Page 28 of The Demon Mark

Men looked at her with lust and desire. They coveted her body, her touch, and all the sounds she made. Lilith could feel her body burning with all the feelings inside her. She’d never seen the future or the past of someone who had been so sexual. Some part of her wanted to linger on the memories. But that felt like she was in the wrong person’s body, experiencing pleasure that she was stealing rather than feeling for herself.

Lilith zoomed through the woman’s memories, trying to get to the future so she didn’t have to feel this strange way. She didn’t like the feelings in her body that were inspired by all that flesh and slapping sounds and guttural moans in her ear.

And she wanted to stop thinking about the power it had given the woman. A whore might sell her body, but she also had complete control over every man that she’d serviced. This woman knew what they wanted. She wielded her body like a weapon, and they had given her countless jewels.

That was why she’d taken this job. She’d thought the demon king wanted her as a bedmate, and instead, she was serving an oracle who she hadn’t realized was another woman.

The woman’s emotions about that were conflicting. On one hand, she was relieved to no longer serve men. This would be a much easier job, and it would give her body the rest it needed. On the other, she was angry that this job wouldn’t give her the amount of money that she had thought it would.

Her future, however, was murky. There were a lot of paths for her to walk down, and none of them ended well. It was hard for Lilith to say all of them, so the words started tripping over each other.

If she didn’t run from the castle, she would die here. There was a cave in, and she would be crushed beneath the stones. No wait, the stones weren’t rocks; they were bodies. Men who came here to visit with Envy, but they thought she was a gift for them. Or that wasn’t entirely right, either. The men dissolved into water as she drowned in the rushing waves.

No matter how many futures she looked into, Lilith saw a tragic end in every single one. She wanted to find the good one. Everyone had a good end, no matter how many bad endings they had. She could find it if she just had a little more time. If she just pulled a little harder, pushed a little deeper, forced this woman’s soul to show her that there was another path, no matter how determined it was to die.

She was vaguely aware of the sound of gasping. Then whimpering. Then a harsh voice telling a woman to be quiet.

She wasn’t sure where those sounds came from, only that she was stuck in this woman’s future and she couldn’t get out of it.

A looming darkness beckoned to her, though. A darkness that was cool as the depths of the sea. A place where she could hide from the heat that boiled inside her body. She needed to rest. Or perhaps to hide for a little while, giving her mind somewhere to simply not exist.

She’d pushed herself too far, she realized. She’d always been able to tell the futures of many people, but now her mist was spread thin. Lilith wasn’t even touching these women and seeing the future of someone who was far from her made everything ache.

Her bones weren’t even in her body anymore. Or at least, that’s what it felt like. As though she’d been flayed alive. Every nerve had been ripped out of her and exposed to the air.

She was only vaguely aware of arms underneath her. The power in her swelled again, reaching for someone who was touching her because that was so much better than having to stretch for the future. But this was the darkness. This was the blackness that her power didn’t want to drown in. Not yet.

An order was barked somewhere near her. “How long does it take to find one man?”

A man?

They were bringing her more people to see the future of. That was good.

“Touch,” she whispered through lips that felt dry and cracked. “I need touch.”

She was trying to tell them to let her touch whoever walked through the door. It would be easier for everyone involved, because she could feel the pain those two women had felt when her power yanked at their future. She could make this better for everyone involved if he would just allow them to touch her.

Her power recoiled deeper into her body as he took her request the wrong way. This black hole of a person stroked a cool hand over her forehead, shushing her with a soothing rasp.

“Easy, oracle. I’m going to help you.”

But he couldn’t help her. Not unless he let her disappear into a future so she wasn’t in so much pain. A future where she could think and breathe and...

Well, that cold hand was rather nice. Having someone else take care of her wasn’t so bad, she decided. It felt nice to lean her heated forehead against his icy shoulder as his fingers ran through her hair. He whispered words she didn’t hear, pressing them against her temple and into her hair as she descended into madness.

Here, at least, she was held in the safety of his grip. No one would rip her out of his arms. She knew that, even in this state.

He’d make everything better.

There was the sound of footsteps approaching, and her power reached for the newcomer. She couldn’t stop herself. She had to see what was going to happen. Without her herb, she was a slave to her power that would rather risk her life than not see the future.

“What did you do to her?” a voice came, familiar in a way, but she’d never touched his future before.

And then she sank into the history of her own master. Lilith had always known he was a bad man. She’d seen what he had done to other performers who didn’t do what he wanted, but she hadn’t realized just how terrible of a person he was. He had killed, kidnapped, stolen, raped, all the things that no one should ever do in their lives. And he wasn’t even sorry for it.

There was a grunt, then a growl. “Stop looking, girl.”

She wasn’t a girl. She was a woman with power that was far stronger than his own and if she wanted to look, she would look.

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