20. Leah
Leah
He’s going to kill me.
Well, not literally. He told the lords he needs me, which is the only reason I haven’t actually been killed already. But I can tell from the way his magic gripped my muscles like a vise before he left—from the way his presence smoldered beneath my skin—that he’s livid.
I exhale a shaky breath, trying to calm myself. There’s nothing like being held at knife point to remind you of the importance of basic lung function.
I listen to the soothing sounds of Viz’s quill scratching away on parchment from where he still sits in the corner of the room. He pauses when he senses me looking at him, lifting his skull-like face, his sunken eyes gleaming.
“He’s going to kill you,” he says.
Goddess, can everyone in this damned place read my mind?
“I know,” I sigh, chewing my lip.
“I won’t bother asking you what you thought you were doing,” Viz adds.
“Syrus should’ve asked Triya to babysit you, but in his defense, he probably didn’t count on you being stupid enough to wander into the only lords meeting Malice has hosted for a decade.
” He underlines something with a few quick scratches.
“I didn’t wander in,” I correct him. “I was dragged in.”
He nods, as if he’ll give me that much. But that’s only because he probably thinks I wound up near that door by accident. And that’s because he doesn’t realize I knew exactly what was happening this afternoon—that I understood his and Syrus’s conversation last night.
Realizing I can understand Cyrax brought it all home. This—this link between Syrus and me, this fucked-up possession bond—isn’t just worming its way into my head and my body, making me do and feel things I definitely shouldn’t. It’s fundamentally changing me. And I can’t let that happen.
So I tried to listen in on the meeting in the hope it might give me some—any—leverage to help me get out of here. Whether it was something I could use against Syrus to get out of the deal, a way to sneak out of Malice, or—I don’t know what. But I needed to do something. I’m getting desperate.
I scratch the rash on my wrist already forming from where the demon’s blood splashed me. In a way, I’m glad to see the return of my allergies. They’re like an old, annoying friend in this strange place, in this body that’s less and less my own with each passing day.
It makes me think about something Lady Jing said.
“Viz,” I say, moving closer to him.
“Yes, mire rat?” he asks. The nickname feels almost playful now.
“What did Lady Jing mean when she said Syrus should be taking ‘the necessary precautions’?”
“You’d have to ask the Lady of Baine that, I suppose,” he says, not looking up from his paper.
“Viz,” I say sternly.
He tuts, rubbing a hand across his face, leaving a smudge of ink on his pale skin.
“Are you all right?” I ask.
“Yes. No. I just…need you to tell me something,” he says.
“Okay?” I blink.
“My mother could always get me to confess when I was lying about something,” he says abruptly. “She was an expert in psychological warfare, and she wasn’t above using it on her children. Try sitting through advanced interrogation tactics when you accidentally break your mother’s favorite vase.”
“That’s…interesting,” I say, confused by the sudden change in topic.
“It put me off mind games for life,” he explains. “So I’ll be direct and offer you a trade, mire rat. I’ll tell you what Lady Jing meant, and you’ll tell me how you’ve been kicking Syrus out of your head lately.”
“What? But I haven’t!” I protest.
He gives me a hard look, watching my face carefully. “Haven’t you?”
I cast my mind back to yesterday and think about that moment in the dance hall when I told Syrus to leave.
He did leave…but I just assumed he listened to me.
Though, come to think of it, why did I think that?
Why would he do something like that when he’s been nothing but an invasive, arrogant bastard about lurking in my head this whole time?
Could I really have succeeded in blocking him out without realizing it?
If I did, then there’s hope.
Viz is still looking at me expectantly, and I weigh up his offer. If Viz knows I’ve been blocking Syrus out, then the Lord of Malice definitely knows, so I can’t lose too much by admitting to it now, especially if I downplay it. It’s worth it to know what Lady Jing was talking about.
“I’ve been practicing,” I admit.
“Practicing what?” he asks, as if the answer will reveal some big secret.
I shrug. “Just…I don’t know…practicing. Sometimes I want a bit of peace,” I say. “So I’ve been trying to focus my mind and quiet it. It must be working,” I conclude.
Viz doesn’t say anything for a moment, clearly wondering whether to believe me.
“Come on then, your turn,” I say, hoping to wipe the suspicion off his face. The last thing I need is the demons realizing I’m still hoping to escape just when I’ve worked out how to temporarily block Syrus.
