Chapter Eleven
I woke before the sun.
The room lay still around me, the smell thinned to almost nothing. My body ached from the night before, the bruises on my hips throbbing when I shifted, and for a while I just lay there staring at the ceiling.
Then I felt it. Something in the room with me. Watching.
I turned my head. A large shape stood in the corner of the bedroom, tall and broad and blacker than the darkness around it. For a long second, my mind was unable to make sense of what I was seeing.
Then I saw the eyes. Two glowing red points, fixed on me. Unblinking. My heart stuttered.
Gray morning light slowly began to peek over the curtain, illuminating more of the figure in the corner.
The shiny curve of two large horns above a sharp, angular face.
A thin pair of lips pressed into a flat line.
Large, leather wings partially folded behind the creature’s body.
But my gaze kept going back to its eyes.
The color of fresh blood.
I slowly sat up and inched backward until my back hit the headboard. The creature watched me all the while, its head cocked slightly. I was breathing too fast and shallow, panting, but I couldn’t stop it. What was it? And why was it…?
“Emma.” The voice came out of the creature, deep and achingly familiar. I shook my head frantically. The mouth opened again, and I caught the glint of sharp teeth. “Easy.”
I could not move. I stared at it, frozen and trying to understand.
“It’s all right, Emma.” It took a step closer, the wings rustling, the eyes never leaving my face. “Don’t be afraid.”
My whole body was shaking, but the truth was starting to sink in. The creature, the demon, stood in the corner and watched me with those two unblinking eyes, and said my name again, softly.
“Emma. Look at me.”
I was looking. I couldn’t help but look.
“You knew,” it said. “Deep down you always knew.”
“No,” I breathed. “I thought…”
“You wanted me,” it said. “You called my name. You asked me into your bed. You took the binding out of the floor with your own two hands.”
I closed my eyes. “I didn’t think…”
“Look at me, Emma.”
I shook my head.
“I am not going to hurt you.”
But I had been alone three years, and this was the thing that came when I called.
“Sam,” I whispered, opening my eyes.
The demon’s teeth flashed in a sharp smile.
“You were never Sam,” I said. “Never a person at all.”
“You may call me that if you wish,” the creature soothed. “Come here to me.”
I didn’t get up, but I didn’t run either. I stared and trembled and tried to slow my racing heart. “Not yet,” I mumbled.
“All right,” it said. “Not yet.”
The light slowly changed from gray to pale yellow, and then it was gone. I sat in the empty room with my arms wrapped around myself for a long time. I thought about the Sam that had been and the Sam that never was. And I mourned.