Chapter Forty
Vhaena
SEVEN
The sound of something hard and wet slapped onto the ground in front of me, making me flinch awake. My body was cold, missing Daemon’s warmth. We’d stayed in the cave and waited out the storm, and I vaguely remembered falling asleep on his chest with his arms around me.
But now, he was standing in front of me at the edge of the overhang, drenched.
Except the rain had stopped hours ago… He looked like a monster—something dark and thick dripped from his clothes, pooling on the moss-covered floor.
My eyes flicked from his feet to his masked face as I sat up on my elbow.
“Good morning,” I said warily.
“It is a good morning.”
“Why are you masked again? I thought we were done with that.” His horns were gone, too, and I wondered if they emerged like his claws and fangs.
“I still can’t let anyone else see me. In the event another woman survives the Hunt, she could out me, and I’d have a mob of humans coming for my head if the Ministry doesn’t kill me first.” He started to pull down the metal, but I stopped him.
“Wait.” I rubbed my eyes making sure I was seeing correctly.
One. Two. Three… Seven.
“Am I going crazy, or— No. I know you didn’t have seven slashes before.” I braced my arms on the ground to get up, and my hand touched something hard, wet, and sticky. “Ugh! What is that?”
He chuckled and pulled down his mask, the fabric letting it hang around his neck while the metal rested against his chest.
“The slashes change each day based on what circle of Hell each demon belongs to. Each day, they get a new slash until they’ve reached their circle. It’s why the Hunt lasts seven days, for the seven circles. The higher the circle, the more powerful you are in your demonic ability.”
“Like, you gain a more powerful ability?”
“Not necessarily.” He shook his head. “It just means we’re stronger with that particular ability than someone else would be at a lower circle.
Take the demon with roots for instance. He was likely at a lower level and could only control smaller plants versus someone with the same ability at a higher level who could control the roots of the largest trees just as easily. ”
“So you’re in the seventh circle?”
He glanced down at his mask, noting the blue slashes. “It appears so. But I knew that last night when my horns emerged.”
“And that means…” It was an open-ended question.
“It means your boyfriend is very powerful, and I automatically get a place in the Umbra Ministry.”
“Boyfriend?”
“Would you prefer lover? Betrothed? Demon-friend sounds weird, and I’m not your husband. Yet.” He shrugged. “Regardless, you’re mine, and I’m yours. I don’t know what to call that.”
“Yet?! What do you mean— You know what? Never mind. We will be revisiting the “yet” later.” He winked at me. “Can this powerful Ministry-placed demon-friend of mine please tell me what in the hells that is?”
He narrowed his eyes. I pointed to the lump oozing something onto the moss.
He glanced at it for a moment before meeting my questioning stare. “Proof.”
My brows raised. “Of?”
“My vow.”
I waited for him to continue then prodded when he didn’t. “I don’t know what that means. How is that—whatever it is—proof of your vow?”
The side of his mouth curved into a wickedly pleased smirk. He bent down and grabbed a piece of the lump, holding it out for me to see.
My eyes widened when I saw slashes through the blood covered metal.
It was a mask, cracked, bent, morphed, and dripping with blood. He nudged the lump with his boot, spreading it out and showing that there were multiple as they clanked together. All with different colored slashes.
He dropped it back onto the pile and hooked a finger under my chin, closing my mouth—I hadn’t even realized it had fallen open—and placed a kiss on my lips.
“I promised to keep you safe. You planted the seed the other day, and now, I can’t stop it. I won’t stop until every danger to you is eliminated. For you, I’ll kill them all.”
I swallowed when he turned to grab my shoes. I took a step away from the pile of blood-soaked masks. There had to be at least ten of them. I looked at all the colors—from white to teal to maroon—but the only color missing was the one I was searching for.
“What about the other blue mask?” I asked when Daemon handed me my shoes, and I slipped them on.
He stiffened. “I’ll make sure he won’t hurt you.”