“They were talking about the necessary precautions to ensure your body isn’t destroyed by the possession,” he says matter-of-factly as he goes to pick up his quill again.
I gape. “I didn’t think we could protect ourselves from that.”
“Oh, there’s a way,” Viz says, not meeting my eye. “It’s just most humans don’t know about it.”
“And? What is it?”
“Ephilium blood. It counteracts the demonic energy so the host isn’t harmed.”
“But Syrus said he’s been taking the—”
“You’ve been taking it,” Viz interrupts. “In your juice at breakfast every morning.”
My hand goes to my throat as I remember that first meal when Viz smelled my drink, then the strange little exchange between Syrus and him when they asked me if I was feeling the effects of the possession. They were checking to see that the blood was working.
Maybe I should be horrified by the idea that I’ve been unwittingly consuming winger blood this whole time, but the flood of relief hits me too hard.
I’m not dying. I’m fine. I mean, aside from the fact that I can suddenly understand Cyrax and am having disturbingly inappropriate thoughts about the demon possessing me. But at least there’s no ticking clock counting down to my inevitable destruction like I thought.
Which means Syrus has been looking out for me.
I can’t deny this changes the angle from which I’ve been looking at my stay in Infernum.
This whole time I thought I was tied to someone who didn’t care that he was killing me, and now I learn it’s quite the opposite—he’s been making sure that being bound to him isn’t causing me harm.
But he let you believe it was.
The thought pops into my head, sharp and angry.
It snaps me out of my earlier relief, bringing me to my senses.
So he’s not actively killing me—that’s great.
But he was still fine with tricking me into thinking I could be slowly dying, just because it made me more motivated.
And he’s been deliberately hiding the truth from me in a glass of juice at breakfast every morning.
Suddenly, a lot of other stuff makes sense.
Like his willingness to postpone our return to Strata to train me instead.
He knew we had time, and sure, that’s less callous than what I thought was the case—that I didn’t have time, and he didn’t care—but it’s a close fucking second on the bastard scale.
“Are you all right?” Viz asks now, concerned. “You look like you’re going to chew your lip off.”
I release my abused lip from between my teeth. “I’m fine,” I say. “More than fine. Because it turns out I’m not being rotted from the inside out every time that asshole crawls into my head.”
Viz offers me a weak smile. “Silver linings, eh?” Then something sparks in his eyes, and his brow furrows. “Wait a minute, how did you know what the lords were talking about anyway? It was all in Cyr—”
“Bye, Viz,” I say, deciding I’m not sticking around to answer more questions. I’m certainly not waiting for Syrus to come back and berate me about eavesdropping. Not when I have just as much to be angry with him about.
That anger stays with me as I hide out in my room, practicing my mental boundaries.
If I can keep playing dumb about it until we go back to Strata, there’s a chance I can keep Syrus out of my head long enough to do something about the bond.
But this evening, I’m distracted by everything that’s happened in the last twenty-four hours.
I don’t understand what game the Lord of Malice is playing these days. Why tell me about his past but not about the ephilium blood? Why show me the garden and say nothing about the fact I managed to shove him out of my head a few hours earlier?
Sometimes it feels obvious I’m nothing but a puppet to him, a tool to be used to save his domain. Then others, I’m not so sure.
When night starts to fall, I go to sleep early. Syrus hasn’t yet tracked me down to punish me for interrupting the meeting, and if I’m asleep, I can at least put that delightful prospect off until tomorrow.
Except I don’t quite make the decision in time, because just as I’m getting up to change into my nightgown, I feel him. The caress of his presence drifts across my skin as he enters my mind. Goosebumps break out across my body, and I shiver.
I hate it, how much my body doesn’t hate it. The way it responds to this messed-up, unnatural connection between us not like it’s being invaded, but like a part of me is actually inviting him in. Eager. Wanting.
Whether intentionally or not, he always uses it to catch me off guard and unbalance me, and I wish I could turn the tables.
As his presence settles into my mind, a wild idea seizes hold of me. I have my back to the mirror, but without a word, I turn to look over my shoulder at my reflection. I feel him move behind my eyes, staring out of them so that I know I’m holding his gaze as I watch myself.
