The Heart of a Monster: The Complete Series

Chapter 11

Quinn

Ihad no clue what to expect from the “target practice” Rollick had mentioned. With every passing minute after I woke up, I dreaded it more. Not even the joy of seeing my three men last night could stand against my anxiety.

I forced down my breakfast of spinach omelet and fruit salad, took my morning pills, and finished the rest of my typical routine on autopilot. Then I paced around the living room, unable to sit down for more than a minute or two without a restless urge driving me to my feet again.

Somewhere on one of the floors beneath me—or out in the city, if they were getting in some sight-seeing—my parents were roaming around, unaware of the dangers circulating around them. Unaware that I was possibly just minutes away.

But how could I have told them even if I’d had a way to reach them? If I’d warned them about monstrous attackers now or when I’d had the chance before, they’d have thought I was crazy.

They probably were safer here than back in Jacksonville… as long as I didn’t defy Rollick. As long as I kept him happy.

I’d tried to meditate with my apparent sorcerer powers like the guy yesterday had instructed. Before, following the suggestions of a shadowkind woman named Sorsha who’d been trying to help me suppress those energies, I’d only concentrated on suppressing and disguising them. But that hadn’t worked so well.

When I focused on them and encouraged the wavering sensations in my chest, I did get a reaction. The wobbly flutters had been coming more frequently since my first attempts. I’d gotten to the point where I could provoke one if I tried to, not that I really wanted to. And with them came little murmurs of sensation, as if some innate instinct I didn’t understand really was whispering in my ear, directing me in how to use it.

I’d had nothing to aim those instincts at, though. All I’d been left with was even more jitters inside me and a knot in my gut.

I didn’t know whether to be relieved or upset that Rollick arrived fairly promptly, just a half hour after I’d started my pacing. How well did he know my morning routine? He entered without a knock, as usual, carrying a black box about the size of a cat carrier.

“Ready to go?” he asked me with a dimpled smile. He really shouldn’t be allowed to look that gorgeous while acting as my jailor.

“What are we doing?” I asked, eyeing the box. “What’s in there?”

He motioned for me to follow him out onto the terrace. There, he set the box on the patio table where we’d eaten dinner just a few days ago. “This is a contraption developed by the human ‘hunters’ who catch shadowkind beasts either because they want to exterminate them or to sell them to collectors,” he said. “You mortals do come up with some interesting inventions. I don’t care for the practice in general, but it worked for my purposes for today. I believe in making use of all the tools available to me.”

It took me a few moments to piece together that rambling explanation enough to draw a clear conclusion. “There’s a shadowkind creature in there?”

He nodded. “Just a weak little thing, not much more than a lost kitten. One shaped like a lizard with little spikes instead of scales, but given the chance, it’d wisp away rather than confront you. You have nothing to fear.”

I swallowed thickly. Did it have anything to fear? “What do you want me to do with it?”

“I want to see if those sorcerer powers of yours have woken up enough that you can put them to some small use on demand. I’ll open up the box, you compel the beastie to, oh, let’s say hop on top of it and stay there. That’s simple enough, but not what it’d do given the choice.”

I raised an eyebrow at him. “And if I fail and it disappears into the shadows? Do you have a whole menagerie ready to stock these experiments?”

The demon shot me an amused glance. “As little faith as you apparently have in me, I can manage to wrangle one minor shadowkind. It can’t get very far from this level of the building anyway. If it runs, I’ll bring it back. We have all day. I’m sure you’ll tap into your inner sorcerer eventually.”

“Maybe you could tell me why you want me to tap into these powers so much,” I suggested, partly procrastinating and partly because I really did want to know. “It’ll help me to focus my attention properly.”

Rollick guffawed. “Nice try.” He offered a languid smirk. “How about you give it a shot, and we’ll see how conversational I’m feeling if you pull off a little compulsion?”

I managed not to grit my teeth in frustration and yanked my gaze to the box rather than his face. Apparently satisfied that I was cooperating, Rollick slid out the two latches that secured the container’s door and eased it open.

A light was beaming inside, brightly enough to highlight a patch of shadow that was quivering within the box, even though it barely appeared to have any physical presence. That was the creature he wanted me to compel. I opened my mouth and closed it again, an ache forming behind my sternum.

