Chapter Sixteen
Warmth bathed me on all sides, like sunlight that heated my skin and the Earth itself beneath me. Even the pillow I held had grown delightfully warm, a feeling I hadn’t savored in ages. I pressed my face into it, absorbed by the remnants of my dream.
As I drew a breath, I expected the crisp, slightly damp air of a balmy summer’s day to greet me. Instead, perfumed smoke met my nose. I knew that scent. With the fog of sleep still heavy on my mind, I struggled to place it. It reminded me of incense, burning sandalwood, and vicious battles.
It reminded me of Sitri.
The demon’s name alone was enough to jolt me from my slumber. My eyes flew open, and when I looked up, I met his glimmering silver gaze.
There was no sunlight in Hell. The sweet warmth that enveloped me came from Sitri’s body pressed against mine. He’d even dared to wrap me in his arms. Only two thin layers of cloth separated us, keeping our skin from touching. Not enough space, not enough distance.
Sitri smiled at me, his face inches from mine. “Good morning, darling.”
I pulled back with a cry of surprise, but Sitri’s arms stiffened around me.
They trapped me like a cage, bringing on an all-too-familiar dread.
Vapula had held me this way. My throat tightened, my muscles locked as my heart pounded.
I needed to break away, to put distance between us… but my traitorous body froze.
“Let me go.” I just barely gasped the words through the fog of my growing panic.
“Let me go…?”
I couldn’t breathe. A tremor started in my hands. “Let. Me. Go. Please.”
Sitri released me. I shot backward with so much force that I crashed over the edge of the bed and onto the floor.
I landed with a thud on the spongy wood.
The pain of the impact left me groaning and rubbing my joints.
Sitri took his time stretching his body, shuffling to the side of the bed, and leaning over it to watch me.
“If you want space, you need only ask, darling. I will grant it if you are polite.”
I scowled. Whatever pity I’d held for the demon last night evaporated, and a deep, indignant rage replaced it. Sitri had a knack for appearing almost human, only to slip back into his devilish ways the second I let my guard down. I was getting sick of it.
“Don’t act like I wanted this.” I shot him a glare as I picked myself up off the floor.
Sitri gave a hearty laugh. “Oh, but you did. You’re the one who cuddled up to me. Keep on this way, and I might start thinking you actually like me.”
As I dusted myself off, Sitri stood from the bed and swept past me, moving with renewed strength and grace. Before I realized what was happening, the Prince had planted himself between me and the exit, controlling my movements yet again.
“Don’t conflate ‘trust’ with ‘like,’ Sitri. We need each other to survive.”
“Hey, that’s progress. I’ll take whatever you give me, darling, and you offer more with every passing day.”
As if on cue, the lantern on the dresser across the room sputtered out, and darkness swallowed us both.
My stomach lurched. Adjusting my eyes to the shadows would be a slow process, and I needed my sight now.
Without the light, Sitri’s presence swelled until he was everywhere and nowhere, all at once.
I stumbled through the dark, careful to avoid the space where Sitri once stood.
By the time I claimed the lantern, I’d lost him altogether.
Metal jingled to my left, a warning—Sitri had equipped his weaponry.
My shaking hands raised the wick. I fumbled with the matches.
Struck one with a hiss. The lamp came to life, and when I turned around, I found my face mere inches from Sitri’s.
His sudden appearance made me flinch, and my hold on the lantern slipped. Sitri caught it as it left my hands and lifted it, bathing our faces in an amber glow. He wore a familiar, smug smile. My cheeks grew warm with frustration.
“You’re too cute when you’re flustered, darling,” the Prince purred.
I growled and tried to shove him aside. He stood firm as steel. With all my weight behind me, I didn’t even move him an inch. Sitri watched, unbothered, until I relented.
“Get out of the way, please.”
“I’m proud of you,” he said. “I was beginning to think you’d never learn.”
The scowl on my face only deepened. Satisfied, the Prince stepped aside. I shot him an ugly look as I strode past.
“You demons are all alike. Controlling and manipulative, the lot of you,” I spat at him over my shoulder.
Sitri followed, hot on my tail. “You would say such a thing to the demon who spared you? Who housed you, fed you, and protected you? Think carefully, Lillia.”
I whipped around to face him, venom on my tongue. When I met Sitri’s eyes, it wasn’t Vapula’s cruelty I saw in them. It was hurt—hurt that gave me pause.
No matter how much I wanted to, I didn’t hate him anymore. Sitri had saved me, and now I had returned the favor. His peaceful sleeping face was gone. All that remained was my warden, my guardian, my savior—and the tangled knot of feelings that surrounded him.
“I’m sorry, Sitri, I just… Whatever it is you want from me, please let it go. I’m not part of your world, and I don’t want to be one of your kind.”
“If you truly wanted to stand on your own, you’d jump at the chance to be ‘one of my kind,’” Sitri countered. His voice softened, though his eyes remained hard.
I drew a deep breath, my body still shaking. Emotions built like pressure in my chest, so intermingled that I couldn’t separate them anymore.
But there was something else he hinted at woven into his statement, something I couldn’t afford to ignore.
