The Demigod (Seven Sins MC #6)

Chapter Six

CHAPTER SIX

Nox

I heard his screams in my dreams.

I woke up crying, tears streaking down my cheeks, soaking through the cheap motel room pillowcase.

My hands pressed to my ears even if I knew I couldn’t actually hear him, that it was just the lingering hold of the nightmare keeping its grip on me.

I guess it was hard to differentiate dream from reality when I knew, not far from me, Daemon was likely being tortured—body and mind—while the gods took joy in his suffering.

A whimper escaped me as my hand went to the aching in my chest.

How, I wondered—not for the first time—could I be related to such monsters? How did they find enjoyment and amusement in the pain and suffering of others, while it made me feel sick just to think of it?

The crackers from the vending machine that I’d shoved in my mouth in the moment or two between dropping into bed and passing out soured in my stomach, threatening to make their way back up.

I reached for the water on the nightstand, taking slow sips until the nausea subsided.

Every muscle in my body ached, my very bones ached, as I pulled myself up against the headboard, blinking at the time on the clock across the room from me.

Three-thirty.

I’d slept nearly eight hours but felt like I’d just barely managed a catnap.

It was getting worse.

The feeling of being drained when using my powers.

Sure, I was using them for more than just myself. But I felt like there had to be some secret to using them without it feeling like it was literally stealing my life force each time.

The problem was, I had no idea what my powers meant, where they came from, or how to replenish them.

So they did what they needed to do, it seemed.

Take it from me.

I imagined that taking better care of myself would help. I’d noticed when I first started deliberately using my powers that they worked better on a full night of sleep, well-rounded meals, hydration, and inner peace.

But I was living in a crappy motel in the middle of nowhere, surviving on sustenance made more of preservatives than actual food, never getting enough rest, and worrying myself to ulcers about the torture of innocent humans by my half-siblings.

At least I was getting the hydration thing right, I thought as I picked up the water bottle and took another long sip. Even if it was a bottle being refilled by questionably clean water from the motel tap that had a sort of strange scent to it that I couldn’t identify.

What can I say? Trying to save the world didn’t exactly pay. And I was counting every penny I spent. So funky tap water was just going to have to do. Even if my soul was crying out for a soda. Or a nice, hot cup of tea.

A comfortable bed.

A week of sleep.

A clear conscience.

At least the muscle strain in my shoulders from sleeping on a cheap, lumpy, ancient mattress was gone.

Even just remembering Daemon’s expert fingers massaging me had a warmth creeping across my skin, chasing away the chill of the room with the shoddy heat vents that puffed out semi-warm air every so often. Enough to keep me from freezing to death, but not much more than that.

I was getting used to the cold, though, I guess.

Though I had to admit that being pressed up against Daemon had been like hugging a furnace. It warmed me from the outside in. But by the time it got down deep, I swear it became a different kind of heat. A fire that started to blaze through me, making me overly sensitive, aching for more than the chaste touch he’d been offering me.

If we’d stood there a moment longer, I might have let my own hands start exploring, taking, teasing. I might have heard my own voice, whimpering, pleading.

“Enough,” I grumbled to myself, throwing off the covers and grumbling as the cool room air nipped at my bare skin. I didn’t have a lot of clothes with me, and I’d spent a precious few moments before sleep washing everything I had in the tub, then hanging it all to dry around the room.

It meant I slept naked and exposed and cold, but I would have fresh clothes for a few days, at least. Which suddenly mattered a lot more than it did before Daemon appeared.

I turned the water for the shower on, knowing it would take a solid ten or fifteen minutes to warm up, then stood in front of the mirror, looking at the reflection of someone I barely recognized.

It was only a few weeks—five? six? I was losing track—but I looked so little like the woman I’d been when I’d left my father’s house with a mission.

The use of my power seemed to have sapped all the color from my skin. My new paleness made the dark circles under my eyes all the more apparent. Purple and blue that was starting to make me look like I had two black eyes.

Even my body had changed.

Where there had been some extra winter padding over my belly and hips, I had seemed to hollow out; the lines of my ribs and hip bones started to show themselves.

