Chapter 21
Raiya awoke to the sound of gentle birdsong.
Heavy, warm arms enclosed her. She was tucked against Azreth’s body beneath the blanket he normally wore, comfortable and secure. Tilting her head, she blinked up at him sleepily. He was already awake, of course.
“Are you well?” he asked.
She curled her body into a smaller shape against him. He radiated heat, but the air was frigid. She felt a twinge of soreness between her legs. “Yes.”
“You’re cold,” he observed. He got up, wrapping the blanket around her before he left. She shivered, her breath clouding in front of her.
Azreth piled fallen wood together and then lit it with a wave of his hand. Fire burst from his palm and quickly blazed high, eating through the wood and casting out waves of heat.
“Thank you,” Raiya said, moving close to the fire.
He picked up a rather large log and dropped it beside the fire, making the ground shudder beneath her feet, then gestured for her to sit. She did so gratefully, and he sat beside her. She peered over at his bare chest, aghast. There were still dark marks wrapping around his arm and torso where the iron had touched him. She put her hand to the marks—slightly raised patches of discolored skin. They were subtle, but they were there.
“Does it hurt?” she asked.
“No.”
That was hard to believe. “What does the iron do to you, exactly?”
“The burns alone cannot kill me.”
“But it weakens you? And causes you pain?”
“Yes,” he admitted.
That was almost worse.
He leaned down. She was surprised when he lowered his mouth to hers and carefully, gently, kissed her. By the uncertain way he moved, she was sure it was the first time he’d kissed someone, but evidently he’d liked it enough when she’d done it to him that he wanted to try it again.
“Thank you for coming back for me,” he said.
She gave him a wobbly smile. “I’m sorry for what they did to you.”
He exhaled softly, glancing at her shoulder again, as if checking how it was healing. His expression darkened. “I should not have done that to you. I will not do it again.”
“I’m not hurt.”
“You screamed in pain.”
She raised an eyebrow, giving him a suggestive glance. “I was… surprised. I told you: I am not weak.”
He gave her a long, thoughtful look.
“I’m curious,” she said. “Is this common among demons? Have you… bitten someone before?” She imagined his previous couplings, and she mentally recoiled. Thinking of his hypothetical previous lovers was unpleasant.
“I think it is common. But I haven’t done it before.”
She frowned. She hadn’t expected that. “Do you only have the urge to bite mortals, then?”
“No.” He was being evasive, not looking back at her.
“You don’t want to tell me.”
He lifted his gaze cautiously. “No. You can ask me whatever you want.”
She smiled. “So?”
He took a long moment to organize his thoughts, staring at the fire. “Others have done it to me,” he said finally, turning to show her his back. There were scars on his shoulders and the back of his neck that she had noticed before but only now realized were bite marks. “These were put here when others subdued me and fed from me.”
Raiya’s eyes widened. She had known he had suffered in the hells, but seeing this evidence of it on his body made her want to do terrible, violent things to whoever had put those marks there.
She swallowed her outrage. “Haven’t you—surely there are times when demons make love consensually?”
“Yes, sometimes. If it’s agreed upon as a mutual exchange of energy. But my people never truly trust each other. It’s done quickly and fearfully and we hurry to part ways before one of us can turn on the other. There is no passion.”
“And that thing you did to make me… more receptive?” she asked. “What was that?”
His expression dulled. “It’s a simple magic to help a receiver ready themselves. Most of my kind know it.”
Raiya’s skin crawled. It made sense. Apparently, it was common for people in the hells to be forcefully prepared for intercourse.
“It will not hurt you,” he said, “and it will not alter your thinking or make you desire anything you did not desire before. It only opens your body. But I deeply regret using it without your permission.”
“It’s fine.”
“No, it isn’t. You should be angry, Raiya. You should not allow anyone to treat you poorly. You should have struck me. I have betrayed you, just as your husband did.”
“You’re nothing like Nirlan. You would have stopped if I asked.”
He was still frowning. “If I had hurt you, would you tell me?”
She smiled ruefully. “You know, Nirlan would always get angry when I told him he’d hurt me.”
“Why?”
“He didn’t want to be reminded that he is the sort of person who hurts people.”
