Chapter 8
Ashmedai
When they reappeared in Nicolas’s dark bedroom, Ashmedai didn’t want to let him go.
His arms tightened around his human, one palm sliding up the length of his spine to press their bodies flush.
Nicolas sighed, melting into the touch, leaning in until his nose brushed the hollow of Ashmedai’s shadowed throat.
His soft breaths were warm and damp, and Ashmedai ducked his head to inhale the sweet scent of Nicolas’s hair.
Outwardly, he was calm, but frustration had claws in his stomach.
There were other things he couldn’t even identify.
Something squeezed his lungs. His chest hurt with a physical pain he’d never experienced before.
The thought of Nicolas leaving him to go back into the midst of people who had hurt him made all of the feelings worse.
He should be able to protect his human, but he couldn’t protect him there.
And if he couldn’t protect him, then he shouldn’t go there.
He shouldn’t go where Ashmedai couldn’t follow.
“Don’t go.” He didn’t mean to say the words, but there was no taking them back now.
Nicolas sighed, not moving. “I know you don’t like it, but I have to.”
“Why?” His jaw ached with the need to bite something.
“I have to help those kids.”
“Why?” It wasn’t his responsibility to protect those young humans. Why should Nicolas put himself in danger for their sake? Ashmedai didn’t understand.
Nicolas raised his head to frown up at him. “Haven’t you ever done anything for selfless reasons?”
That made no sense. Why would he? “No.” He pointed at himself. “Demon.”
Nicolas snorted. Ashmedai didn’t like the bitterness in the sound. “Right. Well, protecting people is what I do. Even when I’m no longer a paladin, I’ll still want to help people.”
“No,” Ashmedai said petulantly. “Dangerous.”
“Yeah,” Nicolas insisted. He tried to push Ashmedai away, but Ashmedai clung to him. “Sometimes I’ll do dangerous things if it means helping someone in need.”
He sank his claws into the back of Nicolas’s shirt. He couldn’t put himself in danger if Ashmedai didn’t let go of him. “But mine.”
Nicolas sighed, looking away. “Maybe. I don’t know how I feel about that.”
Maybe? Maybe? Ashmedai growled, leaning closer. Nicolas said he felt the connection between them, too. He couldn’t deny it now. Ashmedai needed to be inside Nicolas again, needed to remind them both of the connection between them.
But Nicolas planted his forearm against Ashmedai’s chest, arching his back not in pleasure but to create distance between them. It wasn’t right. The thing around his heart squeezed tighter, and no amount of growling scared it away.
“Let go. Ashmedai, let me go!”
Nicolas shoved him hard. It wasn’t enough to push Ashmedai away, but he released him anyway, breathing hard. Every exhale was a growl, feral with unanswered need. Why was his human pushing him away now? Ashmedai needed him. They needed each other. This felt wrong. Couldn’t Nicolas feel it, too?
Nicolas showed no signs of the pain Ashmedai felt.
His normally warm eyes were cold and flinty.
“Look, just because those guys think we’re fated to be together or something doesn’t mean that I can’t still make my own choices.
I’m not a piece of property you can control.
I’m going to do what I think is right whether you agree with it or not. ”
“But.” Ashmedai stopped, his hands opening and closing uselessly.
He wanted to grab on and not let go, but Nicolas wouldn’t like that.
He’d push him away again. What was he supposed to do?
How did he fix this? He didn’t know how to explain that Nicolas wasn’t a piece of property to him.
It wasn’t about control. It was about protection.
Nicolas needed to do the right thing—to Ashmedai, protecting Nicolas was the right thing.
It was the only thing that mattered. “Don’t like. ”
“I don’t care! You don’t get to order me around just because—” This time Nicolas was the one who growled, carding his fingers roughly through his hair. “You know what? I can’t do this right now. This is all too much for me. I can’t think straight with you here. You need to go.”
Ashmedai’s breath was falling faster now. “No. No.”
“Yes. I’m sorry, but you have to go. I need some distance. I have to get my head on straight. The last thing I need to be worrying about while I’m dealing with Sloan is you.”
“No,” he said again. “Please.”
For a moment, he thought Nicolas would waver, but then his expression hardened. With a fortifying breath, he said firmly, “Yes. I-I know how to find you now. When I’m ready, I’ll reach out. Until then, you should stay away.”
“No!” He stepped closer, and Nicolas flinched. Flinched. Like he was afraid of him.
Ashmedai stopped. He’d never felt so much like a monster. It used to amuse him, the way the souls in the Pit would cower when he approached. But he’d never wanted Nicolas to fear him.
His heart wasn’t squeezing anymore. It was ripping. Tearing. His human was afraid of him. He thought Nicolas saw beneath the strangeness, the horror, but Ashmedai was a monster after all.