He was short in his response, and it felt as if he wasn’t saying everything there was to say. Like he was holding something back.
“We need to keep moving. Now that I’ve killed so many, other demons will have figured it out and probably want to kill me before I kill them.
I don’t want them finding us holed up here.
We need to move farther toward the mountain.
They were all still on the other side of the river, so I’m hoping it’ll take them long enough to find us that the Hunt will be over before then.
” He put his hand on the small of my back and ushered me out from underneath the overhang, leading the way through the trees.
“So you put a target on your back, potentially endangering me further? And that’s why we can’t just wait here another day?”
His jaw tightened. “Yes…”
“That seems very…impulsive of you.”
“My demon’s thirst for blood isn’t always premeditated. And now that he’s been unleashed, it’s harder for me to rein him back in when he craves. So yes, I went across the river and slaughtered a bunch of demons for more than one reason.”
“You went all the way across the river and back?”
“I’m a lot faster when I’m not waiting for you to keep up,” he chuckled.
I rolled my eyes, and when doing so, I caught a glimpse of the raven, Wingnut, in the trees.
“Still?” I muttered under my breath.
“Still what?”
I gestured to the bird. “He’s still following me.”
“Ah. Yeah, about that. Since I’ve already revealed myself to you, I might as well tell you…” He flicked his hand toward the raven, and it flew off.
“How’d you do that?” My brows furrowed.
“I uh…let go,” he mumbled.
“Huh?”
He cleared his throat. “I let the raven go.”
I stopped and tilted my head.
He took my hand in his, pulling me forward again. “We need to keep moving, but I’ll answer every question you have.”
“What’s your ability, Daemon?” I narrowed my eyes on him while I picked up the pace to match his.
He took a deep breath. “Possession. I can take over the mind and body of others.”
“Like ravens?” I breathed.
He nodded.
“You control ravens?”
“I can, yes.” He nodded again.
I made some sort of inaudible sound before finding my voice again. “All of them?”
“I could for the ones in the vicinity, but I don’t.” He shrugged, like this wasn’t something mind-blowing. I supposed, for a demon, it probably wasn’t.
Neo…
My lungs sucked in a gasp. “You sent Neo, didn’t you?”
Another nod and without an ounce of shame.
“Why? Is it only ravens? And what about that asshole?” I gestured to where Wingnut once was. I thought for a moment. It wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility that Daemon also had some kind of life-giving ability or something. “Is that Neo?”
“No, it’s any animal so far. And no, that’s not Neo.”
I raised a questioning brow.
“Just another raven under my control.”
“Oh, so you told him not to protect me the other day. That’s great.” I pulled my hand from his and crossed my arms. I felt dumb, and it pissed me off.
Daemon grabbed my hand and held it firmly. “I couldn’t risk him being killed before I found you. I would’ve lost my sight of you. I can only possess them within a certain distance.”
That…made sense.
Wait.
“What do you mean ‘lose sight of me?’” I asked slowly.
He stared for a moment, as if contemplating his words. “In addition to controlling them, part of my ability is being able to see through their eyes.”
Words eluded me as I was completely overwhelmed with this information. All I could do was stare as I realized so much of what I thought I knew was wrong.
“You mean…” I pinched the bridge of my nose. “You mean to tell me that you’ve been watching me through Neo for nearly a year?” I gave him an accusatory glare. “Why?”
“It was the best way for me to keep an eye on you from a distance.”
“That doesn’t make it any less creepy.” He certainly had an affinity for watching me.
He shrugged nonchalantly.
I blew out a frustrated breath. “Again, why?”
He pulled me closer. “For your protection.”
“Protection?” I scoffed. “I didn’t need your protection before the Hunt—”
My breath was stolen in a gasp. My eyes grew distant as memories rose to the surface and flooded my mind.
When I was attacked in the alley and Neo came to defend me.
When the demons came to my parents’ house and Neo died fighting them.
