Chapter 18
Saer squinted his eyes open, took in a deep breath, and immediately wished he hadn’t. A sharp and unforgiving pain flared in his ribs while an agonized grunt trembled along his throat, and he shut his eyes again. “Hells.”
The word stopped as a pair of gentle lips touched his and Saer’s growl of pain turned to one of delicate surprise. Neyu’s elegant hand rested on the side of his face as she pulled back, whispering, “Kalia’s outside. We weren’t certain when you’d wake up.”
Her voice made all the aches and pains feel like well-earned battle scars.
Saer blinked his eyes open, this time without the deep breath.
Neyu appeared radiant, healthy—not a mark on her pale throat. With detached acknowledgment, he realized he’d been moved back to his bed in his living quarters. Nighttime insects chirped outside the window, enough light filtering in to recognize it was either early evening or morning.
“How do you look perfect while I feel like I’ve been chewed up and spit out?” Saer’s voice left in a hoarse whisper.
Neyu’s half-smile reflected his own arrogance. “We’re not sure. Kalia and I suspect it has something to do with your shift back into your human skin. We apparently heal faster in our natural form.” She slid a finger along Saer’s jawline. “And thanks. A lady could get used to being called perfect.”
“Don’t let it go to your head.”
“Ironic, coming from you.”
Saer rolled his eyes and tried to sit, flinched, and changed his mind with a groan. “Frenzied Hellsfire.”
Neyu reached under Saer’s shoulders, lifting him to sitting while he hissed through the agony.
Deep, albeit cleaned wounds and ugly bruises littered his pale chest and half of his abdomen where Ahraan had bit down, and he scowled.
Someone covered his lower half in a pair of linen trousers, but he remained shirtless from the waist up.
He took shallow breaths to stave off the pain. “How long has it been?”
“A day. It’s early evening.”
Saer shook his head and tried to rise. Neyu growled and stood with a restraining hand on his shoulder.
“It’s already been too long, Neyu. We need to strike while it’s still fresh in their minds.”
Neyu raised her perfect, onyx eyebrows. “Our victory over Ahraan is not something I suspect they’ll readily forget.”
With the vaguest of flinches, Saer grasped her palm, lifted it, and rose. “Humans live in the moment. Trust me.”
The door to Saer’s hut slammed open and Neyu jerked her palm out of his grasp.
Kalia stood in the frame, her glance darting from where their hands had been. “You’re up.” Plucking a plain linen top from the floor, she tossed it at Saer. He snatched it out of the air and winced, grabbing at his side with his other arm. “They’ve gathered. They want to see you.”
“They?” His jaw tightened as he shrugged on the shirt with care.
Kalia nodded. “Representatives from the village. Your followers.” She glanced at Neyu. “The ones who lit fires for us to heal our wounds.” Back to Saer. “And most of yours.”
Saer made a noncommittal noise as he considered. “Tell them to call a gathering at sunrise. I’ll meet with the whole town next to the platform’s wreckage.”
“The whole town?”
Saer met Kalia’s stare. “If they don’t come, tell them their good standing is forfeit.” Kalia remained in place as her flitting gaze moved between Neyu, Saer, then back.
A pinch of irritation wrinkled Saer’s brow. “Anytime, Kaliaspher.”
Blinking hard, Sloth nodded and turned towards the door. She touched the handle, glanced once more at Neyu, then left.
Neyu let out a breath and slumped down onto the bed.
“What was that about?” Saer murmured.
“She knows, Saer.”
“Knows what?”
Neyu let the silence speak for her while Pride worked it out.
“She know—she knows?”
The demoness rubbed her forehead. “We haven’t discussed it. She hasn’t said anything to me. Not out loud.” Her voice dropped. “Not with words.”
Saer couldn’t help his voice raising. “What in the Hells is that supposed to mean?”
Neyu made an exasperated sound. “It’s a human thing she’s picked up. I can’t explain it.”
“Try.”
Elbow on one knee, her temple propped on her fingers, Neyu’s mouth turned at a slant. “I have an instinctual feeling your being male will get in the way of that.”
“Excuse me?”
Neyu sighed and rubbed at her eyelids. “I need to talk to Saer. Not Pride right now.”
The pain in his ribs proved easier to ignore when bemused. “If you know she knows, make a suggestion.”
“I wasn’t completely certain until a minute ago.” Neyu frowned. “What do we do?”
Saer opened his mouth, closed it, then sat next to her. “We worry about one thing at a time.”
