Chapter 7 #2
“You knew,” I told him. “You never liked me discussing them, not ever. Carmine, that pit of dread in your stomach whenever you looked at me—the one you carried from the moment you dragged me here—that was your knowledge of what you’d done and how I would react.
” I shook my head. “Spare me your bullshit.”
I walked out the way I’d come.
Carmine didn’t follow.
This route took longer to reach the training halls, and I didn’t breathe easily until I reached the large chamber. I leaned against the stone wall and dragged a hand over my face. “The same dream.”
A sob left me. I’d been fucking my family’s murderer for three years.
Not often, but there had been plenty of kissing and touching even when I didn’t allow the dream to continue to the end.
What was more, I’d known the dream was wrong.
Not that it was real, yet I’d known that I shouldn’t be dreaming about him at all.
The dream was a betrayal of their memories.
Now that I knew the truth, fucking Carmine in my dreams was over for good.
I wiped my eyes, then moved to the middle of the dirt floor where I sat cross-legged.
Every possible weapon covered the walls.
Demons sometimes fulfilled the stereotypes other supernaturals formed about them.
They did tend toward spikes and hooks and weapons that ripped and tore.
Demons relished gore, and I relished the same.
Gore meant pain, and pain was food for our power.
I’d also had one hell of a bloodthirsty grandmother—100 percent magus—who’d taught me and Tempest all of her favorite tricks.
My mother had tried to control her influence on us, but then my mother had been gory in her own way.
My grandmother had liked to maim a little.
My mother liked to trap people so thoroughly that they gave up.
I almost thought that mental defeat was worse.
All to say that neither of them was typical of maguskind.
That upbringing combined with my demon nature…
If you were going to kill someone, what did it matter if chunks of brain flew everywhere?
I closed my eyes, working through the breathing exercises that honed my mind for training.
My grandmother had made me and Tempest center like this every day, and sometimes multiple times a day.
A magus had to center to be balanced in their power.
When Tempest’s magic had come in strong and mine didn’t appear, I’d faked my way through centering, making sure to take the same amount of time as Tempest. Grandmother never let on that she knew I wasn’t really centering until years later.
When my meager amount of magus divination magic managed to squeak through, I hadn’t needed to center at all—there was so little—and the less power a magus had, the easier they coped with chaos.
I’d watched my twin struggle with the burden of her power.
And though I’d been driven to find equal strength through various avenues, I’d also felt grateful not to have that burden of her towering magic.
Boy oh boy was I grateful Grandmother made me go through all those hours of pretending to center.
When I’d come into my demon power, I’d needed the ability to find calm.
I’d also inherited more magus power upon her death, so my divination magic was stronger now.
Enough to give me sight of the immediate future—like warning instincts on steroids.
I liked to think Mother would’ve told me and Tempest the truth about our father one day. My demon had slowly been rearing its head for a month prior to Carmine slaughtering them all. I’d seen the worry in Mother’s eyes as she watched me across the dinner table.
Maybe she’d intended to tell us that very day of her murder. I’d never know. I’d never see my calculating mother or my savage grandmother again. Because of him.
But I might see my courageous twin’s demon if I could be as smart and as powerful as her.
Finishing my breath work, I stayed sitting and released my black smoke.
First, I released it from my scalp, then my eyelashes and mouth.
I released the acrid, poisonous substance from each finger and each toe, then from my shoulder blades to form gigantic wings.
Drawing the wings back into my body, I released smoke from every pore and hovered the wisps over my skin in a shield.
I pushed the shield out, then pulled it in. Out, in, out, and in.
Sweat beaded on my forehead, dripping over my brow and across my cheeks.
These exercises might feel silly, but I’d formed them over the last three years, and I’d realized how much my demon power was like a muscle by doing them.
The more I used my demon power, the more that power could do.
Three years, and I was yet to find a plateau in my abilities.
I blasted my smoke out in a ring, imagining a circle of enemies surrounding me.
Which was very likely to be my fate in tomorrow’s round of Tiers.
Thanks to Carmine, I’d have an extra enormous target on my back.
