18. Leah #2
I picture that tall, sculpted body over me, pressing against me. I imagine commanding hands on my hips and firm, full lips against my throat, setting my breath hitching. I let my knees fall open as I stroke myself, gently building the heat coiling inside me into a roaring flame.
A telltale prickle runs up my neck as a presence slides into my mind.
I gasp, yanking my hand from between my legs and pulling my dress down as a different kind of heat—a flush of pure mortification—rushes through me.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” I bark into my head, at the same time frantically shutting away the rest of my mind.
There’s a moment of terrible silence as he moves behind my eyes. I stare determinedly at the ceiling, hoping that if I give him nothing to look at, he won’t realize what he just caught me doing.
Then I feel him, a ripple of soft sensation passing through my body. I bite my lip. My embarrassment is stifling my arousal, but my nerve endings still feel raw as he shifts beneath my skin.
“I was checking to see if you’d finished.” His voice is a low growl, vibrating through me.
“Finished with what?” I choke.
“I wanted to make sure you were done wasting your time playing demon dress up. That Asterim hadn’t filled your mind with nonsense that made you forget why you’re really here.”
He sounds…annoyed. And that, in turn, sparks my anger too.
“How dare you,” I snap.
“Excuse me?” he says, his presence coiling like a snake ready to strike, yet I can’t find it in myself to care. Just now, I’m too drunk, too humiliated to hold myself back.
“How dare you march into my mind to lecture me, like I could EVER forget why I’m here.”
Except I had, hadn’t I? Just for a few hours, I’d been someone else, without a care or responsibility.
For a few hours, I felt the shackles come off.
I felt free. But it was just an illusion.
And now he’s come to ruin it all for me.
I leap up from the bed, as if that will somehow shake him loose from my body.
It doesn’t, of course, and I settle instead for pacing back and forth.
“Perhaps you haven’t, but it’s obvious you’ve forgotten who you’re talking to,” he snipes back. “You need to be careful. Don’t let your head be turned by what you think Malice has to offer.”
I stop in front of the mirror, staring into my own eyes so he can see my outraged face as I’m talking to him.
“You’ve got to be joking,”
“I’m not,” comes a voice from the doorway.
I whirl around to see him there, arms crossed and glowering.
“You.” I give his presence a hard shove inside my head, just like in the dance hall, and he actually responds. I feel him retreat from my mind, but his expression is dark as a thundercloud waiting to break.
“You’re the one who brought me here to Malice,” I say aloud, laying emphasis on every word.
“Yes, and as long as you don’t get distracted, you’ll get to see Strata again, so maybe focus on that—on what’s really important—next time Asterim suggests you go dancing.”
I shake my head. “You’re insane. You force me into this deal keeping me in Infernum and then—” I stop, my alcohol-fueled brain slow to connect ideas.
I’m missing something here—a piece of the puzzle Asterim didn’t give me, one that explains at least some of his annoyance about me having my “head turned” by Malice.
Because he’s not insane. I believe that. So there must be an explanation.
“Is there a reason you don’t go to Strata?” I ask. “I mean, I know there are rules about how long a demon’s allowed to stay, but—”
“It has nothing to do with the Concords’ fine print,” he says sharply. Then, like my one, simple question has suddenly drained all the fight out of him, he turns to go.
“Wait,” I say. I find my feet following him to the door, even though there’s no magic controlling me this time. “Is it because it’s too painful? You know, after having to leave…like that.”
I watch the shadows of his hidden wings dance as he stands on the bridge, his back to me.
“So Asterim told you about my past life,” he says.
“Yes. No. I mean, I worked some of it out myself,” I say, trying not to dump her in a heap of trouble.
He releases a humorless laugh. “No, it’s not that it’s too painful,” he turns to face me. Just like Asterim in the dance hall, there’s something warring on his face. He drops his eyes, running a hand over his face. “I can’t go to Strata.”
I wrinkle my nose. “What do you mean? We’ve been there together.”
“Think about it, Leah,” he says. His voice is harsh, but I sense the anger isn’t for me.
“Use that quick brain of yours. When those sorcerers summoned me, they could do so because the ritual only required part of me—my power, my presence, but not my body. Why do you think I’m never out there with the soldiers on the plains, despite having fought in many battles as a human king? ”
He takes a step forward, his hands dropping, open-palmed at his side. It’s an odd gesture. Imploring. “Why do you think I need you?”
“Ajax found a way to shut you out of Strata,” I guess, and when he gives me a small, pained smile, I know I’ve hit the mark.
He wanders to the edge of the bridge, staring out over the castle walls to the mountains of Malice in the distance. I hold my breath, worried that if I make a sound, he’ll remember he doesn’t owe a puppet like me any shred of explanation.
“He wanted me to be the perfect demon lord,” he says.
“The ideal heir. For that, Ajax needed me to keep my memories. After all, an experienced ruler isn’t much use if he can’t remember what it’s like to rule.
He found a way for me to keep them and to perfect me before I made my journey to Infernum.
To make me the strongest, the biggest, and the most powerful.
” There’s such venom in his voice, he sounds disgusted with himself.
“What I didn’t realize was Ajax was making a cage of my body too,” he continues. “He was afraid that if I still had my memories when I rose from the lake, I’d run home the first chance I got. And he was probably right.”
He glances at me, a spark in his weary eyes.
“After all, escaping and returning home was your first instinct too.” He looks back toward the mountains.
“Certainly, he knew I’d never be able to truly focus on being the Lord of Malice if I still had one foot in my old kingdom. So this body cannot enter Strata.”
“And you hadn’t seen it since…?”
“Since I died. No,” his hands grip the side of the bridge, knuckles white. “I put the human realm out of my mind. Ajax hadn’t been exaggerating about needing an heir fast. He died a few years after my rising, and I got on with things. Until…” He drops his hands, looking over at me.
Until he felt a summons tugging him to Strata, and he got curious, apparently. He answered their call because he couldn’t resist the temptation of seeing his home realm again. And when he got there, he found me—a golden opportunity.
Maybe a few weeks ago, I might’ve thought that’s all it was.
That he simply saw in me a chance to return to the realm he’s been locked out of for so long, but after my conversation with Asterim, I think I understand him more.
My guess is that what brought him to Strata was a personal, heartfelt want, but it was his duty that made him stay.
He couldn’t pass up the chance to deal with the threat to the Morphos himself, not when he takes his role as lord so seriously.