Текст книги "Fury of the Demon"
Автор книги: Diana Rowland
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Fury of the Demon
(The sixth book in the Kara Gillian series)
A novel by Diana Rowland
To Jack and Anna.
Chapter 1
I clung to the pain like a badge of honor. Blood dripped in a slow splatter from a deep gash in my forearm, and my left knee throbbed from a vicious twist, but I couldn’t suppress my grin. I dragged my sleeve across my face to clear some of the sweat and grime, and squinted at the massive demon who crouched beside the white trunks of grove trees a dozen feet across the clearing. Two blue-white splodges of arcane potency writhed on his chest like knots of electrified worms where my rounds had struck. That had to sting.
“Well played,” Gestamar rumbled as he stretched his leathery wings wide then folded them close. He bared wicked fangs, bright white against the rich bronze of his heavy-featured bestial face. “You have been practicing.”
“Every single day,” I replied. It was the first time I’d won in nearly four months of games, and it felt damn good. “Games” with Gestamar—the demonic lord Mzatal’s essence-bound reyza—were like a combination of hide and seek, tackle football without pads, and hunting, all while trying to reach and defuse a bomb that happened to be on the other side of a kick-your-ass obstacle course from hell.
Not that we were in hell or anything remotely like it. This world, known simply as the “demon realm,” was about as far from the Earth concept of hell as a rain forest was from an oil refinery.
And as much as it sucked to get battered, bloodied, and knocked on my ass, I remained grateful for every scenario he ran with me. Whether here or back on Earth, I needed all the training and conditioning I could get—physical, mental, and arcane. My background as a cop and demon summoner would only get me so far with the kind of enemies I had: Rhyzkahl, Jesral, Amkir, and Kadir—four demonic lords dubbed by Lord Seretis as the Mraztur, which loosely translated as “motherfucking asshole dickwad defilers.”
The designation fit perfectly.
Those four were bound and determined to either forge me into their tool or kill me trying. Too bad I had other ideas.
I wiped blood from the Glock with a relatively clean corner of my shirt and jammed it into its holster at the small of my back. Technically it wasn’t a Glock at all, but a masterfully wrought demon knock-off with weight and action near indistinguishable from the real deal—invaluable for training since my gun was an integral part of both offense and defense on Earth. Ammunition made of resin casings, gunpowder, and potency pellets—an ingenious creation of Mzatal’s—turned the thing into what I lovingly called my potency paintball gun. The option to include my cop weapon-training in live fire scenarios rocked.
“You endure much for Idris,” Gestamar said and swept a clawed hand over his chest several times to clear the residue of the potency strikes.
“He’d do the same for me.” My jaw clenched. Like me, Idris Palatino was a summoner—a human with the ability to open a portal between Earth and this world, the demon realm. Moreover, he was Mzatal’s protégé, utterly brilliant, and a damn nice guy who I was proud to call friend.
But four months ago, I’d inadvertently almost destroyed the demon realm during a ritual to retrieve Vsuhl—one of the three essence blades. And, when the dust cleared, Idris was gone—kidnapped by the fucking asshole Mraztur.
“We’ll be going after him soon, and I intend to be ready.” I straightened my shoulders. “But it’s not just for Idris. When I get back to Earth, I have family and friends to protect.”
Gestamar grunted and dropped his eyes to my arm. “Your wound requires care. Do you wish me to bind it?”
I looked down and grimaced. A shallow jagged gash from one of Gestamar’s claws ran from elbow to wrist on the outside of my forearm. “The bleeding has pretty much stopped,” I said. “I’ll get Mzatal to fix it, but you have my thanks for the offer.”
Gestamar stood, towering over me by several feet. He bared his teeth in the scary demon equivalent of a smile. “Again, well played,” he said, then bounded toward me and leapt into flight at the last instant.
I ducked and covered my head, instinctively shielding myself from the strong downdraft of his wings. “Thanks!” I called after him. The windblast carried the bold musky spice scent of a reyza after exertion, much more pleasant than the human equivalent. I sniffed my pits and gave a disgusted shudder. First, find Mzatal for a little damage repair, then a long soak in the bath.
Fortunately, we’d ended the action in the grove, which was only a few minutes walk from the palace. A couple of hours earlier, we were far afield in the eastern hills, and it would’ve been a long limp home.
