Chapter Ten
Kara
The Devil returned to the table where he watched me expectedly, waiting for an answer. I stood in place, caught in a moment too heavy for words.
When I said nothing, he asked, “Did the boy outside the cell scare you so badly?”
Recovering, I walked to the table and sat beside him. “We both know that boy was you. The eyes gave you away.”
He hummed in amusement, rubbing his chin like he enjoyed the accusation more than he should.
My stomach grumbled again, betraying me, so I picked up the silverware and focused on the plate.
“Want to know something?” he asked, voice low and casual. But I felt the weight of his gaze burning into my profile.
I didn’t respond. I didn’t have to.
“The boy does exist,” he continued. “He slaughtered his family and half a town within a month before the villagers hung him. He lives in a similar Hell he put those people through, but only he’s being hunted—tormented by his reflection instead of doing the chasing.”
A shiver slid down my spine. I lowered the fork slowly.
“Why?” I asked, barely above a whisper.
“Why, what?” he murmured, his voice suddenly quieter too.
“Or maybe how is more like it,” I said, turning to look at him. “How could he do that to his family? Were his parents cruel? Was there a reason?”
The Devil tilted his head, something cold and ancient flickering in his eyes. “You’re trying to justify him.”
“No. I just want to understand.”
He leaned back and crossed his arms. “You assume cruelty is the only thing that births monsters. But sometimes evil doesn’t need a reason. Sometimes it just is.”
“That’s not true,” I said, almost to myself.
He arched a brow. “Isn’t it?”
I looked away, chewing my lip. I didn’t want to believe that. I didn’t want to believe someone could become that twisted without something breaking them first.
“You want the truth?” His tone sharpened. “That boy was born hollow. Nothing in him stirred when he hurt others. No love. No guilt. No pain. Just hunger.”
My throat tightened. “Hunger for what?”
The Devil leaned in, his voice like a blade slipping through flesh. “Control. Fear. Blood. It varies. But once it starts, it never ends. You of all people should know that.”
I didn’t answer. Because I did know. In my own way, I knew exactly what it meant to hunger for something deeper than food.
He sat back again, his voice returning to that maddening calm. “Enjoy your meal, Kitten. It might be the last peace you get for a while.”
A silver goblet appeared before the Devil. He picked it up and took a long drink.
“Eat,” he barked as he slammed the goblet down hard enough to make the table tremble. He scowled, as if the drink had offended him.
I stabbed my fork into a pile of meat and vegetables, shoving the whole thing into my mouth. The flavor was divine, and I couldn’t help the low moan that escaped me. Even with my curse muted in his presence, I still enjoyed food like the glutton I was.
“Is it to your liking?” he asked after my fourth—or fifth bite.
A soft swoosh-swoosh sound tugged my attention. His tail was dragging slowly across the floor behind him, moving in slow arcs. Almost like a dog wagging its tail.
If he was happy, I suddenly feared what I might actually be eating.
“Did you make it?” I asked, wary.
“I can create any type of food at will,” he replied. “And before you ask—I create. Reapers take from elsewhere when you materialize food or objects. That’s why you can eat here. Otherwise, there’s nothing.”
I glanced around, but the darkened corners gave away no secrets. There was no point in trying to familiarize myself with this place. He could shift reality at will. It was his world, not mine.
“So, you don’t eat?” I asked.
“There’s no point. I don’t need food to survive.”
“Still,” I said with a shrug, “food is good.”
His red eyes drifted lazily over me. “Because you’re a little glutton.”
“Your fault,” I muttered around a mouthful of roasted carrot.
He bared his sharp fangs in a grin. The expression wasn’t quite amusement—it was too sharp, too unreadable. For a fleeting second, I wondered if he had vampire tendencies.
Demons were just fallen angels, after all. Vampires, werewolves, ogres, witches—every cursed being came from the same cloth he did. But he was the head honcho, the root of it all. Could he be become whatever he wanted?
“I told you already. My sense of touch is gone. That includes taste.”
“I thought you meant, like, inside.” I tapped my chest.
He looked at me like I’d grown a second head.
“I guess you feel nothing in there, too, huh?”
The swoosh of his tail stilled mid-motion. He didn’t answer, but his jaw tightened as he looked away.
Okaaay.
I pressed my finger into his arm, watching closely to see if he reacted.
“Don’t test me,” he muttered, voice low and dark, but he still didn’t look at me.
“I thought you couldn’t feel anything.” I raised a brow. “You’re not even looking.”
His tail resumed its motion. The pace was faster and more agitated. “You’re like a book I’ve already read a hundred times. I don’t need to look at the pages to know what comes next in each chapter.”
Under my fingertip, the strange movement inside the cracks of his skin pulsed like something alive. I yanked my hand back. “So…what is that? In your skin?”
“Hell.”
“Really?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
His gaze finally shifted back to me, but it wasn’t the cold irritation.
For a blink, it looked …haunted. He rubbed his temple.
“Not everything has an answer. I’m what the darkness made me.
My skin moves like it’s alive because it is—it’s part of me.
I might be a keeper of evil, but I’m still flesh and bone. I suppose I am the darkness now.”
Another goblet appeared in front of me. Assuming it was for me, I knocked it back only to sputter as it burned its way down my throat.
“Oh,” he said flatly. “I forgot to mention it wasn’t milk.”
Ha. That must’ve been a kitten joke.
“Tell me,” I started, wiping my mouth, “is it uncomfortable to sit with a tail? Oh, Hades, wait—you can’t feel it. That explains so much. No wonder you’re the Dark One. I’d be crabby too if I couldn’t enjoy any of my sensations.”
He stiffened. “Careful.”
I blinked innocently. “What?”
“Do you wish to return to your cell?”
I arched a brow. “Wait… You mean I had another choice?”
“No.”
I shrugged, and then nearly dropped my fork when my chair jerked backward. One glance down, and sure enough, the tail had wrapped around my pants leg. Oh, Hades. I’d done it now. My heart responded with a bunch of pathetic ka-thumps.
“What’s wrong?” The Devil’s voice carried a patronizing edge. “You’re pale as a ghost. It’s almost like you’re afraid of something.”
“I’m not afraid. Just startled. A totally different thing. Happens when giant Hell appendages sneak up on people mid-dinner.”
The heat radiating off the Devil made him feel closer, but he hadn’t moved.
“That’s not why your heart’s racing.”
“I have random heart palpitations,” I said flatly. “Very sickly for an immortal.”
“You—” The Devil shot up from his chair.
I rose as well, instincts flaring. His tail smacked against my legs as he stormed away.
“Go back to your cell,” he snapped. “Someone is trying to visit.”
Hope flared inside me like the sun through cracks in a clouded sky. My family?
He stopped, turned, and stalked back toward me. “Don’t fight me.”
I didn’t. I couldn’t. That fragile hope rooted me in place. With one arm, he scooped me up beneath the thighs and slung me over his shoulder like I weighed nothing. He didn’t speak again as he carried me back and placed me into the cell. Then he was gone.
At first, I just paced. Let my thoughts catch up. Then, five minutes later, the full weight of what had just happened sank in. I had a normal conversation with my captor.
We talked—talked—like people who’d done so a thousand times before. The moment had been …pleasant. And that terrified me.
It didn’t change anything, not truly. One conversation didn’t rewrite history. But it felt like something had slipped loose—like a key had been pressed into a rusted lock somewhere inside me, and it was jiggling. Turning. Threatening to click open.
A flush spread from the roots of my hair to the tips of my toes.
A mistake. A tiny, passing thought. And yet it left a crack in something I shouldn’t have ever found the key to.