Chapter 33
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
“What do you mean, demon?” Esme laughed, looking between the two of us as she sat on the sofa–the one currently threatening to swallow her whole. She tucked a loose strand of blonde hair behind her ear before letting out a nervous laugh. “Is that a sex thing?”
In any other situation, I probably would have crumpled in on myself, under the weight of that comment.
It would have left me feeling nervous, shy, and embarrassed.
And my body would have erupted in a bright shade of red, betraying the potency of my emotions.
But I just stared at her before looking over at Thallor.
“Show her,” I said. My mind raced as a flurry of feelings coursed through my body. This is the last thing I wanted to do. But time was limited, and there was just no other alternative.
“Show me what…” Esme gave me a quizzical look, her eyes darting between us again. ‘Look, if this is a sex thing, I really am flattered, you’re both super hot, but—”
There had only been one other time since I'd met Thallor where he'd reverted to his natural form.
Yes, there had been times in the midst of anger or jealousy or frustration where his arms had grown ashen and claws protruded from his fingers.
But this wasn't like that. The first time I'd seen it, I'd been frightened, but now I watched in quiet awe as his body started to convulse. He stood slowly, moving in languid motion that had my breath hitching in my throat. I kept Esme’s hand firmly gripped in mine as I turned toward her.
“Don’t be afraid,” I said quietly, seeing her smile falter.
“What? What the fuck is—” Esme stumbled over her words before a shocked whimper escaped her.
Thallor’s body continued to morph as wisps of dark ink coiled up the side of his arm.
He was already tall and imposing, but his body distorted further until his muscles were pulled taut across his now looming frame.
Black horns jutting from either side of his head before ending at sharp points.
I was captivated and enthralled by his strength, and simply transfixed by his undeniable beauty.
Yes, he was terrifying. Like a nightmare come to life.
But I couldn't look away from him. From what was mine.
His deep red eyes locked onto me with a burning intensity.
And all I saw was possessiveness. Affection.
Love laced behind his gaze. A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth and left me hot and breathless.
He was devilish. Earth-shattering. He was everything.
In the age-old question of fight or flight?
Esme was classic freeze. She looked up at Thallor with petrified eyes.
However, I felt about him, Esme did not seem to share my sentiment.
She sat beside me, trembling with such vigour that I could feel the sofa cushions shift behind us.
Her grip on my hand was crushing and unyielding as she stared up at him; paralysed in place, and so rooted to the sofa, I was sure she might never move again.
I had to squeeze her hand multiple times to get her to take a breath in the fear that she might actually pass out.
She shifted, slowly letting her head turn toward me with minute movements as though not wanting to let Thallor know she was there.
“Quincey,” her sob was quiet. Choked. Tears began to streak down her cheeks.
For a moment, the weight of the guilt crushed me.
Hurting her was unbearable. Pushing her to this place and trapping her in a cage of her own fear was not something I ever wanted to do.
I loved Esme, but the look on her face, after everything that had happened with Isaac, felt overwhelming. Felt unfair.
But it was the only way to make her understand.
“It’s okay,” I assured her, my voice soft but firm. “You’re okay. You know I’ll never let anything happen to you. He won’t hurt us.”
I turned and nodded to Thallor, silently motioning him to return to his human form.
Not even a moment later, his fiery red hair and freckles had returned.
He sat down on the sofa opposite us, looking a little sheepish with his hand scratching at the back of his head.
I turned back to Esme, who hadn't taken her eyes off me.
She continued to tremble as I squeezed her hand again.
A few hours, a lot of explaining, and an entire bottle of wine later, Esme had finally started to calm down.
For the most part, her posture had relaxed, and she was breathing at a normal cadence again.
There was still a flicker of caution in her eyes whenever she looked in Thallor’s direction–like she was waiting for him to turn us both to ash or bite off our heads.
But considering how the evening had started, I counted that as progress.
We explained everything to her. The ritual.
The world he came from. The why and the how and the who.
She asked questions. She asked a lot of questions.
Some warranted. Some ridiculous. And some wildly inappropriate questions about the logistics of our bedroom activities that had Thallor spitting out his drink.
She genuinely wanted to know whether tail placement during sex was a thing that happened or whether that was just something to be read about in one of her spicy romantasy books.
Whether it was the wine, the shock had worn off, or the way Thallor looked at me as if I was the most incredible thing in the world, Esme seemed to come to terms with the current situation. That this was real. That he was real.
Thallor looked over the rim of his refilled wine and smiled, holding up his glass in a toast. “Well, Esme, at least you didn’t run away.”
Esme snorted and then tossed me a look of incredulity as if she wasn’t one missed breath away from a cardiac arrest. “You ran?”
“He was being an asshole.”
“I was not being an asshole,” Thallor said, rolling his eyes. “And you summoned me with a cock shaped candle.”
“You’ve definitely got the vibe of someone who eats people,” Esme mused before she could think better of it.