Sunlight filtered through the brilliant purple and green leaves of the canopy, danced over the white trunks and onto the short, soft grass of the clearing. Ahead of me, two parallel lines of trees formed a tunnel that led out of the clearing and toward the palace. I released a soft sigh of ease and allowed myself a moment of serenity as the grove’s presence wrapped around me like a comforting hug. The groves formed a network of organic teleportation nodes, with one in each realm of the eleven demonic lords and about a dozen or so more scattered across the planet. My intuitive connection to the special trees baffled the lords, and though it felt perfectly natural to me, I had no logical explanation for it either.
Not that I was complaining. It was a damn powerful connection to have.
As I limped toward the tunnel, a tailless flash of orange, white, and black darted past me and disappeared into the trees. Fuzzykins, Eilahn’s cat. Her presence meant that my awesome syrazabodyguard was somewhere nearby. Not that she was ever far.
As if in response to my thought, Eilahn approached through the trees. Here in the demon realm, she kept her syraza form—long-limbed with graceful bird-like fragility, gorgeous pearly iridescent skin and delicate wings that looked too flimsy to be of use. The perfect example of how looks could be deceiving. There wasn’t a damn thing fragile about her. On Earth she took the form of a human woman in order to blend in, though the form she chose was smokin’ hot chick. She drew a fair amount of attention with her looks, though admittedly less than wings and three-fingered hands would.
“You are victorious,” she said, her large violet eyes shining with pride.
I beamed, still basking in the warm glow of triumph. “I am! I was done, exhausted, and then faked a face plant—which must’ve been convincing, because Gestamar swooped down for the kill. I twisted around and nailed him twice, point blank. It was sweeeet.”
“Sweet, yes, for the victory,” she said in the beautifully musical syraza tones that brought birdsong and meditation chimes to mind. She eyed me critically, touched my wounded arm then dipped her head toward my knee. “Injured nearly to immobility.” Displeasure touched her elegant, humanoid features. “Not good.”
“Got my foot wedged between some roots,” I told her, looking down at the swelling. “I turned, my foot didn’t, and my knee paid the price. It wasn’t pretty.” It actually hurt like blazes, but if I’d been back on Earth my big worry would have been whether the damage was repairable and if it would need surgery and how long I’d have to do physical therapy in order to walk properly again and how much it would end up costing me. I smiled to myself. Pain was easier to handle when a bit of time with a favorably disposed demonic lord would make it good as new. Best healthcare plan ever.
I flashed a grin. “Even with the bum knee, I still managed to make it through the tree tunnel, drop Gestamar, and unweave the wards before they blew.”
All jubilation drained away as a cold presence like an exhalation from a tomb washed over me. I recognized the feel, sought its source, and hoped I was wrong.
But I wasn’t. Lord Kadir glided toward us from the tree tunnel entrance. Androgynous golden-haired beauty and violet eyes were wasted on the lord I’d mentally dubbed Creepshow. An icy half-smile played on his lips as his gaze slid over Eilahn then fixed on me with predatory intensity. I’d only been this close to him once, at Rhyzkahl’s palace, before the betrayal. Once in a lifetime was more than enough.
Like a phantom, Eilahn melted into the forest. I hoped it was to go warn Mzatal that one of the Mraztur was here unchallenged.
Kadir’s aura saturated me, like a dozen psychopaths all merged into one. Instinctively I summoned grove power, cloaked myself in it and shielded my thoughts from the innate mind reading ability of the lords. “What are you doing here?” I managed, thoroughly pissed that his feel alone set me shaking.
He stopped two paces from me. “Whatever I choose, Kara Gillian,” he purred.
That sure as hell wasn’t an answer to ease my mind. I mentally reached for Mzatal. We shared a deep connection beyond words—like an emotional telepathy—but right now I felt him in the plexus chamber, deeply absorbed in his work with the planetary arcane flows. Damn it.
“Get the hell out of here,” I snarled. Kadir was a demonic lord with firepower beyond my normal ability to counter, but right now we were in the grove, and this was myturf.
He leaned closer, spoke with slow, deliberate menace. “I depart because I choose to do so, not at your mandate, little morsel.”
“I’m not stopping you.” I stepped aside, swept my arm in a Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way outgesture.
Fuzzykins chose that moment to stalk out of the trees beside Kadir, tail straight up in the air and pregnant belly making her look as if she’d swallowed a Chihuahua. I silently willed the silly animal to get the hell away from here before Something Bad happened, but to my dismay she wound around his ankles and rubbed against his boots. “Mrrrrow?”
