Chapter Twenty-Seven
Marcus
Darkness rises and falls inside the glass.
A chaotic dance of swirling clouds the black of a thunderstorm pressing and folding. A congealing mess of rage that seems to spill through the room in thick tendrils. The very air stinks of ozone and blood. A sickening combination that prickles every bell in my head.
Every instinct in my body urges me to rush over and grab Lenora away from whatever issue the demon seem to be having. There isn’t a doubt in my mind that he’s dangerous in this state.
But Lenora continues to stand beneath the mirror, chin tipped up as if she can somehow see the creature’s face for signs.
Like the moment she stepped into my office to confront Reuben, she’s clad in my top.
Her hair a spiraling riot falling down the slender column of her back.
These are all things I’m trying to ignore when every sense in my head is telling me I need to get her away from the creature wrapping his coils around her.
“You think you own me?” Wind lashes. Something howls. “You think I am a puppet you can discard when it suits you? I am a god.”
I edge a step closer as the air in the room drops to temperatures that challenge the ones outside. Frost dusts the glass around the ornate frame and crackles across the hardwood beneath Lenora’s feet.
She doesn’t seem to notice. Her attention is riveted on the demon extending and billowing from the edges. The dark tendrils uncurl towards the ceiling, choking the light.
“I don’t understand. What happened?” she’s asking.
Her oblivious nature would have been endearing if she were dealing with a bear, not a demon we have no understanding of. At least with a bear, we know we’d only get mauled.
Veyn has proven his answer of justice could be anything from being eaten by snakes to allowing us to butcher ourselves.
“You have proven that you cannot be trusted to make correct choices.”
I’m as bemused as Lenora as we both stare up at the spinning force over our heads.
The collection of brewing rage settles cold at the back of my neck. A prickling that chills the pit of my stomach.
“Linny,” I murmur, careful to keep my voice calm.
Even.
Non-threatening.
But my attempts are met with the snap and pulse of wind that shreds at my clothes.
My goal is to grab Lenora and leave this room.
This house. I don’t care what the demon has to say about it.
But my efforts are met with a hard shove that kicks the ground out from beneath my feet.
Air rushes past my ear. I hear Lenora’s gasp.
A sharp cry of my name over the whirlwind.
Then I’m falling.
I think for a panicked second he’s going to shove me back in the chapel with those things and my sons’ caskets.
My fingers claw at the air, desperate to latch onto anything to keep me here.
All my brain can process is that I’m about to leave Lenora alone with this creature.
That she will be defenseless when I meet the hardwood with a jarring smack that knocks the wind from my lungs.
The world momentarily spins as I fumble for stability.
I can no longer be certain if it’s me or the smokey tendrils lashing across the ceiling in a war, but I can only hang onto that for a moment before I’m wheezing and twisting to all fours.
“Marcus?” Lenora’s small, pale face appears before mine, circled by her curls and her wide, beautiful eyes. “Are you hurt?”
Another cough bursts from my lungs when I try to assure her I’m fine. I feel her cool fingers brush my cheek. A whisper before the snapping tendrils behind her hook around her wrist and she’s jerked forcibly to her feet.
Her cry of pain has me pushing up after her. Every instinct in my body is ready to face the demon head on when Lenora jerks her arm free. She whirls on the creature, dark eyes vivid.
“What is wrong with you?” she snaps, marching straight back to the mirror. “You can’t treat people badly because you’re upset.”
“You will—”
Small and irate, Lenora cuts him off with a bold stab of her finger against the glass.
“No, you will not. I understand that we made a bargain and I’m honor bound to comply, but that doesn’t mean you will treat me or Marcus—”
Before either of us can see it happen, the swatting tendrils snap around Lenora’s waist. I only have a second before she’s yanked through the glass.
And I don’t pause.
I don’t give myself a chance to weigh the consequences.
I leap after her, expecting to smack into solid foundation.
Expecting to get cut into shards. But none of that matters when Lenora vanishes with a strangled cry.
The dark surface ripples around her like a lake disturbed by a rock.
My arms fly up to cover my face as I take a running lunge.
My body braces as the cold intensifies as if I’ve fallen into a deep freezer.
Bits of glass nick my arms. My cheeks. Shallow nips that I know are drawing blood, but I don’t open my eyes until I’m dropped unceremoniously to the ground.