I looked away, uncomfortable at the proof of how poorly I’d been taking care of myself.

It would all be worth it, I told myself as I stepped under the lukewarm water and scrubbed some of the stress and exhaustion away.

I felt almost human after brushing out my hair and slipping into a pair of fleece-lined leggings, thick socks, a sweatshirt, and a sweater, then made my way out of the hotel room.

I skipped yet another vending machine meal since I had a mission to accomplish before the sun went down.

I promised Daemon a warm shirt. I owed him at least that.

So I drove the long road back toward town, using my credit card to charge the warmest coat I could find—a vintage leather jacket with thick lining inside.

Did I worry about my credit as I slipped the jacket on over my own to enjoy the extra warmth on the drive back to my car’s hiding spot? Sure. But if all went to plan, I could get a good job again and rebuild my credit. If it didn’t… well, I think the last thing anyone was going to worry about was their credit score.

I sat in my car, trying to calm my frazzled nerves, my belly sloshing around—making me glad I hadn’t eaten anything—at the idea of what state I might find Daemon in.

But I owed it to him not to be a coward, so I climbed out of the car and started my long trek through the woods, figuring that by the time I got there, he would have his extra hour to heal.

Or so I thought.

As I crept down the stairs, I could hear his frantic, labored breaths. I knew that sound. I’d heard it too many times coming from the people the gods had tortured. It was the sound of someone just trying to survive the pain they were experiencing through their whole bodies.

I swallowed hard as I made my way in front of him.

There was no stopping the whimper that escaped me when I got a good look at him.

His face was swollen beyond recognition, blood and bruises covering every inch of his face and neck. There was no blood staining his shirt—a small miracle—but I would bet that the skin beneath was mottled with bruises, that there might even be broken bones.

“There you are, shadow girl,” he murmured, attempting a smile, but ending up wincing instead. “I’m not pretty yet,” he added as I sniffled.

The tear slid down my cheek, falling off my chin and landing on the leather jacket.

“Hey, hey, easy on the merchandise, sweetness. Don’t need it all soggy.”

He was the one tortured to an inch of his, er, life. But he was trying to lighten the mood, to make me feel better.

“Sorry,” I said with an unattractive snuffle as I wiped my cheek.

“Why don’t you get all that pretty over here and unlock me? My fingers are tingling.”

Right.

Because the tingling in his fingers was some sort of major concern when his face looked like that.

Up close, the metallic tang of his blood flooded my nostrils. Incredibly, though, by the time I was done with his shackles and looked back up at him, the swelling in his face seemed to have gone down by half. I blinked once, twice, sure my eyes were deceiving me.

“Told you I heal fast, sweetness,” Daemon told me with a soft smile. And I watched as his split lower lip literally sealed itself closed right before my eyes.

“Any chance I could get that coat?” he asked as he slumped against the wall, likely waiting for the life to come back to his limbs.

“Of course,” I agreed, pulling it free, then helping him into it. “Better?” I asked as he seemed to visibly relax at the warmth.

“Smells like you,” he said.

“Oh, sorry.”

“Sorry? Love that orange and cream scent, sweetness.”

Those words, as innocent as they were, had heat flooding my body once again, creating an ache deep in my core that I desperately tried to call anything other than desire. Because that was the last thing I could afford when dealing with such a life-or-death situation.

“It’s, uh, lotion,” I told him, suddenly wishing I’d been more generous with it after my shower. And considering actually taking a trip into town to buy more so I didn’t run out.

“So, you’re telling me you smell like that all over?” he asked, and there was no mistaking the heat in his miraculously un-swollen and un-bruised eyes.

I decided to sidestep that.

“How are you? You know, mentally?” I asked.

On the drive back to my hotel room, all I’d been able to think about was how his body might recover; his mind could be a different story.

“Worried you might have just freed a feral demon, shadow girl?” he asked, finally pulling up to his full height, doing a cat stretch that said whatever injuries that had been hidden by his shirt were healed. “Don’t worry, seems like it was Moros today, not Oizys again. Gloom is rough, don’t get me wrong, but not quite as debilitating as depression and anxiety.”

