And that was why I’d killed her.
Not because I loved death and destruction — but because a part of me would always be jealous that she could smile, that she felt a temperature other than heat, that the smell of sulfur mixed with a deep burning wood wasn’t her constant companion. That when she closed her eyes she didn’t even realize the air called to her, the mountains trembled with her human presence.
Idiots.
All of them.
And too soon, the cells died in my throat.
I felt their death as if it was my own.
And I was back to square one.
An empty demon.
A heartless monster.
Darkness laughed.
Engulfed.
I wasn’t sure what I hated more. Myself for what I was — or the being who refused to hear my cry long after my voice went hoarse and my lungs burned with injustice.
I was helping to lead a war I wasn’t sure we could fight — let alone win, if Bannik didn’t pull his head out of his ass or at least leave his dungeon of doom.
That was what the boys and I had started calling it. The dungeon of doom. Nothing good ever happened there. And nobody ever left breathing.
I found a sick satisfaction in the fact that Bannik, with all of his powers, was still having trouble keeping his brothers from ripping his throat out.
The last one that got loose ended up nearly tearing out the being’s intestines with his teeth. I laughed while Bannik limped back to his office and screamed at the top of his lungs.
It made me downright cheerful that the man could still feel pain, though at times that cheerfulness turned to jealousy. The only time I felt anything was when another being’s blood ran through my body.
Demons were by nature, feeders. Without another human’s essence, we lost control of our human appearance, which was bad enough, but without their blood, we also lost our damn minds.
With a chuckle I tossed the last drop of human blood down my throat, my tongue rejoicing with the moment of sanity and peace it brought me.
“Timber.” Bannik’s voice rumbled and shook through my office.
“Well.” I sighed and stood. “Speak of the devil hi
mself.”
“I’m much better looking,” Bannik said in such an arrogant tone that I had half a mind to call upon whatever forces of evil still were willing to fight on my side just to prove him wrong.
Then again.
That was the trouble with darkness; it rarely took sides. It mindlessly fought for whoever had the most power, and right now, in this moment.
That person.
That being.
Was standing before me, all ten feet of him. With dark brown hair and shots of red.
He looked like he’d been formed from the side of the mountain, and his glaring white teeth gnashed into a snarl as he drove his hand through the front of my desk, splintering it in two.
Sighing, I stared down at the ruined piece of furniture. “That’s three, Bannik. You know I can’t simply walk into an Ikea and ask for another. Last time I nearly killed the woman. Hell, she smelled like sunshine.” I licked my lips, still remembering her taste.