7. Leah #3
Gods, I wish I’d paid more attention to all those scary folk stories about people who made deals with demons.
I could never imagine a situation where I’d be idiot enough to do it, so I never listened very closely.
That means there are appalling gaps in my knowledge.
What I do know is that playing host to a demon might give you all kinds of power or good fortune at first, but eventually it rots you from the inside out.
“How long will this task of yours take?” I ask. “How long until you undo the binding?”
“As long as it takes,” he says, his face unreadable as he murmurs into my mind, the words like the swish of silk against bare skin.
I shake my head, wishing the motion would throw him clear of my head completely.
“I know how it works with possession. Every time you…when you…”
His eyes gleam. “When I enter you?”
“Yes,” I say, flushing. It’s ridiculous to be embarrassed right now, and still something about the way he looks at me sends the blood rushing to the surface of my skin.
“Whenever I host you, you poison me, right? I don’t know how long it takes, but from what I’ve heard, eventually my body will start shriveling up or something. ”
He appears to weigh this up. “That’s true,” he agreed. “So I suppose you’ll have to help me as efficiently as possible,” he says. “After all, you can’t use that gold I’ve promised you if you’re dead. Consider it extra motivation.”
Maybe scavenging has destroyed my sense of self preservation, but once I realize just how royally fucked I am, my terror starts to subside even faster.
In its place, the hate I feel for this creature intensifies.
My anger doesn’t matter though. The situation is clear.
The sooner I get him whatever he seeks, the sooner he’ll release me.
And as long as I manage that in a few months—I doubt people would ever take the risk if possession killed them faster than that—I’m likely to survive.
I have to survive. Because it isn’t just about me.
I did everything I could to protect Evie before I left, but I thought I’d at least be in the same realm as her to make sure she was safe, to be certain she took the money I left her and got out of the house before Ada found out about the pregnancy.
I have to accept whatever route out of here I’m offered if I’m ever going to get back to her.
The demon seems to have realized I’m out of arguments. He steps toward me, the wind catching at his cloak so it dances behind him.
“Now if you don’t mind, I’m tired of standing out here on this rock.” As the cloak moves, so do those strange, flickering shadows at his shoulders. They condense for a second before expanding, unfurling into a set of large black wings.
That’s a neat trick. I’ve never seen a demon do that before. But then I’m rarely this close to them when they’re alive.
He holds out his hand once more, and when I hesitate, wondering whether to ask where he’s taking me, his gaze hardens. He’s out of patience.
An iron grip seizes my feet—unignorable for all that it’s invisible. My body is shoved a few steps toward him.
“I get the hint,” I mutter sharply in my head, gasping when he responds.
“Then move.”
Okay, so maybe if I’m not careful, I can accidentally speak to him without meaning to. I file that away as I force myself to get within reach of his outstretched hands.
He lifts me up against him, one arm around my back and the other under my legs.
I duck my head away from the breeze that hits as his wings begin to beat, unintentionally bringing my nose close to his chest. I think I was expecting him to smell like the battlefields—metal and burnt flesh and scorched earth—so I’m caught off guard then when I’m hit with the scent of something masculine and warm and, well, almost human.
I focus on that as we rise up from the ground.
I’m not afraid of heights. I’ve spent too much time clambering around the city walls for that.
But that’s hardly the same as being transported through empty air in the arms of a demon.
Still, a part of me reminds myself that I can’t afford to keep my eyes closed—that I need to gather whatever information I can about this new terrifying place I find myself in.
By the time I force my eyelids open, the ridge we were standing on is a dark line in the distance, and water stretches below us. It’s a lake, I think, but I don’t have long to examine it, as the demon banks and I catch sight of a castle nestled in the side of a mountain ahead of us.
The gnawing in my gut tells me I should be worried about this. Very worried.
Because I might not know much about Infernum, but it seems to me that grand building is exactly the kind of place a lord of Infernum’s four domains might reside.
“Who lives there?” I call over the sound of his beating wings, not wanting to invite him back into my mind. He answers there anyway, barely glancing down at me.
“I do.” I grip hard onto the edges of the robe I’m still wearing, trying to process this. Either this demon is a servant of one of the demon lords or…
I think of the power I can feel pouring off him even now. How terrified the sorcerers were when they realized they’d lost control of him.
“Is this your domain?” I ask, frightened enough of the answer that it’s easier to ask the question inside my mind.
“It is,” he answers as we dive toward the castle. “Welcome to Malice.”