Without thinking too hard about what I’m about to do, I slowly lift my hands to the nape of my neck and begin to undo the lacing of my dress.
I feel him go still, a hint of uncertainty to the way he freezes in my mind. Then he touches along the base of my neck, the usual prickle of warning to tell me he’s there. He wants to make sure I know, that I haven’t somehow missed his presence.
But that’s why I’m doing this, staring resolutely into the mirror as I pull loose the first couple of fastenings, exposing a few inches of my bare skin.
I don’t quite know what’s come over me; I just know that I need to do something to take a little power back for myself—to show him that if he keeps turning up like this, I’m not just going to stand passively by.
This is a challenge, and I want to see how he’ll respond.
He says nothing as I untie the next few laces, pulling the fabric loose so my shoulder blades are exposed, the dusting of freckles over them standing out against my pale skin.
I spin fully around so I’m facing the mirror.
For a moment, I watch myself—watch him watching me out of my eyes—wondering if he’ll say something or leave.
He does neither, a hint of crimson flashing in my eyes as I stand there. So I continue, pulling the top of my dress down, shimmying the sleeves off my arms. Before I lose my nerve, I slide it down over my hips and step out of it, so I’m in nothing but my thin cotton shift.
Inside my head, there’s a sensation like fingertips tightening against flesh, gently digging into my mind.
I swallow, never dropping my gaze as I drag my own fingertips across the hem of my shift. It’s short, and it doesn’t take much movement for me to slide it up my thighs so there’s just a glimpse of my silk underwear.
The presence in my head tenses. A creature waiting to pounce.
A smirk forms on my lips as I drop the hem, sliding my hands instead up and over my stomach, to the fabric stretched over my breasts.
I feel a pressure against my consciousness, like Syrus is leaning forward, straining against a leash.
My nipples are peaked, the slight shadow of them visible through the light fabric. I trail my fingers across them, and the presence in my head makes a noise somewhere between a groan and a growl.
The sound rolls through me, traveling straight between my legs, and I squeeze them together, trying to contain the heat building there, just as a gasp emerges from my parted lips.
It’s overwhelming, having him inside me like this. There’s nowhere to escape to. No place to hide from the intensity, and no way to release it either. He’s like an itch beneath my skin I can’t scratch. It’s driving me crazy.
Maybe it’s that craziness that has me reaching for the straps of my shift, slipping them down across my shoulders.
Slowly, so slowly—to the point where the presence inside me twists with frustration, like an animal gnawing on its restraints.
Eventually, I let the fabric drop, exposing my naked body—the flushed skin of my breasts, the way my stomach moves with each fevered inhale and exhale, and the just-visible damp patch on my underwear between my thighs.
I don’t bother trying to disguise the evidence of my arousal.
There’s no doubt he can feel how turned on I am—my whole body aches to be touched.
I mostly hope he blames it on the bond, simply a reaction to the intensity of the magic between us.
Except I have to admit to myself that’s not all this is.
It can’t be. A very real part of me wants him.
A part that’s exhilarated by having him watch me as my imagination supplies all the delicious, devastating things he could do to me and how much I’d enjoy them.
But that doesn’t matter. What I want right now is for him to understand that I’m not some pet that only exists to respond to his beck and call.
If he’s going to keep pushing his way into my head unannounced, then I get a say in what he’s confronted with when he gets here.
And even if he likes what he sees—which he does, if the sound of him groaning in my mind is any clue—for once I’m the one who caught him off guard.
I’m the one who’s stunned him into ravenous silence.
For a brief moment, I get to show him I’m the one in control.
I let my fingers slide across the band of my underwear and almost laugh with delight when the presence inside me folds like he’s been brought to his knees. I can see my own smug grin as I shake my head, then turn away from the mirror, ripping that image of my naked body away from his sight.
I walk to the wardrobe, keeping my eyes firmly on the wooden door and the plain white nightdress I pull from it.
My message is clear: that’s all he’s getting of me.
I had him mute and frozen and unable to take his eyes off me.
For the last ten minutes, I’ve played him like a fiddle.
Now I wait, seeing if he’ll acknowledge any of it.
Maybe there’s even a small part of me—the part controlled by that hunger at my core—that hopes he’ll beg for more.
Would I give it to him, if he did?
It’s a dangerous question. So dangerous I’m relieved when I feel him slip from my mind without another word.