Chapter 14 #2
“Casiel?” She looked surprised. “Most certainly.” She wiped her hands on her apron and stepped aside. After a moment of checking outside, she shut the door behind him, turning to him with a worried expression. “Is he all right?”
“Where is Casiel?” a demon man demanded from a chair next to the fireplace. He had large wings pulled tight and the fangs that protrude from his bottom lip like Casiel. In that instant, Zarathos only gazed upon the worry on the demon’s face.
He swallowed, pushing any feelings he had over that far down. “You are part of the resistance.”
They both stiffened. “We don’t know what you are talking about,” the demon growled. His clawed hand tapped on the side of the chair with a sharp rap.
“Your son, Casiel, he and I often go fishing.” He lifted a lure from his pocket, setting it on the table.
He’d taken it off of Casiel’s pole before coming.
It had the bright red ribbon that he’d twisted together to look like a worm.
The same ribbon that was tied in his mother’s hair.
“Unfortunately, he is a bit more loose-tongued than his parents.”
Now genuine fear flashed across both their faces. “Where is he?” the woman demanded. The tapping of the demon’s claws on the wood increased.
Zarathos took a slow breath, fighting to keep any emotion from his face. “I can either turn in your son as being the child of conspirators, or you, the real culprits, can turn yourselves in.”
A silence fell over those present.
“Who are you, boy?” the demon snarled threateningly.
Zarathos lifted his chin. “What matters is if anything happens to me, your son will be turned in, unless you do something about it.” It was a bluff, but he sensed the parents’ worry for their son, and a part of him knew, if he pressed, they’d cave.
The mother wrung her hands and glanced at the demon male. Casiel’s father tapped his claws against the chair. It was intense, a warning of what he’d like to do to Zarathos—and would do if he found a way around the threat.
“We will comply,” the human woman said.
“We can’t. Think of the consequences.” The demon rapped harder, his wings spreading as he watched Zarathos with a hostile stare. “I say we crush this puny boy into the earth before he draws another breath.”
But the mother held firm. “It is our child. I won’t abandon him. I don’t care about the consequences.”
They glared at each other, but eventually the demon male folded, the air seeping from his lungs. His head fell forward, and he nodded.
The woman spun toward Zarathos. “We won’t accept this unless you make a bargain with us.”
A sad smile tugged at Zarathos’s lips. A bargain. Yes. He’d make a bargain with them, if only for Casiel’s sake. “Name your terms.”
“You guarantee that Casiel gets away unharmed, and we will turn ourselves in.”
“You will turn yourselves in as traitors and admit to your sins. And admit that it was I, Zarathos, that caught you and compelled you to confess,” Zarathos added.
The woman and demon man exchanged a glance. The woman nodded. “Deal.”
Zarathos reached into his pocket and brushed his father’s death threat with trembling fingers. Maybe he’d live through this. If this didn’t win his father’s approval, he had no idea what would. “Then let us seal the bargain.”
The world came slamming back into reality. Zarathos sought Aryana’s gaze. They stared at each other. Shit, it was his memories they’d dived into this time. But how?
He looked at the crimson pooling on the ground.
Of course. He’d revived her last evening.
Vampire bodies processed human blood instantly, but demon blood was different.
The blood she’d taken from Zarathos wouldn’t be processed as hers until two full rotations of the earth.
Which meant it was his blood running through Aryana’s veins.
She’d seen too much. Way too much. His heart beat in his chest. A feeling he hated more than all others coursed through him. Like a wolf holding its prey by the throat, but this time, Zarathos was the prey. “You… you... will never…”
“I won’t tell a soul,” Aryana said quickly.
“Good.” He rose, straightening his cloak. “At least you understand what kind of monster you are dealing with.”
She swallowed. “I do,” she whispered.
He turned away from her, unable to look her in the eye any longer. “Ernon, Mils.”
His servants appeared in the room. Because they were bound to him through a special magic, only they possessed the ability.
“Yes, master?” Mils said as they both bowed.
“Clean up this mess. You know what to do with the thread.”
They glanced at the blood pooled on the floor. “As you command, sir,” Ernon said.
Zarathos refused to look at Aryana as he reached for the door, though it was clear she hadn’t moved from where she stood. She probably was already planning in her head how she might use this against him.
“You will stay within my chambers, Vampress. If anyone gets a whiff of you being here because you left my room, it will be seen as violating our bargain.” That was a bit of a bluff.
He couldn’t just add things so wholly removed from the bargain itself, but there was enough of a gray area that she’d hopefully think twice about disobeying him.
And with that, Zarathos left her standing there in his tower.