My knees smack into concrete and I have to throw up my hands to catch my face from doing the same.
Pain burns across my palms and tears down my legs where stone tears back flesh.
“Marcus?”
Biting back the annoyance, I shove to my feet.
The heavy musk of mold and age assaults me before I even have my eyes open. It slams down my throat, choking me on the filth.
I know I’m in that damn dungeon before I even see the uneven incline crudely built into the side of the wall or the disgusting altar Lenora sits upon, legs tucked beneath her. Eyes wild with fear.
Ignoring the hot run of blood trickling along my calves, the bits of dirt clinging to the shredded skin of my palms, I sprint down after her.
Her arms are up, waiting when I leap onto the dais. I scoop her up and off the filthy table.
“What is this?” she breathes, eyes sweeping over the dust and grime clinging to every surface.
Deep at the back of my mind, I’m confused by her reaction. We’ve been here multiple times yet she’s clutching at me like none of it makes sense.
“Let’s get out of here,” I say instead, my hold firm around her even as I pull us down the steps in the direction of…
A wall.
The black curtains separating this cesspit from the rest of the house are gone. There is no exit, except the black hole I’d fallen through.
“You awakened me.” Steel sliding across stone, the voice hisses through the very marrow of my soul. “Called me to this place to fulfil a task no human could possibly and I have. I have done that and more and asked for so little.”
“Veyn, just tell us—”
Lenora’s attempt to negotiate with the demon is silenced by the thundering vibration that echoes through the chamber. It rolls beneath our feet, an earthquake that snaps deep gashes across stone. It snakes up the incline and the open maw where smoke billows free, thick and rancid.
“He lives because I allow it.” Another slam and crack.
“He breathes because I allow it. With a single thought, I can tear him from his flesh. Have his organs exist outside that worthless husk. Without my blessing, he would be nothing but food for my brothers, but I allowed you to keep him. I allowed him to touch you because it amused me. But the utter lack of respect cannot go ignored.”
Lenora and I have but a split second to exchange glances when we’re torn apart.
It’s so sudden, my brain has no time to process the loss of her when I’m bound and restrained by miles of serrated tendrils.
They twist around the soft tissues of my wrists.
My ankles. Bits of glass and razors that slice open gashes and anchor into place.
Feet away, Lenora is handled the same. Her cries are ignored as the barbs dig into her flesh. Puncture. Thin lines of crimson ribbon down her arms to soak into the bunched sleeves of my top.
“Stop it!” I snarl at the hole behind her. “You’re hurting her.”
My own sleeve is soaked. My shoes are filling with my own blood. But all I care about is her. Protecting her. Even as I fight the hold, digging the barbs deeper, it’s only her I see.
“You should worry about yourself, human,” the demon drawls. “I still need her. I have no use for you.”
“I don’t care what you do to me. Let her go,” I shoot back.
There’s a moment of silence, a stretch where I think maybe he might actually do it, but I’m proven wrong when stray wisps coil up from Lenora’s ankles.
They twin around her sprawled thighs. I know they reach her sex when she gasps.
Beneath the fabric of her top, it continues up the center of her torso to loop around her throat.
No barbs, I note with some gratitude. He may be furious, but he’s still careful not to truly hurt her.
At least, I hope.
“Freedom is not what she wants, is it, pet?”
A choked sound leaves her and her lashes flutter shut.
I don’t need to see the guilt in her eyes when she meets my gaze to know he’s inside her.
“Beautiful, isn’t she? So pure and willing. A delicate toy your sons couldn’t even be man enough to touch.”
“Stop it,” Lenora breathes. “Don’t talk about them.”
Her warning is ignored as the demon continues, “Imagine having this in your bed for years and letting her go to waste. As their father, you must be so ashamed.”
“You don’t know anything about my boys,” I bite out around the molars I’m grinding to dust.
Lenora moans, head falling back. The hazy, black mist around her throat tightens. Between her thighs, hidden by the front of her top, I can just make out the steady rhythm of his thrusting.
I shouldn’t be enjoying the sight.
I shouldn’t be growing hard beneath the soft fabric of my slacks.
But that’s what he wants. This is torture. A blatant expression of power. He wants me to know we’re both at his mercy.
“I know they were weak,” the demon murmurs. “Just like you. But I suppose I should thank you for raising such sad specimens. Without their stupidity, it would have been much harder to slip into her life.”