He turned away, his lips peeling back from his teeth and a high-pitched scream of frustration, pain, and denial tearing from his mouth.
He’d never faced a problem he couldn’t kill or eat, but neither of those things would help him now.
He needed the words to tell Nicolas how he felt, but he didn’t have them.
Pushing any harder would just make Nicolas pull away even more.
There were absolutely no choices before him but obedience, no matter how much it hurt him to leave.
Unable to bear the weight of Nicolas’s refusal, he disappeared into the shadows.
He appeared in the dark apartment the Sentinels had given him.
Ignoring the cardboard box on the kitchen island, he went to the living room.
His claws gouged into the furniture, ripping into the fabric and spilling the stuffing.
He snapped wood, he tore cloth. He raked gashes into the wall and ripped doors from hinges.
Broke mirrors that showed him his own inhuman reflection.
He was a monster. What made him think he could have a soul as bright and beautiful as Nicolas?
He would only tarnish it. He couldn’t ever be what Nicolas needed.
He didn’t understand the way his human mind worked, and worst of all, he couldn’t protect him.
That was why he’d pushed him away. Ashmedai was too strange, too wrong, too monstrous.
All the while, his mind replayed those awful words.
Stay away.
Stay away.
Stay away.
He didn’t know how long he stayed there.
He didn’t sleep or eat. Time passed by without his acknowledgment, until the sound of a door opening and closing nearby caught his attention.
He didn’t bother to look over. There was nothing left for him until night fell and he could hunt again.
If he couldn’t have Nicolas, at least he could kill.
The Sentinels had asked him to stop killing paladins for a few days, but he didn’t care.
They were the only thing he wanted to hunt.
He would tear their whole institution down brick by brick, soul by soul.
Nicolas may never want him again, but at least he’d get some satisfaction from ruining the guild that had hurt him.
“What… What the hell happened in here?” a familiar voice asked, laced with shock.
“Stay back, my jewel.” Valac, the behemoth.
Ashmedai didn’t move, staring at the wall where he’d stopped when all the fight finally left him. There was no point in moving until it was time to hunt again. No point in any of it.
“What, why?” Julian asked. “We haven’t seen him in three days. It looks like some kind of fight happened here. He could be hurt.”
“There was no fight. This was Ashmedai’s doing.”
“What? Ashmedai, did something happen? Is Nicolas okay?”
Hearing his human’s name had a growl building in his throat. From the corner of his eye, he saw Valac step in front of Julian, blocking the sight of his bright, golden soul.
“Speak, Ashmedai.” Valac’s voice was threaded with steel.
“Sent me away,” Ashmedai snarled, his voice deep and animalistic. “Doesn’t want me. Doesn’t listen.”
“What? No, I can’t believe he’d do that,” Julian said, peering around Valac’s side. Good, kind-hearted Julian, who saw the best in people.
Ashmedai didn’t respond. His human didn’t want him. He would have to learn to cope with the pain in his chest.
“What exactly did Nicolas say?” Julian asked, trying and failing to push past Valac.
“Not my… property. Too much for him.” He paused, hating to voice the words that had haunted him so.
“Stay away.” He’d never wanted a human like this before, and he shouldn’t want this one now.
What kind of cruelty was it, to give him a taste of what they could have been only to rip it away when Ashmedai dared to let himself feel happiness?
He should have known better. He was made to kill, not to love.
“Oh.” It sounded as subdued as Ashmedai felt.
He was a monster. Monsters didn’t get to be happy.
“I’m sorry, friend,” Valac said. “I believe it will be a temporary separation.”
Ashmedai’s hands balled into fists, and he struggled to string longer sentences together.
This was one of the barriers preventing him from being with Nicolas, one of the things that made him more monstrous than the demons like Valac who had found happiness here on the surface.
“He could get hurt. I won’t be there… to help.
Behind the wall… can’t reach.” His words tapered into another growl, and he wanted to tear at his own hide.
He was no more than an animal. Of course Nicolas didn’t want him.
“You have to trust that he knows what he’s doing,” Julian said softly.
“Maybe he’s just being dumb right now by pushing you away.
Maybe it’s stress. It can be a lot, at first, to realize you feel that way about something you were taught to hate.
Plus, he has to look for the kids. He has to sell the lie that he believes the same as Sloan’s guys, right?
I assume that’s his plan, anyway. That’s why he didn’t want to tell us any details.
And if he’s coming home to the arms of a demon each night, it’ll be that much harder to lie to himself and everyone around him during the day. Give him time.”
Ashmedai didn’t want to give him time. He wanted to be with him now. Every moment he spent apart from him felt like razors embedding deeper and deeper into his skin. Nicolas was going to do an awful thing, and he expected Ashmedai to stay away while he did it?
He sagged. “Just go.”
Julian protested, but Valac urged him from the room, leaving Ashmedai alone. As he was meant to be.