I gaped. Seriously? Seriously?The cat hated me but liked him?
Kadir let out a laugh that sent splinters of unease through me, then crouched and ran his hand over Fuzzykins back. She responded with loud purring and a head butt as he slid his hand around her neck, rubbed.
Blood pounded in my ears. If you hurt that stupid cat . . .I called to the grove, pulled more of its potency to me. I’d nearly killed Rhyzkahl with grove energy once. I knew its potential.
Kadir went still, then lifted eyes that shone with focused intensity to mine. “Do it,” he murmured, and the challenge cut as clearly as if he’d screamed it. His lips parted with anticipation, and he closed his hand around the cat’s neck, though not yet hard enough to cause her alarm.
“Kara, no,” Eilahn said with force as she stepped from the trees. “He cannot—will not—harm Fuzzykins.”
Kadir’s mouth pinched together in annoyance as though his day had just been ruined. He released the cat and stood smoothly. His gaze swept over Eilahn then returned to me. “This borders upon a breach.”
Eilahn kept her eyes on mine while I struggled to figure out what the weird lord was talking about. “A breach would only occur if I were to speak with one to whom it is not permitted,” she said. Though her smile was tight and dangerous, her tone remained utterly conversational, as if describing the puffiness of cumulus clouds. “As I have spoken only to you,” she informed me, “no breach has occurred.”
Comprehension dawned. Okay, so apparently the two weren’t allowed to speak to each other? Were we in third grade?
Whatever the deal was, the moment of tension seemed to be past. “I’m not playing into your bullshit this time, Kadir,” I sneered. “You said you were going, now go.”
He ran his thumb slowly over his lips as he regarded me, though there was absolutely nothing sexual in the gesture. It was more as though he contemplated sinking his teeth into my flesh, and not in any cool-romantic vampire way either. Like Hannibal Lecter with an extra helping of psycho-sinister.
To my relief and surprise, he dropped his hand and gave a light shrug, inclined his head slightly to me then sauntered past toward the center of the clearing with Fuzzykins trailing him. I watched as he crouched to make the potency offering to the grove and chucked the stupid cat under the chin while she rubbed and purred up against him. Kadir set the pregnant cat aside with an oddly careful gentleness, then straightened, met my eyes, and was gone.
The grove rippled with his departure. I exhaled in relief, then extended into the connection and followed his signature to his realm. “Good fucking riddance,” I said to the empty air when I felt him arrive in and then leave his own grove.
Fuzzykins sat where Kadir had placed her and fastidiously cleaned her right front paw in a position that sure as hell looked like she was giving me the finger. “Traitor,” I muttered.
“She simply follows her instincts,” Eilahn said from behind me.
“Crappy instincts!” I turned on her, annoyed—admittedly, a bit unfairly—to see her relaxed stance. “Why did you leave when he came into the grove? I could have used backup from the beginning.”
“I did not wish to risk violating agreements,” she stated, “and so I stepped away. I did not intervene until you were close to engaging in a dangerous action.” She gave me a faintly reproachful look, and I knew she meant my readiness to use grove power against the skeevy lord.
Eilahn scooped Fuzzykins into her arms and murmured to her in demon as the foul beast hissed at me. “In any event, it seems you did not need backup,” she continued calmly. “You are unscathed.”
I gave an involuntary shudder. “That’s a matter of opinion. I despisehim. I feel like I’ve been slimed.” I scowled at her. “What was he doing here? Why didn’t anyone tell Mzatal?”
Eilahn cocked her head. “Mzatal knew.”
“Knew?” I stared at her. “Wait, you mean he knew and was too involved in his work to come out and kick Kadir’s ass?”
“No, that is not what I mean,” she said. “Do you believe that Fuzzykins will require the services of a veterinary obstetric specialist when it is time to expel her spawn?”
“A veterinary . . . what? No! Jeez, she’s just having kittens.” I narrowed my eyes. “And stop changing the subject. What didyou mean?” I suspected she enjoyed messing with me.
“Simply that Kadir was here under agreement, and therefore Mzatal knew.”
“What kind of agreement would he have with that—” I stuttered to a stop as I focused on the tingle of distant grove activation. “I need Mzatal. Now.” My voice trembled with urgency. “Rhyzkahl and Jesral just used the grove network. They have Idris and someone I couldn’t identify with them.”
