Darkest Sinner (The Dark Ones Saga 5)

“You taste colors?”

“Not… usually,” he said slowly, his blue eyes blinking up at me. “But with you, it’s like I can taste and feel everything, which you should know, for a demon is basically like being given the best gift.” He shuddered. “Demons aren’t born, they’re made, a race that was once the Creator’s greatest army, cursed to roam the earth they tried to take over, tried to destroy.”

“Wait!” My mind was reeling. “I thought demons were fallen angels.”

He shrugged. “Some are, but that wasn’t always how it was. The angels see what the price is for insubordination, and all they have to do is take a peek at our lives, what it’s like to be without a soul, without ever feeling satiated or full, and they shudder to think of the day where they want forever and are never free.”

My throat clogged up as I watched pain flicker across his face. “You mean you’re never full? Ever?”

“Just like liquor doesn’t do the trick, nothing works, and after centuries of being this way you just get used to being in constant pain. It becomes your companion right along with bitterness.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You shouldn’t be,” he said quickly. “Because I asked for this. I just don’t remember what caused me to seek it.” He stopped himself. “To ask for this curse, some nights I wonder if I was tricked, other times I remember myself begging for a soul so I could just feel something—anything, and then when I was given one, I felt it all, including the person’s last terrified vision of me as I devoured her whole, so don’t be sorry. I am the monster you fear. Don’t romanticize what isn’t there, Kyra.”

My stomach clenched. “Devoured?”

“Eat,” he clarified. “I consumed her blood, sucked her soul from her cold lifeless corpse, and I killed her so I could live.”

I was shaking, I couldn’t help it. Timber scooted away like he knew I needed space and then sighed. “I know you want to ask if it was worth it, to borrow someone’s soul, to finally feel full, to feel whole. It wasn’t. I didn’t know at the time but you can’t just steal a soul that doesn’t fit. That’s not how creation works, so it was a cruel trick of the goddess I sought out. I would have a worthless soul in my body with memories of torture and terror, and I would still be a monster. It wasn’t until Hope, the last remaining Elf princess—” I sucked in a sharp breath. “—started restoring my race that I’ve felt even an ounce of peace.” He looked down at the tattoo wrapping around both of his hands now.

“I feel like you’re leaving part of the story out,” I whisper

ed.

He didn’t look up. “Why’s that?”

I gulped. “Everyone is walking on eggshells here. They look at you like you’re dying and they can’t fix it, and minutes ago that tattoo was only on one hand.”

He choked out a humorless laugh. “Caught that, did you?”

“I know we barely know each other…” I whispered. “Maybe talking will help?”

“Talking makes it true,” he snapped and then stood and paced in front of me. “The tattoo started growing a few days ago, after one of my nightmares, a memory actually, and when I met you, it…” He stopped talking.

“It what?”

He crossed his arms and faced me. “It grew.”

“Grew?”

“I didn’t stutter.”

“How?”

He gave me an annoyed look. “The brightest immortals in the realm are in this house, and even they don’t know. Angelic power doesn’t even know—or maybe Cassius does and he just refuses to interfere, damn angels and their inability to do anything except watch.”

I gaped. “A real angel?”

He gave me another sigh of annoyance. “In this very house, we met the Vamp, you saw the fangs, an angel, a dark one—both human and angel, a goddess, an elf, a werewolf turned angelic Watcher, long story don’t ask, and…” His lips turned into a thin line. “A fluffy puppy.”

“Heard that.” Tarek growled as he came back into the room with a turkey panini and the largest glass of wine I’d ever seen. “Eat up!”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “You’re a dog?”

“Real cool, Timber, make me look like the sad puppy one more time and I’m biting you in the ass—literally.”

Timber rolled his eyes. “You’d like it too much. I have a fabulous ass.”