Thallor smiled at her sardonically. “Only when they deserve it.” We both knew he was joking, but it was enough to make her freeze and stammer over her words.
She blinked. Looked at me. “That was a joke, right?”
I gave her a helpless shrug, trying not to smile. “Mostly.”
She let out a groan and poured herself another glass.
“You’re lucky I love you,” she muttered, pointing at me.
“And you,” Then she pointed at him, “my point remains. If you hurt her, I swear to God, I will find out how to kill you. I don’t care if you are from this world or not. I will rip off your demon cock—”
“And then I’ll feed it to you,” she added for good measure.
“So,” I said, looking at Thallor, who was still smirking at Esme and her threats. I knew for a fact that she meant it. She would go head-to-head with a demon any day if it meant keeping me safe. And I would do the same for her. “How do we find the book?”
“I’m not sure…” Thallor said, voice trailing off as he looked down at his hands.
Esme pulled out her phone, her nails tapping against the screen, cutting through the silence. “I still have Isaac on ‘Place Your Pals’.”
Whilst Thallor may have been real, I'd comforted myself with the idea that Aamon—more aptly referred to as the Prince of Hell—had been just a fictional individual. But fiction, or what I believed to be impossibilities or stories, had a nasty habit of bleeding into real life. Whilst I was hoping Aamon was just a representative or symbol, representing the spiritual and theological practices of punishing souls, I’d come to learn that, like everything else, he was in fact real.
An added bonus from the universe, as if my life wasn’t already stressful enough as it is.
“My brother is everything that I am not,” Thallor breathed as if it saying to himself rather than anyone else.
Like he had a compelling, all-consuming need to convince himself of that fact.
“I’d always protested against him by never asking for anything, for a wish granted.
But unlike me, his wishes are a two-way street. He always expects something in return.”
For Aamon, every moment not spent in destruction was a moment wasted; every soul not broken was an offence to his very nature.
The words played through my mind again and again. Each repetition twisted in me like a knife in the gut.
He would see the world burn. And when it did, his kin would either be grovelling at his feet or burning with it.
“Like what?” I grimaced.
“It usually depends on the wish. He revels in chaos and torment in a way that borders on obsessive. He is drawn to the allure of moral decay. He likes to see how far he can push someone to commit sin. To see how far they're willing to go to get what they want.”
Esme started to tremble again, and I knew exactly what or who was on her mind.
She was shaking silently and taking sharp ragged breaths.
She had barely spoken since the conversation had begun, unfocused and distant, her mind a thousand miles away from the wooden table we were sat at.
But I could see it, that every word passed between us was eating her alive.
“Sometimes it’s torture or pain, but depending on what this Church wants, he will likely expect some sort of sacrifice.”
Esme flinched as if the very utterance of it had struck her like a physical blow.
Her eyes flashed toward mine, desperate for a sign that I knew what to do.
Fucking Issac. That boy was going to be the death of me.
I swear to God he was. And if we ever made it out of this mess alive, he'd better be prepared because I was certainly going to kill him myself.
Once for me and then again for Esme too.
And as much as I wanted to scream and yell and shout, I did know one thing.
Love wasn't logical. It didn't make sense.
It didn't care about reason or fact. It simply was.
And when I looked at Esme, I could see it.
That she still loved Isaac as much as the day she had met him.
And I suppose I understood it better now, more than I ever had before.
I knew it deep down in the fibre of my being and in the marrow of my bones.
Even in some far-off, twisted reality, if Thallor ended up hurting me.
I'd still choose him. I would every time.
I would run into the burning corners of my soul to save him and the things I loved.
So, whilst I wasn't sure that Isaac deserved our attention, or deserved the unflinching and unshakable love that Esme felt for him, it was impossible to ask her to feel any other way than what she already did.
I let out an exasperated sigh, pinching my brows together as I internally resolved to put my life on the line for the very person who had treated us both so poorly. Like shit, if you'll excuse my French.
For a moment, I let my mind run wild. Run rampant with anger. Who the fuck joins a cult? There was an endless stream of documentaries online about people getting lured into these traps, as if that wasn't a good enough disclaimer about why not to join one.
“I’m so fucking angry right now. We never, ever, let him forget this, agreed?
” I looked from Esme to Thallor. “We need to get the book anyway, so we might as well get him whilst we're there. Isaac is a moron. A fucking moron. But he’s our moron.
I'll do whatever it takes to get him out of there, just so I can beat the sense into him myself.”
And as if in answer to every question I had, Esme's face lit up for the first time in days. There was a trepidation behind the smile on her face and a lingering anger behind her eyes. But I could see behind the exhaustion and the helplessness, that she needed this. More than she was willing to say.
But Thallor looked nervous. He thought silently with his jaw clenched, looking down at the table as something ate him up on the inside.
I understood, I did. I knew better than anyone how difficult this would be for him.
But for every terrifying and beautiful inch of the male in front of me, his demeanour sent wave after wave of nausea through my body.
What could possibly be so frightening to terrify someone like you?