Eilahn shifted from casual to hyperalert-no-nonsense in a heartbeat. She grabbed my wrist and hauled me toward the tree tunnel. “We will find Mzatal.”
“No! Wait!” I hop-limped in her grasp, failing every attempt to stop. “I’m staying here. I need to know if they move.”
“If they choose to move here, you are vulnerable,” she stated.
“I can’t leave!” I struggled to dig my heels in, but the injured knee didn’t want any part of it. “Look, we’ll wait at the tunnel entrance,” I said, damn near pleading. “I’ll still be able to feel if they move, but I won’t be right in front of them if they come here. AndI have the grove potency.”
She looked over her shoulder at me, slowed as we neared the arch of trees that marked the boundary to open ground. “Agreed,” she said, though her eyes remained narrowed.
“Okay. Good. Thanks.” It wasn’t often I won an argument with Eilahn. Though this was more of a draw than an actual win.
We finally stopped on the broad step of basalt just past the entrance. Ahead, beyond a grassy ravine, the glass-walled palace hugged the cliff that dropped five hundred feet to the sea. I reachedfor Mzatal again, this time with the mental equivalent of a shoulder shake to get his attention. “C’mon, Boss,” I murmured as I repeated the touch, then exhaled in relief as I felt his acknowledgement like a wave of warmth through me.
The air shimmered a few feet in front of me, and Ilana, Mzatal’s ptarl– demahnkadvisor—appeared. Though similar in appearance to Eilahn, Ilana was larger, with definitive characteristics of the demahnk: ridges in the hide of her torso and a subtle vertical ridge on her forehead.
“Mzatal is deeply engaged in the plexus chamber and asks what your need is,” she informed me in a chiming voice much like Eilahn’s, but with greater complexity of tone.
“Tell him he needs to get unengaged,” I told her flatly. “Rhyzkahl, Jesral, Idris and someone else just made a grove transfer, and I’m not moving from here in case they go to another location.”
Her large, near-luminous violet eyes went distant, and I knew she was in telepathic communion with Mzatal. After a few seconds she refocused on me. “Which groves?”
“From Jesral’s grove to the one on the coast of the southern continent,” I said, “then immediately to the one where Mzatal brought me when he was going to remove Rhyzkahl’s mark.”
She inclined her head in acknowledgment and silently relayed my message while I fidgeted and waited impatiently for the reply.
It had only been a little over six months since Mzatal had succeeded in summoning me against my will from Earth, but the time before then seemed like a completely different life. And in a lot of ways it was. Back then I thought I had some sort of real agreement with Rhyzkahl, believed he had honor, even if self-serving. My eyes were forced open by his treachery—the evidence of which covered my torso in hideously beautiful scars, sigils Rhyzkahl had carved onto me with Xhan, his own essence blade.
Everything changed that day. I wasn’t the same person anymore. Couldn’t be. Not and survive to protect those around me.
Ilana laid a gentle three-fingered hand on my shoulder. “He is anchoring the strands in the plexus now. I will bring him.” She vanished before I could thank her.
The itch to dosomething intensified with the waiting, but I ruthlessly shoved down the impulse to make the transfer to the distant grove and do some preliminary recon. Instead, I pygahed—mentally tracing the soothing pygahsigil in an effort to gain calm and aid concentration.
Nope, still antsy. The purely mental version of the pygah was a great way to quickly chill, but I wanted and needed every scrap of focus I could muster. With fluid motion, I traced the glowing sigil in the air before me and breathed in the energy. Instantly, I felt my tension ease. Yeah, that was the good stuff.
Echoes of the four recent travelers remained, but attempts to sense beyond the boundaries of the other grove failed. Like reaching an island and being able to walk every inch of it, yet unable to see anything beyond its shores but foggy sea.
My scars tingled as I felt Xhan, and a shudder ran through me. I knew without a doubt that Rhyzkahl held the rakkuhr-tainted essence blade even now. Millennia ago, Mzatal created the three blades—Khatur, Xhan, and Vsuhl—for himself, Rhyzkahl, and Szerain. For ages the triumvirate held unshakable dominion over the demon realm.
Somethinghappened to break up their little power bloc, but I had yet to put the pieces of that puzzle together.
Ilana appeared before me with Mzatal. Elegant and broad-shouldered, he had lustrous black hair woven into a thick complex braid that hung to the small of his back. His eyes—piercing silver-grey set in a face with an oriental cast—met mine, while both his expression and his aura radiated dark intensity.