The shadowkind hated mortals who used this power. It was stealing their free will as much as Rollick had stolen mine—more even.

“I’m pretty sure nothing will come of simply staring at it, though you’re welcome to prove me wrong,” the demon put in.

I darted a hasty glower at him and focused on the little shadowy beast again. I wouldn’t be like other sorcerers because I didn’t want to be. The very fact that I was so uneasy about using this power meant I wouldn’t use it badly, right?

Asking this little creature to sit on top of a box was hardly terrible. And what Rollick might do to my parents if I didn’t make the attempt could very well be.

I inhaled deeply and let part of my mind detach from the outside world, concentrating on the rhythm of my pulse and the flow of energy around that most vital of organs inside me. Strange sensations rippled through me with each beat of my heart. When I acknowledged that energy, it seemed to twitch to attention in awareness of the shadowkind nearby—both the little thing in the box and the much more powerful presence standing next to it.

It recoiled from Rollick, obviously aware that I was in no position to compel him into doing anything just yet. But it seemed to reach through me toward the lesser being eagerly, with a tug on my nerves.

On top of the box. I wanted the creature to step out and hop up there, that was all.

Sweat broke out on the back of my neck, though I couldn’t have said whether it was from effort expended or just my trepidation. I opened my mouth again, a quiver raced up my throat, and a few unfamiliar syllables fell off my tongue like when I’d sent the flying beast away.

The shadowy patch shuddered and then leapt forward. As it burst from the box, I caught a glint of the spikes Rollick had mentioned and a gleam of eerie green eyes. A conflicted jolt of triumph hit me in the second before the creature spun around—and dashed toward the edge of the terrace rather than taking the seat I’d intended.

Rollick leapt forward twice as quickly, faster than any human even with that muscular body could have moved. He snatched the moving shape of what was mostly still shadow—and it solidified into a hissing, writhing creature in his hands, his fingers clamped around its neck.

He tsked his tongue at it and brought it back to the table, where he set it next to the box and looked expectantly at me. “The world didn’t end, did it? See if you can persuade this beastie a little better the second time.”

“What, you weren’t looking for a workout?” I said glibly, but the joke landed flat. My heart was beating too fast, and I was too aware of the fact that the power I had exerted was flowing from that organ. The organ that’d been stitched into my chest from another girl, that I only managed to keep in my body because my twice-daily meds convinced the rest of me that it was a welcome friend rather than a foreign invader.

Over the years, I’d come to think of the medications as reflecting a reality my body simply had trouble accepting. Right now, it was hard not to think that my body might have been right after all.

Rollick glowered at me, his lips still curled in amusement. “I know you can master this, Quinn. We just need to work on you knowing that.”

His confident words sent a weird buzz of exhilaration through me—to have a millennia-old, immensely powerful demon praising my capabilities. Of course, it was probably just a pep talk to get me to do what he wanted.

Which I needed to do anyway. I dragged in a breath and scowled at the spiky creature.

It’d remained in physical form, maybe nervous of what Rollick would do to it if it tried to escape again. That made it easier for me to concentrate. I pictured it leaping on top of the box, the need for it to do that condensing within my ribcage.

I had to prove to Rollick that I was cooperating. That I didn’t need any further motivation, especially not of the cruel kind.

It was just a short hop. No reason for the creature to not want to do it. Just give it a little nudge…

One of those unsettling wobbles ran through my chest, forceful enough to make my pulse stutter. Another burst of meaningless sound spilled from my mouth. I hurled it at the creature, my skin tingling with the energy my voice carried—and the beast stiffened for just an instant before springing on top of the box as if its life depended on it.

Rollick gave me a languid round of applause and a pleased smile. “There we go. Now let’s see if you can compel it back into the box. It won’t want to go in there, so you’ll have to be firm about it.”

Wonderful. But maybe once it was in the box, the demon would be satisfied for the day and we could stop this charade of me being a sorcerer.

That flimsy hope girded me. I tensed my arms at my sides and stared the lesser shadowkind down.

Into that glowing space. In between those walls. It would go there, because I demanded that it did.