“What if she tells him we harvested together? He—”
No. He wouldn’t let anything happen to her. The gears in his mind churned as their path forward clarified. More than anything, Lucifer wanted souls.
They’d be able to continue together, right under their maker’s nose.
“Once the village’s souls are brought back, our maker will see firsthand the success of our working together.” He angled his body so he could meet Neyu’s sapphire gaze, but she kept her eyes to the floor. Pride took her palm within his fingers and gave it a squeeze.
“Neyu.”
The demoness lifted her gaze to Saer’s.
“I’ll take care of it.” he whispered.
Neyu’s grim expression persisted. “How?”
“I’ll return with the spirits. Our maker won’t be able to argue with the bounty, or that we’ve brought more success as a team than alone.
We can promise we mean to work together, nothing more.
” He could convince Lucifer. He knew he could, and he let that assuredness sing clear and true in his declaration.
Neyu worried on her lower lip. “Let me.”
A soft rumble preempted Saer’s denial, but Neyu touched her fingers to his lips. “He’ll listen to me. I’ve seen his shift in moods since your absence—you haven’t. Your plan is a good one, but I know how to speak to him. I can do it.”
Saer frowned, unable to argue, but not liking where she led him.
“Let me, Saer.”
Not alone. He couldn’t let her face It alone. “We go together.”
She shook her head. “If we’re together, he’ll know.”
Saer had thought the same thing for years, that if Lucifer witnessed him next to Neyu, It would know the place Neyu held in his heart. It was why he’d stayed out of the Hells altogether. His jaw worked back and forth. “If anything happens to you—”
“It won’t.” Neyu’s ocean’s deep gaze carried a blazing fire in its core, and a warm wealth of pride swept off her. “I’ll promise him more large harvests. He won’t get them unless we perform them together, and he can’t come to the surface to see us together.”
What she said made sense. Still, Saer held his tongue, unwilling to acquiesce.
“I’ll talk to Kalia and let her know it’s okay to say we were together, but she’s not witnessed anything else directly—it would be easy to refute, even if she voiced it. And she won’t.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Have you known Kalia to say anything that creates more work for her?”
Saer ran his tongue over his teeth. They had been careful. Beyond a glance or a handhold, Kalia had nothing else to say to prove their relationship, and Neyu was right. Sloth wouldn’t volunteer the information.
“This is how we stay together. No more hiding,” Neyu whispered. “Please.”
The plea cut him to the quick, and Saer swallowed past a tightness in his throat.
The way she looked at him, gaze entreating, unraveled his resolve like snowflakes disintegrated on the tip of one’s tongue. He inhaled deeply.
The one time he’d denied her, he’d been separated from his love for decades.
He couldn’t refuse her.
Saer offered a stiff nod and her shoulders slumped with relief. Hand lifting, he curled one of his fingers around Neyu’s right silver crescent, tugging gently down to its tip.
She allowed a soft growl to escape, warm rather than angry. Her eyes fluttered shut, frown deepening. “Stop that.”
“No.” The word he wanted to say in response to her returning on her own, but he repurposed it.
His fingers slid along Neyu’s collarbone and to the back of her neck.
She shivered against him, and it sped his heart as he slid his other hand behind her waist. Pulling her around, he half-lifted, half turned her until she sat with her thighs straddling his lap.
“Your wounds…”
He shook his head and touched a finger to her lips, tilting his head to her face. Opening his palm to curl it against her cheek, Saer coaxed her to lean down to him, to meet him halfway.
She didn’t resist.
Sunrise came, and Saer waited until its warmth wiped away the chill of night before making his move.
His ebony form soared several feet over the tallest head of the villagers gathered around the decrepit platform. Half-burnt and collapsed, only a corner remained untouched.
The chill of the desert night persuaded villagers to don extra layers for the meeting with their reestablished leader.
Women clutched woven shawls around their shoulders while most men donned their long-sleeved linen shirts.
Hundreds of humans, each ensouled body of the settlement, gathered to surround the broken stage, and Saer took them all in as he circled around.
Passing over the stage then curving back with an effortless angle of his wings and shift in weight, Saer landed on hoofed hind legs and one flat palm to balance his forward momentum on the last sturdy piece of the stage.
Silver horns, claws, and hooves caught the light of the sun, reflecting gleaming white and rich ochre.
He exhaled, stood to his full height, and scrutinized the humans staring with a mix of awe, respect, and fear.
Baring his maw of razor-sharp teeth at the villagers provoked a collective tremble.