“We have to go now,” I urged as he moved to me, but instead of agreeing he dropped to a crouch and wrapped his hands around my knee.
“Some repair first, zharkat,” he said, and I felt his focus like a flow of warmth over me as he assessed my injuries. “I have sent word to Elofir and await his confirmation that he has readied his plexus chamber for monitoring our activities and those of the Mraztur.” Elofir, another of the eleven demonic lords, was a frequent visitor and one with whom Mzatal was damn near friendly.
“I’m okay,” I insisted. “I can walk. We don’t want to lose them.” Though even as I said it, I had to admit that being mobile was way smarter.
Unruffled, he lifted his head, fixed his eyes on mine. “Precisely. With your information, Elofir may well be able to isolate Idris’s strand and lock onto it. Invaluable in the event we do not recover him now,” he explained.
It was what we’d been seeking for months, yet every time we grew close, the Mraztur used the vile potency rakkuhrto thwart our efforts, and moved Idris—much like how I’d used the arcane-nullifying cuff on Earth to avoid being summoned to the demon realm. For Mzatal to leave such an important task to Elofir spoke volumes of the trust he placed in the other demonic lord. Trust, or an airtight agreement.
Searing heat blossomed in my knee and thigh as Mzatal worked an intense and rapid healing. I sucked in a breath, bit down on a curse as he shifted his hands to my arm and eased the pain of the gash.
A syraza passed overhead, made a tight circle then swooped down to land gracefully. Steeev, whose name—with the drawn out eeesound—had quite amused me the first time I heard it. Slightly larger than Eilahn, he crouched beside her and waited silently for Mzatal to finish his work on me. A few seconds later Gestamar swept down and settled behind Mzatal. Our strike team, ready to go.
A message sigil of glowing gold and amber appeared beside us, and I recognized a twist of potency at the bottom as Elofir’s signature. Mzatal lifted one hand from my arm and touched the sigil, but a heartbeat later his implacable intensity degraded into a dark scowl. He dissipated the sigil with a violent sweep of his arm. “He has isolated Idris, but there is interference again, and he cannot get a lock.”
“What does that mean?” I asked, flexing my knee experimentally. “We go as is?”
Mzatal stroked his hand over my arm in a final gesture of healing, then stood, traced out a message and sent it off. “We have no other option. If we can determine the source of the interference and eliminate it, Elofir may still be successful.”
“But if we get Idris back now, it’s a moot point, right?”
He took my hand, strode toward the center of the grove with long strides that made me thankful my knee only muttered now rather than screamed. “You are correct,” he said. “Having a link to him through a strand lock is valuable should he slip from us. Best to assure he does not.” He released my hand and prepared to make the potency offering to the grove, then stopped and looked to me. “It is more expedient if you make the transfer.”
Right. Other than myself, only the lords and the demahnk could activate the grove transportation. However, the grove required no offering from me—yet another part of my lord-confounding grove connection.
I gripped his hand again, found the destination we sought, then asked the grove to take our group there.
The trees around us shifted subtly in position. Different trees, different grove. Soft light of an overcast sky filtered through the purple and green leaves, and warm, humid air carried an acrid tinge.
Mzatal lifted his chin, assessing the area nearby for signs of activity. A heartbeat later his grip tightened on my hand, and he strode toward the tree tunnel, anger flashing in his eyes.
“What’s going on?” I asked as I tried to keep up.
Vehemence laced the word as he spoke it. “Ritual.”
“Wait!” I tugged him to a stop halfway down the tunnel while Eilahn, Steeev, and Gestamar continued on. “We need a plan,” I told him. “Or at least Ineed a plan since I can’t go in throwing potency spikes.”
Mzatal laid his free hand against my cheek. “Forgive me, beloved,” he said. “You are correct. Steeev has gone to gather what information he can, but while we wait for his return I can share what I have assessed of this.” He caressed my grimy cheek with his thumb. “Rhyzkahl and Jesral are with Idris, approximately ten miles from here, and are stationary. The other you sensed but could not identify is Katashi.”
Isumo Katashi. Once Mzatal’s marked summoner, and now a traitorous ally of the Mraztur. And no way had they walked ten miles in the few minutes since they arrived, which meant either Jesral’s ptarl agreed to provide transport or they had syraza with them. The demahnk could teleport multiple people long distances, while a mature syraza had the ability to make short teleportation hops with a single person. Now I understood why Mzatal had asked Steeev to come with us. “What kind of ritual?”
