Chapter 36
CHAD
The portal snaps shut behind us with a sound like a thunderclap, leaving us standing on a wooded ridge overlooking Darkbirch.
The fading evening sun filters through the trees, casting dappled shadows across the forest floor.
From this vantage point, I can see the shimmering dome of the spirit barrier encasing the coven grounds, stronger and more vibrant than I remember it.
I managed to convince Behemoth to rest with me a while before jumping through the portal—it’d been ages since I slept—but there was only so long I could delay this trip he’s so keen to make.
“The infamous Darkbirch,” he says, his massive form somehow blending into the shadows despite his size. “Quaint.”
“It's one of the oldest darkblood covens in existence,” I mutter, leading him along the ridgeline where we can observe without being spotted. “And definitely the most powerful right now, especially with the Ides.”
“I've seen more impressive fortresses,” he replies with a dismissive wave. “The demonic realm’s capitals makes this look like a child's sandcastle.”
I roll my eyes. “Well, sorry Darkbirch doesn't measure up to literal hell.”
“Not hell, exactly,” he corrects, ducking under a low-hanging branch. “Though that’s the closest conception you’d have of it. One day, I’ll take you to the demonic realms. There are some excellent views.”
Yeah, I’m kind of still trying to wrap my head around the fact that I’ve got a father. And a demon father. Not sure I’m ready for this whole demon kingdom thing yet.
We move silently through the trees, keeping to the shadows. I've shifted back to human form—easier to blend in if anyone spots us from a distance—and I’m genuinely appreciating the feeling of not being a Hulk for a hot minute.
“Aren’t you curious to know what being a Prince of the demon courts entails?” he asks.
“Guess I am,” I murmur. “Do you have a crown? Subjects? Tax responsibilities?”
“Nothing so mundane,” Behemoth says, chuckling. “Crowns are decorative. And if someone needs one to prove they’re in charge, they’re not.”
“Fair enough,” I mutter, pushing through a thicket of thorns.
“And taxes…” His mouth quirks. “In demon realms, we don't collect taxes, Baal-liah. We harvest. And not gold.”
“Let me guess—souls? Suffering?”
“Something of that nature,” he replies.
“So what exactly do you do there?” I ask. “Like, day-to-day.”
Behemoth steps over a fallen log with an effortless lift of his massive leg. His furnace-eyes cool to molten embers as they meet mine. “I govern violence. Ensure nothing grows too powerful. When something believes itself beyond consequences, I become those consequences.”
“So like a kind of… demonic pest control?”
“If you require a mundane comparison,” he says, “you could think of it as ecological management. Without me, certain... appetites would consume everything, even themselves.”
“So you're keeping other demons in check? Preventing coups?”
“That and more,” he says. “In the deeper planes, entities dwell that would make me seem tame as a kitten. My subjects guard those boundaries. We contain what must be contained. We regulate the chaos.”
Right. And that doesn’t sound unsettling at all.
I glance toward the distant torchlight flickering behind Darkbirch's walls. “Regulation of chaos… Wouldn’t that make you the apex predator?”
Behemoth pauses and turns to face me. “Predators consume without purpose, Baal-liah. We are more… refined.” He steps closer, his shadow falling over me. “Do you know what sets our bloodline apart? Why even the most ancient ones whisper our name?”
I look at my hands. They’re human right now, but the skin feels like it’s slightly vibrating, a phantom itch where the claws should be. “I’m guessing it’s not because we’re good at conversation.”
“It is because we can act as a bridge,” he rumbles.
“Most demons are singular—pure fire, undiluted hunger, raw lust. They're slaves to their nature and can accomplish little beyond chasing their base instincts. They don’t choose it; they just follow. But a Malabranche…” His eyes flare brighter.
“We are more… complex creatures. They follow, while we decide. They burn everything in their path, we pick a direction. They lash out, we aim. We can take what the Pit produces—chaos, instinct, all that mindless appetite—and turn it into something more useful. Something more precise. Even mortals’ magic doesn’t affect us the way it does some lesser demons.
.. It’s a perfect design of nature, ultimately.
There must always be hierarchy, some regulation, in the universe and between species. ”
My pulse begins to quicken as his words sink in. A bridge. Complex creatures. Not slaves to our nature. They spark a dangerous hope inside me.
“So what you're saying is—” I wet my lips, carefully piecing together my thoughts, “—Malabranche demons can control their impulses? We're not just driven by chaotic instinct?”
Behemoth's expression shifts, something dark passing over his features.
“Control is relative,” he says. “We're not slaves to pure instinct like lesser demons, but we still have hungers. Appetites that demand satisfaction.”
“But I could learn to... manage it?” I ask carefully. “The possessiveness, the hunger—all of it?”
Behemoth studies me, his eyes narrowing. “You're thinking of someone specific.”
I look away, cursing myself. “Just theoretically.”
“There's nothing theoretical about the way your pulse just jumped,” he says flatly. “Who is she? The one who makes your blood hum. The one the incubi mentioned. The reason you are currently fighting the urge to shift and storm this barrier just to ensure she’s breathing.” He looms over me.
“You cannot hide a Malabranche's tether from his sire, Baal-liah. It smells like obsession.”