Carmine wasn’t detested. Most demons in the realm respected his power and cruelty.
He inspired awe, one greater than his mother even.
From most. Those he didn’t inspire went into Tiers, so their bad will toward him would naturally turn on me.
Why wouldn’t they try when killing me would absolutely hurt him and maybe even kill him?
Mother be. Why on Earth had Carmine allowed my return to the game? He was risking significant injury to himself or death.
For the first time, I considered that a little moan and shaky exhale hadn’t convinced him to let me play again. He was playing me at his own game, and what was that game exactly? I did believe that Carmine was driven by the idea of a more powerful mate.
But otherwise, what did he stand to gain?
He had to have guessed that without Tiers, I would leave the fortress. Which meant that he’d allowed me to play to keep me in the fortress a while longer.
A complete mating ritual would make him more powerful. That was what he wanted to gain—a mate and a queen—and the power that came with her.
Curling my smoke in, I lashed the power out like a whip again and again, as quickly and accurately as possible.
I aimed for the hilts and blades on the walls, hitting nearly all of them.
I usually aimed for the skulls of desert critters we’d eaten, and had to set them out myself, so this was a nice change.
The weapons clattered to the ground or shattered into pieces from the attack of my power.
I almost felt bad for the yellows who would clean it up.
I dialed my smoke to 100 percent and poured out as much as I could to fill the hall.
This was like doing a single squat with as much weight on the bar as possible.
I pulled the smoke all in again and poured it all out a second time.
Then again until only wisps escaped me. Weakening myself like this wasn’t smart, and I couldn’t do it every day—especially with Carmine’s mother and her daggers about.
As ever, increasing power was a balance.
I had to use my smoke to hone it, but if I overused it, then I left myself vulnerable, and my scales wouldn’t spread.
Their defense was of as much benefit as any tricks.
Standing, I extended my hands palm up to release my power.
This was a recent idea, and one I couldn’t be sure would work.
I’d never seen anyone do something like it, not even Carmine.
I layered smoke over my palm in a disc. As I layered the smoke, I compressed the layers down on top of each other.
The idea was to form something solid from my smoke.
Smoke in itself was poisonous, but it wasn’t impenetrable.
I could see many benefits from being able to solidify it.
I could form weapons. I could solidify it within an enemy too.
Solid, the smoke could provide a true shield.
My grandfather had pointed out that the smoke from our fire formed droplets when the cool night air caught it.
There was something to that, but I couldn’t figure out how to remove heat from my power to join the smoke layers into one.
Even if I got that far, I was unsure how to turn droplets into a solid.
No matter. Every step was necessary to walk a path. I’d learned that one thousand times over. If I couldn’t form anything solid from my smoke, then this practice would lead me to something else.
The door to the training hall opened, and a few crimsons trailed in, falling silent as they saw me.
I pulled my smoke in. “Are you training?”
“Yes, Mate-Intended.” The middle one bowed.
I regarded him. “What are you called, demon?”
“Tygrio, a son of Frink.”
Frink was one of the older and very powerful demons. His son was worth knowing. “You will train with me. Get a weapon. I hope you are prepared for battle.”
His smile was toothy and entirely demon. “Always.” The look he accompanied with his smile was heated and seemed to convey that he was also prepared for other things.
Despite what Carmine’s jealous mind had conjured up, I’d been around very few men in the last three years.
On supply trips to the outer realms, I didn’t receive such looks either.
The looks I’d received were shocked by my foreign attire—in that I wasn’t dressed in nipple string and a loincloth.
I’d allowed myself to humor the occasional fantasy, of course, but when the end of the book was and she could never feel sexually satisfied by him until the end of time, those fantasies got old.
Lust was my enemy. I wasn’t about to give my enemy more food to grow stronger.
I didn’t respond to the crimson’s daring, flirty look. Pulling my father’s blade, I waited as he selected a vicious-looking spiky ball on a chain. The crimson looped the weapon overhead, moving closer. He was very familiar with this weapon.
The other crimsons were already clashing in a ring of steel, and I only kept a small part of my awareness on them as I focused on the circling male.