He took my hand again and continued down the tree tunnel. “It is odd. I sense a nexus that should not be here, and therefore suspect they have located a natural potency confluence and created a rudimentary nexus.” A nexus was a focal point of power—like a massive arcane generator that could supercharge a ritual laid atop it. Mzatal’s eyes went briefly distant as he continued to monitor. “A dual ritual.” His mouth tightened. “Possibly to conduct an Earth transfer.”
To send Idris to Earth. Far easier to hide him there. “And they developed a nexus out here to keep you from finding out what they were up to,” I noted.
We stepped out of the tree tunnel, and the source of the acrid tang became apparent. The grove stood in the center of a charred area the size of a football field. Though verdant rainforest hugged the perimeter, not a single blade of grass or touch of color broke the blacks and grays of the sea of ash. Remnants of potency writhed on its surface like dying worms, and a graceful pavilion of pale stone columns glimmered at the fringe, as if uncovered by whatever had nuked the forest.
Could this be a remnant of the cataclysm? A few hundred years earlier, a summoner by the name of Elinor had performed a ritual with the demonic lord Szerain. For reasons still unknown, the ritual collapsed and global catastrophic destruction ensued—earthquakes, volcanoes, rains of fiery acid, tsunamis, you name it. Moreover, the ways between the demon realm and Earth slammed shut and had remained so until early in Earth’s twentieth century.
But I had a personal stake in all that ancient history. During the ritual, Szerain stabbed Elinor with the essence blade Vsuhl, killed her, and trapped her essence in the blade—again, for reasons still unknown. Yet somehow, a chunk of her memories and emotions latched on to my own essence, and during my first months in the demon realm I experienced a number of odd dreams and weird déjà vuexperiences, all of which stopped when I retrieved Vsuhl. Perhaps coincidence, but still, another mystery amongst so many others.
I’d been around remnants of the cataclysm before. At Szerain’s palace a crater the size of a small city lay not far to the northeast, and a rift still spewed gouts of arcane flame. In Rhyzkahl’s realm, part of a mountain range looked as if a planet-devouring monster had taken a ragged bite. But the devastation before me now felt newer . . . and disquietingly familiar.
I licked dry lips. “What happened here?”
Mzatal’s grip tightened almost imperceptibly on my hand, but he remained silent.
I searched his face. “Mzatal? What is it?”
“It is a flash burn,” he said quietly, focus remaining straight ahead.
I swept my gaze around again. Freshly disturbed ash nearby marked where Rhyzkahl and those with him had passed. Centuries-old char would surely have settled more. “This didn’t happen all that long ago,” I observed.
“No. Not long. Months.” Mzatal’s gaze followed Gestamar as the reyza leapt into flight.
I took in the magnitude of the destruction, felt the ripples of arcane residue, unable to deny that it felt like . . . “Mzatal?” My voice quavered for an instant before I controlled it. “Tell me what happened here.”
He continued to watch Gestamar. “I caused it. I unleashed flash potency.”
I stared at him, shocked and baffled. “Why?”
Mzatal’s eyes dropped to mine. “Because when you escaped me and used the grove to flee to Rhyzkahl, I . . .” He paused, jaw tightening. “Rather than taking you by force from the reyza Pyrenth, I retreated. I lost you not only due to your cleverness, but because of my adherence to agreements subsequently ignored by Rhyzkahl.” Remembered pain flashed silver in his eyes. “I vented my rage.”
I shifted close and rested my cheek against his chest. “I’m sorry,” I murmured.
Mzatal wrapped his arms around me. “I cannot allow myself to lose control thus again.”
I sensed the turmoil within him, held him close. “I will try very hard not to be so unspeakably clever again.”
A quick laugh escaped him, and I felt some of the tension ease away. “Impossible,” he said, then cradled my face between his hands and kissed me.
I returned the kiss and did my best to conceal how gobsmacked I was at the amount of power it must have required to wreak this much devastation, pushed down the quick flare of Holy shit, I’m dating a demigod, what the hell?
“Well, if this demonic lord gig doesn’t work out for you,” I said with a smile, “I can hire you out to clear cropland.”
Amusement touched his mouth. “An interesting proposition, zharkat.”
“Just something to keep in mind.”