A jolt of power surged up my throat. My heart hitched. I spat out the unfamiliar words rushing up from my chest. They didn’t mean anything to me, and yet at the same time, I understood that I was saying, Go inside there, NOW.

This time, the creature didn’t even pause. It darted right into the box. My shoulders sagged as a mix of relief and revulsion rolled over me.

I’d done it. I’d forced the little beast to go against its instincts, to do something it’d hated. Hurray for me.

My heart was thumping hard but not so quickly now. My chest felt tight. I had a very strong urge to lie down and close my eyes and hope I didn’t wake up until this whole horrible situation was over. Except I didn’t think it could be over if I tried to simply sleep through it.

“Very nice.” Rollick strolled over to stand next to me, his body so close that the bare skin of my arm woke up with giddy awareness. “What should we have it do next? A tap dance? I wonder if you could convince it to leap right onto that silver spear you made.”

My spine went rigid. “I’m not telling it to do that.”

The demon continued in a nonchalant tone. “It would be a fantastic test of your powers. But if you don’t like practicing on innocent beasties, we do have other trial subjects around. I could call the dragon shifter or the gargoyle in to see how well you can play with a higher shadowkind. I’m sure they’d be willing to offer themselves up just for your sake.”

I tensed even more than I had already. My arms jerked up to fold over my chest defensively. “I’m not using any powers on them. It isn’t playing. This isn’t a game.”

Rollick smiled down at me, the intensity of his presence making my pulse wobble in a totally different way. “Oh, but it is in all the ways that matter. Everything is a game, really, to the ones who make the decisions that affect the outcomes. You’ll learn that soon enough, reluctant sorcerer.”

“I don’t think I’m getting to make any decisions here at all,” I shot back. “You’re the one calling the shots.”

He arched his eyebrows. “I’ve given you plenty of leeway. But if you’d like me to act more the part of a dictator, I believe I can call Lance up here right?—”

I couldn’t have said what came over me. I knew it was useless; I knew I shouldn’t provoke him. But the thought of inflicting my emerging power on Lance after the torments sorcerers had already put the dragon shifter through hit me with a smack of horror, and my body simply reacted.

“No!” I said, and shoved Rollick away from me.

I barely budged him. The guy had a foot on me and probably a hundred pounds more muscle, and, y’know, the whole immensely powerful demon thing on top of that. But he reacted the second my hand smacked into his arm.

One instant, I was standing next to him. The next, he’d slammed me down on the tiles of the terrace floor. He cushioned my head and back with one arm just enough that the impact rang through my nerves but wasn’t more than a brief shock of pain, but his other hand pinned my shoulder to the ground. His claws had emerged. He lowered my head all the way to the tiles and jerked his first hand around to tease them along my throat, braced over me with less than a foot between our bodies.

I trembled. Most of it was fear, but a tiny flare of heat lit between my legs. Fucking hell.

And Rollick noticed it. He smiled at me, still bright but fierce, transforming his movie-star good looks into something hauntingly gorgeous.

“You don’t want to get into a fist fight with me, mortal,” he crooned. “But I’m not sure that’s what you’re really looking for, even now. I think I could take you right here on the tiles, and you’d be gasping for more.”

My jaw clenched. If I denied the attraction coursing through me, he’d just laugh. “I’d hate you afterward,” I said. “I can’t help how my body reacts, but none of it means I trust or respect or even like you.”

The demon laughed anyway, a low chuckle that reverberated into me and woke up even more heat even as I stiffened against it. He lowered his head so that his breath ghosted across my lips, not quite touching them with a kiss.

“I’m not going for ‘like,’ sweet sorcerer. But it’s much more fun to win more than just the body. One day I will fuck you with both of my dicks, and it’ll be because you’ve welcomed me. And you’ll be ever so glad you did.”

Before I could formulate a response, he leapt off me with typical languid grace. He picked up the box with the shadowkind creature and sauntered off the terrace before I’d even willed myself to sit up.

The trial was over—for now. Maybe that was some kind of victory? But my muscles were still trembling, and I was starkly aware of the dampening of my panties. Not even the floor beneath me felt stable enough to hold me steady.

He wasn’t right. I wouldn’t let him be. I would never welcome a fiend who’d treated me the way he had.

But I had no idea what happened now.