“You have grown powerful in your absence, Mate-Intended.”
I hummed, watching his movement. The demon was powerful, as I’d expect with a father like his.
My intuition warned that his smoke was fast and held just under his skin, ready to strike.
The demon lashed out crimson smoke, and I pressed out my power to ensnare it, yanking hard after, despite the smoke’s sting.
Tygrio was dragged forward, and I lunged at him with my blade, narrowly missing as the male dropped to the ground and rolled away.
He grinned. “As fast as me. That is rare.”
“Men don’t usually brag about being fast.” I frowned. Were those flirting words? Maybe I hadn’t worked out all the lust leftover from the dream.
The demon’s lip curled. “Only fast where it counts, Mate-Intended.”
He tugged on the chain, and I jumped over the spiked ball that shot from behind me and back to his side. How the hell did that get there?
“Nice trick,” I said.
“Yes,” he answered. “One of my lesser cousins in Tiers is very fond of it.”
Warnings were rare among demons because warning someone could be interpreted as calling them weak. Tygrio had made sure to compliment my power ahead of time, so I wouldn’t find offense.
“I won’t fool myself that you want your cousin dead,” I answered.
“If he dies, then he allowed it to be so.”
Part of me did agree with that. “Why gift me your knowledge, Tygrio?”
“Because you and the king are not sharing a bed.” His gaze dropped over my body, then back up. “I cannot fathom how he lets such a prize slip through his fingers.” The demon lifted his head. “I offer myself to fill the void. You will find me a skilled and very attentive bed partner.”
I blinked. This guy was either dumb or very certain of his importance—or his father’s. He’d dared to criticize Carmine and propositioned his mate-intended. Either of those by itself could get him killed. “You play with fire.”
“I like to be burned,” he replied, twitching the chain so the spiked ball rolled around his feet.
“If Carmine discovers what you have offered, you can expect to be thoroughly burned.”
Tygrio walked closer. “Yet it is simple, beautiful queen of demons. I want you, and if you want me, then we needn’t obey any order but that of our bodies.”
I mean, yes, but also, very much no. He was either arrogant or a total dreamer. “I cannot find sexual gratification without Carmine, as you’re aware, so your offer is just for yourself.”
Not like it was a secret. The lack of sexual gratification thing was well known.
“Not while you’re mated,” Tygrio murmured. “But the ritual is not complete.”
I snorted. “That doesn’t matter.”
“Nothing is permanent until the ritual is complete,” he said, his brow furrowing.
Mine did the same. What did he mean? He couldn’t be implying that mating rituals could be undone. If so, Carmine would have undone ours long ago rather than suffer.
My eyes narrowed as I remembered Carmine’s small smile when he’d so publicly trailed his hands through my black smoke. He’d been showing the other demons that my smoke didn’t hurt him, and that our mating ritual was intact.
Motherfucker. The mating ritual could be broken or reversed.
I’d spent three years torturing myself for nothing?
My brow cleared. Because shit. Carmine must know that he could break the mating ritual, and he never did.
Which meant that Carmine had tortured himself for a reason—a huge reason.
Not only did he want a mate and queen and her power.
He was as desperate as any of the demons who had entered Tiers, including me, to have that.
Whoa. I could hold all of that over him now.
The door burst open, and a large group of crimsons and a few reds filed in.
This was the premium division of the realm’s army.
There was likely a fancy term for them, but I didn’t know it.
These were the demons sent forth when Carmine wanted a job done right, and I could tell they were gearing up for something big.
There was an intensity to their trainings that never existed three years ago on the few occasions where Carmine had convinced me to train here.
Tygrio bowed, still frowning, and retreated to join the group. The crimsons fell into line as Carmine’s army general, a crimson female named Sota who idolized the royal family and therefore hated me, barked out orders.
They were training to wage war on other supernaturals.
I joined at the end of the back row, allowing my body to move in sync with theirs.
Carmine was willing to risk his life by putting me in the games to keep me close. I smiled. I wouldn’t hesitate to use his desperation against him.