“When you first freed me from Nirlan’s dungeon, you said that you didn’t care if I killed you, as long as I killed him as well.”
That seemed so long ago now. She’d been so desperate. “That was the truth.”
“You were brave to sacrifice yourself in order to destroy him.”
She wrinkled her brow. “It was suicidal, not brave.”
“I disagree. You were strong, even at your weakest.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “I still owe you a death. When we find a way to remove this curse from my hand, I will kill him.”
She felt a rush of excitement and apprehension at the idea of destroying Nirlan, of turning all the pain he’d inflicted back on him. She had a blood thirst. It was probably what had drawn her to Azreth in the first place.
“You know,” she said slowly, “we could just leave the binding alone. As long as it’s incomplete, I don’t think it will harm you. If you keep away from Nirlan, you could just ignore it.”
The glow of his eyes intensified, but his voice was calm. “I don’t want to keep away from him. I want to tear out his backbone so that he will be as spineless in body as he is in spirit.”
She smiled. “I will keep working on it.”
“Please do.”
The fire went out, reduced to embers. She shivered.
“We must find shelter for you,” Azreth said.
Shelter,he said, as if he was accustomed to living in the rough. She wondered if he was imagining a lean-to or a cave somewhere. “We need to go back to civilization. I can’t just wander the wilderness.”
“Why not?”
“I just can’t. Nobody does that.”
He frowned. “There are too many people in the cities. Here, away from others, we are safe.”
She actually considered it. In a way, being alone with him, far away from cultists or Paladins or any of Nirlan’s minions, was tempting.
“I’ve lived shut away in a castle for the better part of a year. I want to be a part of society. I want to see other people. I left Nirlan so that I could grow, not so I could go back to the same miserable life I had.”
Azreth conspicuously said nothing. She realized that she’d forgotten something obvious: he was thinking of himself, too, not just her. He was destined for a life of isolation if he remained on the mortal plane. She might be able to return to civilization, but he never could.
“Do you still have your glamour?” she asked.
He held up his hand. The bracelet was on his wrist, its tiny runes glowing faintly. The glamour would allow him to change his appearance as much as he wished, as long as he had the magic to power the enchantment. It would protect him well.
“I’m not going to ask you to return to the hells,” she said, “and I’m not going to leave you. But things aren’t going to be easy for you here, no matter how many enchantments we have.”
Something passed behind his eyes as he looked at her. He nodded solemnly. “I understand.”
He reached behind him to pick up her baton, which must have fallen from her belt at some point during the night. “Make it stronger,” he said. “Make a weapon worthy of your hand. I will provide however much power it requires.”
Raiya took the baton from him. The greatest limitation on enchantments was the amount of magic energy required to power them. But with the amount of magic a demon could generate… there were few boundaries on what she could create.
“Before we do anything else, you must arm yourself properly,” he said. “Finish your weapon, and then we will do as you wish and—” he frowned with distaste, “—go back to civilization.”
She clutched the baton to her chest, already smiling as she thought about how she would modify it. “Thank you.”
“We are allies,” he said simply.
“No,” she said, and he looked up at her suspiciously. “Allies are merely people with a common goal. You are a friend to me, not just an ally.”
She hoped he would voice his agreement, but he just frowned, contemplative.
She got up to put her back to the smoldering embers, studying him. “You know, there was… one other thing I was curious about,” she said awkwardly. “About last night.”
“Yes?”
“You… finished inside me. But I didn’t notice any… ah… remnants, afterward.”
He tried to parse that for a moment, then said bluntly, “What?”
Raiya pursed her lips. “You know that in order for mortals to procreate, a man must… plant his seed in a woman.”
To her astonishment, Azreth still showed no recognition whatsoever. She hadn’t thought she’d ever end up giving a sex education lesson to a demon, but life was full of unexpected turns, wasn’t it?
“It’s… sort of a fluid?” she said. “When a mortal male climaxes, his body releases his seed into the woman’s womb.”
“Oh.” He arched an eyebrow. “No. I don’t have that.”
“Strange.”
He seemed faintly amused. “I’m strange? I would argue that your ‘seed fluid’ is strange.”
“Fair enough.”