My vision slowly returned to focus back on Daemon.
“It was you…”
“Yes.” He squeezed my hand.
“But…why?”
“I told you. I made a promise to your brother—a vow. To watch over you and protect you.” His voice lowered at the mention of Vosten.
“I don’t understand.” I closed my eyes and shook my head, wondering why in the hells Vosten never told me.
“Vos asked me the day after you were attacked in your home about a year ago and moved you in with him. And he explicitly requested that you didn’t know. He knew you wouldn’t allow it, and I think he was afraid that if you found out, you’d pull away from him more.”
“More? I didn’t pull away from him at all.” He clearly didn’t understand our relationship.
Daemon raised his brows, giving me a pointed look. “Yeah? How come you didn’t tell him why you suddenly couldn’t live alone? I’ve heard the rumors, and I know they can’t be true. I know you, Vhaena. What happened?”
I stiffened, waiting for him to tell me that he knew all about it. I had always assumed he did, being Asher’s brother and all.
“He…didn’t need to know. There was nothing he could have done about the rumors anyway—”
“You don’t know that,” he clipped. “You don’t know what he would have done—what I would have done if even I’d known.
And we’ll never know, now.” Asher had never told him…
“Maybe if you had trusted your twin, he could have helped you and prevented all of this,” he gestured to the island, “from happening at all. He would still be here, and I wouldn’t have lost my best friend. ”
Oh, fuck him!
My nostrils flared, and my blood boiled. He’d gone too far.
“You think you lost more than me?!” I ripped my hand from his.
“My brother was murdered right in front of me. My father was killed for something that wasn’t his fault.
My mother is stuck back home alone, if not already also dead.
I lost my restaurant. I was cast out by my own fucking town and brought to this shithole to be hunted down like a damn animal.
I lost everything and everyone I loved!”
“No, you didn’t.”
My head reared back.
“Why didn’t you trust me enough to tell me?
Do you have any idea what I would have done to fix it?
The lengths Vos and I would have gone to to make it all better?
He and I were unstoppable, you know that.
And trust me, we fucking tried. We tried to pry any information out of every single person who partook in the rumors.
But they’re called rumors for a reason, and no two people could give the same answer.
You and I were so close. Why didn’t you fucking trust me? ”
I swallowed past the lump in my throat, beginning to regret so much.
“I know,” my voice broke. “I know Vos would have done anything, punished and killed anyone who was responsible. But I was trying to protect him.”
He roughly ran a hand through his hair, pulling at the strands before grabbing my face and slamming his mouth against mine, pulling back just as quickly but still cradling my cheeks in his palms.
I blinked back in surprise, not expecting that at all.
“Fuck, Vhaena, I love you so damn much it hurts, but that was stupid of you,” he whispered, letting his lids fall shut and resting his forehead on mine.
He opened his eyes, staring right into me.
“No one would have hurt Vos. I wouldn’t have let it happen.
Protecting him wasn’t your responsibility. It was mine.”
I choked on a sob, tears streaming down my face. I couldn’t breathe. The guilt, the truth, clamped around my lungs.
“Daemon…I wasn’t protecting him for you. I was protecting him from you. From losing you as his best friend—the only other person he loved in this world.”
He pulled away from me slowly, holding my gaze and shaking his head. “What are you talking about?”
I closed my eyes tightly, finding the resolve to finally tell him the truth of what happened. My heart pounded in my ears.
This was it, the moment I’d buried and locked away for so long, rising up my throat like bile. I opened my mouth to speak—
“Whoever thought the great Daemon Corse would have fallen for the whore.”
Ice flooded my veins.
That voice…
I knew that voice. I knew it better than my own. It haunted me, followed me in my nightmares.
Daemon and I whipped our heads toward the sound at the same time. There, emerging from the trees like a shadow made of rot, was the other demon with the blue slashes—five of them—circling us like a predator.
His eyes locked on me. Just like before…
Asher.