Chapter 11
At the perimeter of the settlement, a handful of abandoned huts lay in various stages of decay. Saer fingered the leaves spilling off one of the roofs, denser but skinnier than the ones from Ruki’s village. The thought snagged his lungs, realizing he might never see it, or Ruki’s people, again.
He ducked inside and rummaged to find a pair of thin, dusty blankets woven from animal fur.
His throat tightened. Ruki had offered him a blanket on his first arrival to the surface.
Humans preferred to cover pieces of themselves, particularly those specific to reproduction.
While Saer possessed the anatomical parts, he’d never given them much thought during his time with Ruki’s tribe.
He’d never even told Lucifer about them—it must have been Arek.
Here with Neyu, a different yearning came from his human body.
Could their maker have possibly known their flesh would crave intimate touch like humanity seemed to? Hellsfire, he could only imagine the Twins realizing and indulging—
“What’ve you found?” Neyu’s voice broke him from his thoughts.
Saer lifted the blankets and pivoted towards her. “Some form of clothing will keep them calmer.”
Neyu put a hand on her hip, pulling attention to its delicious curve. “You think I’ll send them into unrest like this?”
Saer gripped the blankets so tight, his knuckles ached. He cleared his throat, though his voice still rose rougher than normal. “Undoubtedly.”
Something wicked and delighted gleamed in her desert bluebell eyes. Neyu stepped forward, her hips swaying in the most distracting fashion possible, and her voice lowered. “Then you’d best dress me up.”
Hells help him.
Not trusting his voice any longer, Saer shook the first blanket out and snugged it around his waist as quick as he could manage.
The instant he finished, he grabbed the second, then closed the distance to wrap it around her torso.
The edge of his palm brushed the side of her breast, and her breath caught, drawing his gaze to hers.
Saer hadn’t meant their skin to touch, but something about the contact shot like a lightning bolt through him, and he was suddenly all too aware of how near they stood.
“Was that…?” He didn’t even know what he intended to ask, letting the sentence trail off, but Neyu smiled at him, and his focus narrowed to her lips.
“I think I’ll quite enjoy the surface with you, Dearest,” she whispered.
Dearest.
Saer swallowed and worked his fingers in slow motion, wrapping the blanket the rest of the way around her body, then tucked one corner at her back, next to her shoulder blade for security. The majority of her shapely legs would remain on display, but it would suffice.
This close, his breath caressed the silver crescents framing her face, and they shuddered.
Shouts from behind broke the spell. Neyu blinked, turning towards the first humans she’d ever encountered.
It had taken Saer years of observation to blend with humanity.
Neyu pulled away and walked towards them as though she knew them. What could he do but follow?
The people Saer and Neyu approached held startling differences and similarities to humans he’d encountered before. Their flesh closer resembled Runeak’s human form—a deep, dark brown. They spoke a language not at all related to the one Saer learned from Ruki’s tribe.
But the languages of pride and lust were universal.
Two peripheral guards whistled at one another and approached them. A hungry glaze overtook their expressions, and a sense of protectiveness drew a growl from Saer’s throat. Neyu shot him a look of warning. “I’m pulling on them, as you taught. Let me work.”
He hated and admired her brazenness when she stepped away, her pull guiding them beyond the village’s eyesight.
The pair of soldiers didn’t spare him a glance, but elbowed one another as they leered at Neyu.
One mimed a lewd gesture on his wooden spear, a motion Saer recognized from young men in his time with them.
Hands balled into tight fists, Saer reinforced his stance to keep from ripping their faces off their skulls. A small, inner voice, under his rage, questioned the ferocity of his reaction when envy didn’t belong to him.
But, envy didn’t discriminate. Nor did any of the other sins Lucifer sculpted Its creations from.
Neyu’s fingers moved in a rolling, sinuous pattern as she pulled on the men’s lust, raising it to a boiling point until both their jaws slackened. Their pupils dilated as they reached for her.
In two steps, perhaps three, Saer could have put himself between them and Neyu. He bared his teeth and rooted himself in place.
One groped forward, his hand nearing her breast, and Saer couldn’t hold back his barking growl.
It left him the same moment Neyu’s hand snapped up, gripping the man’s wrist with her Daemoenic strength.
The man cried out in alarm and twisted, but the demoness held fast, turning her glared focus to Saer. The other male froze, suddenly unsure.