“Stop!” With a growl, Lenora tries to jerk out of the creature’s hold.
“Don’t talk about them.” She’s breathing hard, voice thick with emotion that mirrors the tears in her eyes.
“You didn’t know them. You don’t … you don’t understand anything.
How can you? You’re a demon. A monster. You only know how to hurt people. ”
The voice urging me to tell her to stop, to not antagonize the creature pounds against the walls of my skull, but my tongue has gone still in my mouth. It lies fat and swollen against the back of my bottom teeth. I try to wiggle it, but all I can manage are weak whines that won’t convert to words.
“Exactly,” the demon growls from her side of the room. “I am a monster. Your useless morals mean nothing to me. Your pain means nothing to me. You are nothing! You mean nothing.”
I don’t miss the flicker of hurt that passes over her face. I can’t tell if the demon saw it, too, but it’s suddenly too still. Too quiet. There is a strange hum in the air like even he is stunned by his own words.
“I don’t care what you think of me,” she whispers slowly. “I don’t care if you kill me or give me to your brothers. But don’t ever talk about my boys again. They don’t exist to you.”
Seconds pass into infinity where I can feel the roar of my own blood between my ears. Not fear. I’m pissed. This whole thing is insane. Unnecessary. Something has clearly triggered him and rather than communicate his frustrations, he’s throwing a tantrum like a child.
And even while I think it, even while I stew in the fact that he hurt Lenora for no good reason, I realize my own shortsightedness.
He’s a demon.
He doesn’t have feelings.
All he understands is pain and fear. Causing them.
The pulling and tucking of blankets around Lenora after she’d fallen asleep in Sarai Duval’s bed was a set up for this.
A fake to lure us into a false sense of security so he can only hurt her deeper.
There is no other explanation. There is no reason for him to be this cruel otherwise.
“I could kill them all, fulfil my end of the bargain and claim your soul within the hour,” he mocks her. “It’s only that you enjoy their suffering that I have prolonged their deaths for as long as I have.”
Lenora’s chin is tipped in defiance. It’s angled with unhampered rage. Her gaze stays fixed on a point high out of sight as if she’s refusing to meet his eye.
“Kill them. I would rather end this than spend another moment with you.”
“Is that so?”
To her credit, she says nothing, but continues to stand in silent challenge as the room thrums around us. The echo of his contemplation pools in the musty air.
I continue to fight my body’s resistance, the hold he seems to wield on my very control. I loathe him. Loathe his power and strength. Loathe my own helplessness. I wish I were capable of defeating him for good, but I can only stand like a mute idiot while Lenora faces him alone.
Again.
It’s a recurring theme of late. My inability to protect her. And he knows it. Knows I am powerless and I hate him for it.
Skin shreds where I tug and drag against the invisible barbs. Blood runs hot down my forearms, drenching my shirt. But it does nothing. I have no choice but to watch as Lenora is lifted. The hold on her arms and legs vanishes and I can only stare as she’s placed on the altar.
Unlike before, Lenora doesn’t sit comfortably. She scrambles onto all fours as if the table is too filthy to touch — which it is. Once her backside is no longer pressed naked against the rancid chunk of wood, she balances on her knees and turns gingerly to the open darkness over the stairs.
“Let Marcus go,” she commands. “This has nothing to do with him. I made the deal. Whatever you want, take it from me.”
I make a series of aggressive grunts that go entirely ignored.
“But I enjoy how you suffer, pet.” A cold wisp brushes my cheek. “He’s the perfect leverage to make you behave.”
The caress becomes a sharp nick where he cuts the skin along my cheekbone. The sting is immediate. A reminder to us both that he is in charge.
“I have behaved,” she snaps back. “I have done nothing to warrant this … this cruelty.”
“Haven’t you?” The snarl it’s vicious. A cyclone of violent rage. “You think you have done nothing?”
“What?” she barks back. “What have I done to deserve this?”
Time winds in a commotion of grating silence and the cutting frustrations of a man — if he could even be called that — battling his own demons.
“Doesn’t matter because I have realized what it will take to fix my problem.”
Neither Lenora, nor I understand the implication.
I see the confusion on her face and I’m sure it mirrors my own.
But that’s all I’m allowed when the full weight of an iceberg slams into me.
It collides and sinks into my pores. It soaks through my skin.
I feel the invasion, the attack on my person as the creature fits himself inside me.