exiled you or something. Why didn’t you tell me you knew? I thought you were going to kill me.”
He nuzzled my cheek, warm, soft, terrifyingly large.
“The less talk the better when you have the Zombie Queen hunting down your kind. Frisco disagreed. He wanted you to practice compulsion and bite as many demons as possible. The biting makes us stronger and more loyal. He shouldn’t have recruited Regis to help him, but he’s a tactician. He can’t help himself.”
I tugged his silky lava ear. So soft. “How long did you know?”
“When I knew you before, I started to change. Feeding on the desire of others wasn’t enough.
I needed violence. And you attracted demons.
You always attracted demons, but you seemed so human, so delicate, sweet, pure.
Then when you walked into my den…King spikes aren’t normal.
Those combined with the fact that you were clearly at my club searching for a baby demon…
” He nudged me so carefully, like I might shatter, his eyes so softly burning.
“You were so brave. It took you a long time to finally faint so I could catch you.”
“But you hate angels, don’t you? Are you just pretending not to hate me so you can use me to make your people loyal? Is it a power play? You could use the angels like the angels used the other demons. Poetic justice and irony.”
He licked my forehead and shook his head.
“You aren’t an angel. You’re my angel. My heaven.
My home. My purpose. Everything in the old lands is ashes.
You aren’t part of that system and you never will be.
You could have forced me to your will in the strip club, had me murder the other females I was with, and then fed on everyone else until they were your slaves.
Instead, you ran away and built a candy Kingdom. ”
I just stared at him, those soft eyes of the demon who smelled like cinnamon bears and was cinnamon bears, while my heart pounded and tried to explode and kill everyone.
“Wow. I mean, because I didn’t take over your mind and then have you murder everyone and then enslave the entire club I must be an angel.
You know, the kind with halos and stuff.
Talk about a low bar.” I stroked his cheeks while he rumbled a growl that went through my fingers to the bone.
“So, now I bite the demons so we can go to war?”
“You will not do anything you do not wish to do.”
I smiled and tugged on his cheek fur. “And if I wish to sit in your cuddly lap while I bite demons? Can I do that?”
He pulled me against him, soft, squishy, warm, and wrapped an enormous paw around my waist. “Yes. Always. Forever, anything you want with me, the answer is yes. Frisco, you may send in the soldiers.”
At first it was awkward to bite random demons I’d never met, particularly the way they shrank away from Drigo while they knelt and offered me their hands, but the moment my teeth sank into flesh and I felt their wills, the connection continued to Dorian, and from Dorian to Frisco.
It was like delegation, so I just went with it.
Being wrapped in cinnamon bear demon was so nice. Every once in awhile he’d snuffle my neck, giving me shivers, and once he’d licked me, not saliva, but liquid lava. The kind that didn’t burn me.
I bit demons for hours, until there was a lull, and then Maurice was there, looking sheepish and terrified.
“My Queen. My King. I am sworn to his service, bound to your will. There is nothing else for me. May I join you?”
He looked so meek and pathetic, wringing his hands and looking so beaten.
I pointed at him. “You were going to cut off my cakes.”
He bowed so low, his face almost touched his knees. “I am unworthy.”
Anger burned my skin. Maybe it was all the demons I’d eaten, but I wasn’t feeling very forgiving. At all. “You betrayed us to the Mad Hatter. You deserve death and torture.”
Regis stepped up behind him, barely glancing at Dorian-bear before he fixed a cold gaze on Maurice.
“He betrayed us to the Mad Hatter?” There were no more words, just Maurice, sliding apart in two vertical pieces in a mess of blood and bone while Regis’s seemingly non-violent tail flicked blood off the end.
He had a blade tail? And he’d just sliced Maurice in half?
I gasped. “Why did you do that?”
Regis blinked at me. “Didn’t you want me to execute him? You said he betrayed you. Did you want Frisco to do it? He’s the general in charge of tactics, but if you’d prefer his methods of execution…Perhaps it’s time to appoint an official executioner.”
“You don’t kill everyone who betrays you.
And he’s the one who supplies my shop with cakes.
Also, you don’t just kill people! I mean, you tried to kill me, and Frisco delivered the last demon king’s head to the Zombie Queen.
Everyone makes mistakes, but as long as you’re alive, there’s the chance that you can change! ”
Maurice was oozing out in Dorian’s den, and I suddenly got a very vivid take on what war would look like. Carnage. Demons would die. Zombies would die. So many would die, and for what? So I could save one little demon who had betrayed us just like this Maurice had done.
My head pounded and my stomach twisted. I’d eaten so many demons. I could feel them under my skin, pushing against my sanity, like I’d had much of that to begin with.
Dorian-bear nosed my shoulder, hot breath sending a wave of comfort through me. “If you wish to save the ink, you have the power. You just have to consume him the way you did Regis. Who will not be performing any more executions unless explicitly stated.”
Regis stiffened up, looking at Dorian-bear with wide eyes and obvious fear. He bowed low and then rose and gave me a stiff smile. “A thousand pardons, my queen. Do you wish to consume the ink?”
No. I didn’t want to eat Maurice, but he was twitching and I couldn’t just let him die when I could save him.
How could I possibly justify anyone’s death?
It was a mountain of impossible. I got off Dorian-bear’s lap and went over to Maurice and started eating.
He tasted like banana cream pie. Not cake.
Still, banana cream pie wasn’t terrible.
I closed my eyes and ate until Dorian-bear grabbed my waist with an enormous paw and pulled me away.
“He’ll regenerate far better than he deserves. He will be your loyal slave. Perhaps in time he’ll have some useful skills.”
Regis bared his teeth at the mess of demon that didn’t look like it could regenerate into anything much less become useful.
“I will see that he is extremely useful in time. My apologies again, my queen.” He bowed at me and then proceeded to clean up, filling black garbage bags and taking them away, leaving nothing but a slightly ashy residue behind.
Frisco came forward with a plate of steamed vegetables. “You should eat. Then we will drive the Queen out of the demon lands.” Frisco gave a deep bow while I took the plate. I’d eaten so much, but vegetables would be a healthy addition to demon flesh.
I looked down at my bloomers and pretty corset. “I’m going to need a serious costume change if we’re really going to war.” I took a big bite of broccoli and it did settle my stomach.
“We?” Dorian rumbled a laugh that felt delicious. His paw was still resting on my stomach while I lounged against his warm, silky lava body.
My heart sank. “Aren’t we going to war? I guess that’s good. It doesn’t make sense to sacrifice so many lives for only one demon. Even if that was his precious baby.”
Frisco cleared his throat. “The Queen doesn’t go to war. The Queen stays where she’ll be safe, and the King and the Steward protect her. The last time the King personally went to war, it was after the angels were already dead.”
I stared at the enormous demon with his bright markings. “You mean I’m going to stay here waiting? But shouldn’t we all go? What about the compulsion thing? Can’t I be useful with that? Also, what about the White Rabbit?”
Dorian rumbled a laugh and snuggled me closer into his lava fur. He smelled so good. “What you just did was more than useful. As long as you are safe, the demons can’t be defeated.”
“If she’s on the throne,” Frisco said.
Dorian-bear growled, a low rumble that went through me like thunder. “The throne was destroyed along with the throne room. And good riddance.”
Frisco gave Dorian a long look. “And yet there you are, a perfect likeness of the Queen’s throne.”
I looked at Dorian-bear, who was the most comfortable place I’d ever imagined. “The throne was shaped like a fire-bear? What if the original throne that made the people impossible defeat was a real fire-bear. What if I rode Dorian into battle. Would that make everyone indestructible?”