“That’s good,” I said. “But Moros did all of that?” I asked, waving at his now-healed body.

“No. No, I don’t know who did this. They were… different.”

“Different how?”

“I don’t know. They didn’t have the same energy as the gods. They didn’t feel as powerful to me. Just violent.”

“Did they look… human?” I asked. I’d been concerned about the gods eventually bringing some of the monsters back with them.

“Shit. What could they have looked like?” Daemon asked.

“I’m kind of waiting for the monsters to return.”

“Monsters?”

“Yeah, you know. Like the Minotaur, Typhon, Gorgons… I mean, a lot of the monsters were confined to the water. The Sirens, Charybdis, Hydra…”

“But there are ones you worry about on land too?”

“Yeah.”

“Like who?”

“The Harpies were pretty bad. They were creatures with the body of a bird and the head of a woman. They abducted and tortured people.

“The Minotaur was awful. A human and bull hybrid. He ripped people apart piece by piece and ate them.

“And Lamia is, objectively, terrifying.”

“Why her?”

“Lamia was a Libyan queen who had an affair with Zeus. And Zeus’s wife, Hera, was notoriously jealous of all his philandering. And she was, well, a bitch. So she murdered all of Lamia’s children. In her grief over her loss, Lamia transformed into a child-eating monster.”

“Shit,” Daemon said, looking appropriately horrified.

I imagined that since his job was to punish the evil, and that children were inherently innocent, he felt something similar to human disgust at the idea of them being harmed.

“Okay. We need to get going,” I said as the frivolity above us grew louder.

“You gonna cloak me?” he asked when I went to charge ahead without him.

“Right,” I agreed, waiting for him to catch up. But he didn’t just sidle in beside me. He reached for my hand.

I couldn’t decide if the warmth of his skin or the electrical current that moved up my arm from the touch was what had a shiver racking my system.

But I went ahead and tried to make myself believe it was the former. Even if the way the pressure in my core intensified had other stories to tell.

Luckily, sneaking out of the cellar necessitated absolute silence, so I didn’t have to deal with Daemon possibly asking about the shiver, about its origins.

By the time we were deep enough into the woods to not be seen by anyone looking out the windows of the estate, that strange, warm sensation had spread from my hand all the way through my body. It was, at once, both comforting and agitating. Making me want to curl up against him, or maybe climb him like a tree, pull at his clothes, feel him slide inside…

No.

Christ.

What the hell was wrong with me?

I pulled my hand from Daemon’s, and the chill immediately overtook me as I let the shadow fall from both of us.

“It’s like watching a battery drain,” Daemon said, looking at me.

“What?”

“You looked reasonably well-rested when you first came to get me. Now, you look exhausted again.”

“I haven’t figured out how not to let the shadow take so much from me,” I admitted. “Okay. Now, I figured you could go off in that direction,” I said, waving. “And I will go this way.”

“Shouldn’t we stay together?” he asked, head cocked to the side as he watched me.

“That would defeat the purpose of having help,” I said, even if the urge to stay at his side pulled at me. “But if you think you find something, we should have a way of trying to contact each other.” I should have thought to get burner phones or walkie-talkies or something.

“Any chance you can whistle?”

“Sure.”

“Like this?” he asked, releasing a bird-like sound, but higher-pitched.

I parroted him. “But how is that going to help? These woods are vast.”

“I will hear you.”

“But I won’t hear you.”

“Okay. We’ll use the whistle for distress. But how about we meet halfway through the night at…” he started, looking around, then finding the tallest tree. “There.”

Objectively, I knew we would be wasting time by doubling back. But we would also be wasting time if one of us found something, and the other spent the whole night looking in the wrong direction.

“Okay. Agreed. Here,” I said, reaching to remove my watch from my wrist. “I imagine demons don’t have a great handle on time. And I have my cell to check.”

Daemon slipped it into his pocket since his wrist was too large.

“Hey, shadow girl,” he called when I was about to walk away.

“Yeah?”

“Be careful,” he demanded.

Then he was off, moving faster than any human could.

For the first time in days, I had something resembling hope.

With this demon’s help, I might just be able to find and free Nemesis.

And possibly save mankind.