“There’s something you aren’t telling me. I can’t risk harming you as a human. You said so yourself; I have too much to lose. So, what is it you’re hiding? Why do you still want to bind me?”
Sitri stared at me blankly for a moment, then his face twisted with emotions of his own. Shock, anger, pain, and something that looked remarkably like fear. Eventually, he heaved a sigh and went stoic once more.
“There is. I didn’t wish to concern you with it, not while it is so uncertain, and the consequences of knowing would be so dire… but I will tell you, darling, if you wish to know.”
His admission made my blood run cold. The Prince of Lust and Lies had offered me a secret, along with the weight of carrying it. I almost didn’t believe it. All I had to do was ask; such a simple thing in theory, but I didn’t have the words.
A knock sounded across the room, and both of our heads turned. Sitri took a few steps towards it. Panic fluttered in my stomach, and I reached for his arm.
“Sitri, wait—”
But I was too slow. He pulled open the door, and before I composed myself, I was face-to-face with a demoness I’d never seen before.
She stood taller than Sitri, with lush, wavy hair the same shade of crimson as her eyes.
Freckles dotted her pale, ashen skin. They were so dark they almost passed for splatters of dried blood.
Form-fitting black leather armor wrapped her from neck to toe.
She bore an impressive grimace that twisted her face into a snarl, betraying her foul temper.
Sitri didn’t seem too happy about their meeting, either. His scowl mirrored hers, and his eyes darkened. He straightened up, and soon his face blanked.
“My apologies, Bronwen. I hadn’t expected you today.”
The demoness shot a glare at me. I shrank under her appraisal.
“When you said you had a bound human soul in your clutches, this isn’t what I thought you meant.” Bronwen waved her hand towards me. “Old habits die hard, eh, Sitri?”
“Hardly. Lillia was worried sick about me, honest. I had no ill intentions.” Sitri held his hands up as if feigning innocence.
“We didn’t sleep together, if that’s what you’re implying,” I snapped.
But in the face of this beautiful demoness, for reasons I couldn’t quite grasp, I almost wished we had. The burning heat of rage came on so suddenly that it surprised me, settling uncomfortably on my cheeks and in my chest. It took a moment too long before I recognized it for what it was.
Jealousy, as unexpected as it was misplaced.
Sitri was my warden, not my friend, and certainly not my lover. He could have disappeared entirely, and I would have kept on as if nothing had happened. That’s what I’d believed, at least.
If that were true, though, then why did this burning jealousy choose now, of all times, to surface?
Only one answer remained. I was unwilling to entertain it further.
“This wicked enchantress is Bronwen,” Sitri said as he turned towards me. “She’s here to collect me, I’m sure. Her boss grows tired of my antics.”
Bronwen scoffed. “I worked my ass off convincing Haagenti she needed your protection, and the best you can do is ‘wicked enchantress?’ Please. I’ll leave you to play games with this transient human, if that’s what you want.”
She propped her hand on her hip and stared Sitri down, waiting for a response.
My rage slowly shifted from my behalf to Sitri’s.
I’d never seen another demon order him around.
Bronwen wasn’t like Mara or Apollo. They were terrifying in their own right, but at least at face value, they both bowed to Sitri.
Bronwen made her disrespect of the Prince very clear.
“I’m going, I’m going,” Sitri muttered.
With his hands still raised, he shouldered past Bronwen and into the hall. The demoness and I exchanged a look of contempt. Then she turned to follow him.
“Sitri!”
I called down the hallway, and though Bronwen didn’t bother stopping, Sitri froze in his tracks.
“When will you be back?” I asked.
Sitri looked over his shoulder and slotted his hands into his pockets. He kept his gaze trained on the floor.
“A few days, probably. Perhaps a week.”
“And you will be back, right?”
The question hung in the air for a long, uncomfortable moment. His hesitation, thick as fog, stagnated between us.
“You’ll know if I’m not coming back,” Sitri said. “If the Prince falls, this little war of Vapula’s will end. And we can’t have that now, can we?”
He gave a half-hearted smile, then turned to follow Bronwen down the hallway. As I watched them go, I couldn’t shake the feeling that this might be the last time I saw him.
It was strangely bittersweet. I’d grown reliant on Sitri over the past few days, but there was something else mixed up in it as well.
There was an inkling of longing, spurred on by primal jealousy and fueled by tangible need.
He had become somewhat of a safety blanket; a force that kept me grounded in this dark, deadly reality.
And now, some red-haired siren wanted to drag him to his demise.
I knew better than to trail them—I’d just get in the way. That frustration alone made me reconsider Sitri’s offer.
What would it feel like to become a demon?
Would I still be me, or would the transformation change who I was?
My body reacted to the thought with a deep, primal revulsion.
Sitri’s ominous warning wasn’t helping my nerves, either.
I didn’t want to be like him, or like Vapula…
and I’d always been unsure if that choice was mine to make.
Once again, Sitri had suggested that it wasn’t.
I shook my head. That would be a problem for later. Right now, Sitri was leaving me in a house of demons, with only his legates for company. If I wanted to get my answers, I’d have to hold my ground until the Prince returned.