“Settle yourself, Pride,” Neyu said, the calm antithesis to his fury.
Saer couldn’t find words. He snarled and twisted away, raking both hands through his hair before curling them on the nape of his neck.
Sounds haunted his back as Neyu resumed her course, a man’s gasp, a pleased chuckle from her throat, then a trembling, male cry.
The feel of his own sin increased, originating from the males.
As Neyu fueled their lust, pride also rose off the men, a link he hadn’t anticipated, but made perfect sense.
Saer’s fingers ached from squeezing so hard.
“Hellsfire.” Had he been a fool this whole time?
Was he just the first imbecile to succumb to her wiles?
The way the human men looked at her, begging to touch her without words—wasn’t that how he felt every time he found himself near her? How he’d felt mere moments before?
The pride scorched from the two men, searing into his shoulder blades.
A groan met his back, something between pleasure and agony.
Screaming, Saer whirled and pulled on what was meant to be his. His hands clenched the air between him and the trio, and yanked back. He siphoned the men’s pride with reckless ferocity—a metaphysical and physical wrench.
The males whimpered and fell to their knees. Still clothed, all of them.
It didn’t matter.
Saer drowned himself in their pride, ate it up, stole it from their cores, and forced them into a state of utter worthlessness and self-loathing, even as lust crashed through their bodies. Until that moment, he’d known he could stoke pride, but never siphoned it.
He gave the sin one final jerk, and the men sobbed, prostrating.
Saer’s venomous glare darted to Neyu at the sound of her disapproving growl. “Release them, Pride.”
“You don’t command me,” he said, the words grating.
“Release them, Pride.”
The males wept, shuddering and pathetic, on the ground.
Saer severed his hold on them and turned with a hiss of disgust, unwilling and unready to digest more of Neyu’s disappointment.
He put as much space between them as he needed to quiet any further sounds they made. And while he did escape her reproach, he couldn’t distance himself from the persistent bitterness at the back of his throat.
Saer found a tree to lean against, putting its broad trunk between himself and the trio he’d left behind, the village all but forgotten. His anger seethed, scalding enough that he wondered why the tree didn’t catch flame. Wrath burned inside his chest, different from Hellsfire, but no less deadly.
Hours passed.
The sun continued its arc over the clear, blue sky, heating the atmosphere enough for Saer to draw minuscule comfort. His eyes unfocused while staring across the endless plains, enmeshed in his thoughts and agonizing, in silence, over what he couldn’t see or control.
A layer below that agony, he brooded on why he fretted in the first place. He’d witnessed jealousy amongst humanity but never experienced it with the same ferocity. Wisps of possessiveness struck him now and again, but never to this degree.
Until today.
Until that man moved to touch her like he held a claim to her. Thieving the moment from them. From him.
Again and again, the scene played in his mind. Saer unleashed another wordless scream and slammed his fist into the tree he leaned against.
“Does it help?”
He hadn’t heard her approach. Hadn’t been aware of any of his surroundings.
Saer released an aggravated breath and turned towards Neyu’s voice as she moved next to him.
She still wore the blanket from before. It didn’t look touched from when he’d wrapped her in it, but he couldn’t bring himself to gain any solace from the observation.
Hellsfire, she was beautiful.
He pushed the thought away, hidden behind his glare. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
She didn’t appear pleased while assessing him. “Punching structures that can’t fight back. Do you feel better?”
Saer scowled and tore his gaze away from her in answer.
“Saer—”
“What?”
Neyu paused as though reanalyzing her approach. “Why are you angry?”
“I’m not.”
“Hrm.” The small sound carried a hint of wry amusement, and Neyu’s bare feet crunched over the grass, drawing nearer. One of her hands rested on the trunk of the tree. Her other reached up to brush along one of Saer’s silver crescents and his heart squeezed at the gesture.
“Talk to me, Dearest,” she said, voice soft.
Saer growled behind his clenched jaw and leaned away from her touch. “We’re here to perform a duty. You are doing so. Our maker will be pleased.” The words left him in a deadpan voice. He refused to meet her eyes.
Neyu’s hand paused, then lowered to her side. “I don’t care about pleasing him right now.”
Something both terribly wrong and right resonated within Saer at her declaration. Tumultuous, the same as everything else he’d felt since observing her alongside humanity.
“Are their souls with you?” Saer asked.