“No one,” I mutter, clenching my jaw, whilst internally flinching at the word “tether.”
“Malabranche can control themselves better than other demons, yes,” he continues, ignoring my denial. “But there's one exception.” He steps closer, his massive frame blocking out the pale light above. “When we find our prized one.”
My chest tightens. “Prized one?”
“The one we choose—or the one who chooses us. Either way, the one we... fixate on.” His eyes gleam. “For me, it was your mother.”
I stare at him, the implications hitting me. “What exactly are you saying?”
“I'm saying that while most of our hungers can be controlled, directed, even denied in some cases... the hunger for our prized one cannot.” His voice is matter-of-fact, detached. “It is the one appetite that will consume you if denied too long. The one need that will override everything else—reason, restraint, even self-preservation… Call it nature’s way of ensuring our kind’s survival.
Though it can be problematic, when it happens between species. ”
I hold my breath. “Yet somehow my mother survived you, and I happened?”
“Indeed, but she was… certainly an exception. Your mother was an exceptional darkblood,” Behemoth says, his gaze growing distant. “Most humans break quickly under a demon's attention. Their minds shatter, their spirits yield. But she... she had a will like cold, forged steel.”
I look at him sharply. “My mother never yielded to you?”
Something flickers across his face, an emotion I can't quite identify. “Not before she asked me to leave.”
I swallow hard. “I see.”
I rack my mind, trying to gather whatever memories I have of my mother.
The way she'd stare down anyone who crossed us, her eyes glittering with that dangerous darkblood intensity that made even grown men step back.
How she'd come home from double shifts working mundane jobs with dirt under her fingernails but still summon enough energy to help me with my homework.
I guess I took her strength for granted, growing up.
Didn't realize how powerful she truly was, surviving rejection from her own pure-breed-fanatical Valgrave family and community when she was still a college student—her own blood—only to build her own sanctuary for us in that tiny trailer home where she tried to teach her little half demon child every darkblood spell she knew.
She almost fully made up for not having a father.
One parent shouldn't have been enough, but somehow, she was. Until I lost her.
I exhale slowly, resisting the urge to ask how they met in the first place, not sure I’m ready for those details yet. Something inside me still fears how it happened. And my throat still gets clogged every time I try to talk about her.
It seems like, in the meantime, I’m just going to have to keep being careful around Brynn—or trying to be. Assuming she’s even here. I haven’t caught a hint of her yet.
Great. The hope that had been building inside me slowly stalls. “So, a demon would basically always still be dangerous to such a… theoretical person,” I conclude.
“Dangerous?” Behemoth laughs, the sound like grinding stone. “You would tear apart anyone who tried to keep you from her. You would burn down cities to reach her. You would consume her essence until nothing remained but what you made of her.”
I feel ill, remembering the corridor at Darkbirch. The way my demon self lunged for Brynn. The lust, the absolute certainty I'd felt that she was mine to take.
But then what about my mother? a small voice reminds me. She still had the wherewithal to ask my father to stay away—and he acquiesced?
But maybe that’s an exception that proves the rule. He stayed away completely, and he did it with the assistance of some probably damn powerful magic. Plus, he apparently had a demonic war to preoccupy himself with back home.
Not exactly a beacon of hope for any potential relationship for me.
Movement suddenly catches my eye. I look harder through the trees and spot a small patrol of darkbloods, making its way around the perimeter of the barrier. They’re all juniors, first year students, but they’re moving swiftly—and away from us—apparently in a hurry to get somewhere.
Behemoth settles beside me, his massive form somehow making less noise than me. “They’re possessed,” he says. “Or merged. I sense the Ides riding their bodies, integrating with their consciousness.”
“Is merged and possessed the same thing?”
“Depends on your perspective,” he says. “Merged is better for stability. Worse for individuality.”
I’m not sure what that means exactly but keep walking, picking up the pace until I reach a spot that gives me a clearer glimpse of the academy.
From here I scan the grounds, looking for more signs of life.
The library building is partially collapsed—dragon attack damage, I assume—but there are darkbloods moving around, still working to tidy up the place. I don't see Brynn among them.
“Interesting,” Behemoth suddenly says.
I turn to see his head snapped toward the northern sky, nostrils flaring. Then I sense it too. The air has turned heavier, thick with the scent of… dragon.
“Dragons,” I whisper, my body instinctively tensing, muscles coiling for a shift I haven't authorized.
High above the jagged peaks, three shadows break through the clouds. They descend with breathtaking speed, the wind from their wings reaching us even down here. One is the color of weathered iron, another a polished obsidian, and the third is silver.
They bank hard, circling the outskirts of the Darkbirch dome before dropping down outside the eastern woods.
I move closer, discreetly, enough to see the dragons land, their massive talons furrowing the earth. Then a small, familiar figure slides down from the silver dragon. She looks fragile against the backdrop of the beast, her cheeks dirt streaked.
Brynn.
She lands on the grass, stumbling slightly before catching herself.
And the second she pushes her glasses back up her nose—dark hair loose and wind-tossed, jacket torn just enough to show the line of her throat, breath still uneven from the landing—something in me slips, every thread of restraint I thought I had pulling thin, fraying fast.
Shit.