Chapter Twenty-Four
Lenora
The world is a thick murky haze soaked through with the copper scent of death and feces.
It clings with an oppressive stubbornness that should make it impossible to sleep, but my eyelids refuse to stay open as I drop down on Sarai Duval’s ruined sheets.
My channel pangs. Sore and tender and still pulsing with residual aftershocks of a million orgasms.
I no longer feel the demon moving and writhing inside me.
I don’t feel the tiny kisses of his blades carving poetry across my flesh.
Despite the magnitude of his presence, he’s so careful.
So delicate not to slice more than a fine line.
The sensation is less than a paper cut, but it lingers faintly with every shift of my body.
“Still here?” I hear Marcus ask.
He’s not talking to me, so I keep still, floating in the blissful afterglow of my happiness.
“Yes.”
The demon’s voice is a gruff rumble somewhere behind me, but close. Like he’s perched on the edge of the mattress.
“Do you have a name?”
Silence extends as if he’s deliberating the question.
“I have many names.”
Marcus huffs a sigh. “What do they call you at the moment?”
Another stretch of silence followed by a somber, “Veyn.”
Veyn.
I twist the name over in my mind and imagine how it would sound on my tongue.
“What are you?”
I feel the whisper of satin, and someone drapes me with the sheets.
“Demon.”
His blatant honesty amuses me, but I remain still.
“What do you want?”
At the back of my mind, I want to tell them to take their conversation somewhere else — I’m trying to sleep — but part of me is curious.
“What do you want?”
The challenge hangs in the air.
Marcus answers with a curt, “Her.”
“Then we seem to want the same thing.”
I don’t need to see Marcus’s face to feel his brewing irritation.
“I won’t let you hurt her. She’s been through enough.”
Veyn snorts. “What do you think you can do to stop me if I choose to devour her as I was meant to?”
“Why haven’t you?” Marcus counters.
“I have made a promise. I will fulfill her wishes. Once I have, her soul will belong to me.”
I do consider the fact that I should be terrified by the confession, but it’s nothing he hasn’t said before. I went into our agreement understanding that — ultimately — he would kill me.
“That’s not going to happen. And before you ask, I will find a way to stop you. You will not have her.”
I think I hear Veyn exhale in a sigh. “That is a matter you will have to take up with her. I have made my terms very clear.”
“You’re a parasite who feeds off the suffering of those in pain. You don’t care what happens to her.”
“I don’t,” he agrees. “She is no more than an offering.”
The honesty stings just enough to remind me he isn’t human and getting attached would only end badly … for me. I appreciate the honesty even while I don’t.
“Why do you feel different?” Marcus’s abrupt change of topic surprises even me. “Even your smell is off.”
I focus on Veyn, on his familiar scent of rust and ozone, and the feel of his presence brushing along my back.
He seems the same to me.
But Veyn makes a low sound of contemplation. “You’re thinking of my siblings.”
My eyelids nearly spring open at the confession.
There were more of him?
“Siblings?” Marcus says. “There are more of you?”
“There are thousands of me,” Veyn mutters. “There are demons everywhere. In every culture, race, and country.”
“I mean here. How many? Are they here with us?”
Marcus sounds as shocked as I feel.
“They are not. I do not allow them near her. They have a tendency of breaking their humans and she is mine.”
I suppose I should thank him.
“Where are they?” Marcus demands.
“Where I keep them in their box,” Veyn says simply. “They shouldn’t be awake, but her grief was too strong. It called to us. Woke us.”
“Are they going to hurt her?”
“No,” the statement is firm. Harsh. A warning growl that scuttles down my spine. “They are forbidden to touch her. You, on the other hand…”
I make a mental note to ask Marcus what happened. He never mentioned being approached by demons.
“How many are there?” Marcus asks instead, seemingly unbothered by the news that there are demons haunting him.
“Two. Dain and Rase. They are idiots.”
I almost smile at the declaration. Ames and Eliah had always been so close. Even when they were angry with each other, they had such a close bond. A twin bond, as Eliah would call it.
But I suppose not everyone shares such sentiments regarding their siblings.
“They didn’t seem like idiots,” Marcus grumbles, and I wonder again what happened.
“Perhaps not to a human, but they are simple.”
“What do they want?”
“It’s never clear with them. They may play with you until your mind fractures, or they might grow bored and eat you. You could always ask them.”
Marcus snorts. “I would rather never see them.”
“That will not be a possibility. We have not fed in eons. Our hunger grows a little more every day. If they do not feed, they will come for her.”
“Then kill them,” Marcus snaps back. “You claim she’s yours. Can’t you protect her?”
Frigid, icy wind blows through the room and I shiver involuntarily. My body curls tighter into a ball. As soon as it had risen, it evaporates and the blankets are pulled around me.
“I have protected her. They haven’t come near her, have they?”
I don’t think so.
Aside from Veyn, I haven’t seen or felt any other presences.
“There are two of them and only one of you. How long can you protect her before they rise against you?”
Veyn bursts out laughing. The sound rolls through the sweet stench of death rough and delicious.
“They have learned what would happen to them if they try to rise against me.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s what every monarchy thought before they were overthrown,” Marcus mumbles.
“They will not retaliate because I am their creator. They have nothing that I do not allow.”
“I thought they were your siblings. How did you create them?”
“The same way your bible created man and woman. I created my brothers from parts of my flesh and gave them life. A decision I have come to regret.”
“So kill them.”
“They are my brothers,” Veyn states sharply, like Marcus has offended him. “They are idiots, but they are my idiots.”
Marcus blows out a breath. “We should get Lenora home and clean this up. Though, I’m not sure how without burning it all to the ground.”
“Let her rest a moment longer. The body won’t be found until morning.”
“That won’t give me enough time to clean the evidence,” Marcus explains.
“There will be no evidence.”
There’s a pause before Marcus mutters, “It’s all over the bed.”
I think of having them both inside me and that hot, sticky release that soaked into the sheets. There had been a lot. It kept coming. I couldn’t stop. But Marcus is right. I hadn’t taken into account that we were leaving evidence.
“There will be no evidence,” Veyn repeats.
I seem to be as baffled as Marcus, but I suppose, if they couldn’t pin me to Etienne’s murder, Veyn would make sure I wasn’t implicated in this one. It’s probably fairly simple for a demon to wipe evidence away.
“Is that your plan? To use the evidence to get Lenora in trouble?”
That hadn’t occurred to me. I don’t feel bothered by it. In the end, if that’s my fate, I accept it as long as there are no Duvals left.
Which makes me think of Noah and Patricia. When I made the agreement with Veyn, I hadn’t asked for their lives to be spared. All Duvals seems pretty self-explanatory. But would Veyn kill kids? Every horror movie I’ve watched, demons always went for the kids so … maybe.
I make a mental note to ask him, but what would be my response if he says yes?
Do I talk him out of it? It seems counterproductive.
But also, if there is no evidence, they can’t possibly know it was an Usher who killed their entire family.
They could go on to lead full and happy lives like I had …
before. I deeply dislike the idea of hurting children.
It’s not their fault. In retrospect, they haven’t done anything, but all means all and can I really risk Marcus’s life on a chance?
“That will not be her fate.”
I tuck my thoughts aside. There are plenty of Duvals left before I have to think about the younger two.
“How can I convince you to let her go?”
My lips open to tell him that isn’t what I want, but Veyn beats me to it.
“You can’t. She has sealed our arrangement with blood. Not even death can save her from me now.”
I relax and turn my face further into the pillow. There’s a faint hint of jasmine embedded in the fabric. The pure kind. No artificial mist. I think Eliah would have loved this smell.