Page 29 of The Demon Mark

Tugging hard on his future, she watched it spill out in front of her.

Her old master was on his knees, staring up at a throne that Envy sat on. The demon king’s broad thighs were flexed, his entire body tense with anger as he stared down at the circus master. He’d committed some grave sin, and yet, even then, he wasn’t afraid of the demon who ran their kingdom.

“Kill me then,” her master said with a laugh. “You will lose her to the visions.”

Envy grinned, and then she saw the blade at her master’s neck. It hovered behind him, unseen until the last second. “I don’t need you for that, circus master. You are unnecessary in this story.”

The blade drew across her master’s throat, bright red and gleaming in the dying sunlight. It was a wave of red. Red that threatened to swallow her whole. It spilled out of his body in a wave, so overwhelming that she could feel it all over her hands. All over her body.

Death.

Her fault.

All of it.

She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t get her emotions under control as she stared at the body that landed on the floor with a heavy thud and she knew he had died because of her. So many people had died because she couldn’t save them and she was spiraling now. Her power stretching. Into the portal that Envy had conjured and out onto the streets there.

Her master had been visiting a brothel, it seemed. There were so many women and men here who she could save. Clients who were going to kill them in their sleep, lest anyone else touch their favorite courtesan. Some of them were going to be sold to the highest bidder, and those people were dangerous. Pawing at their skin and leaving bruises until they died.

“No,” the word came at her temple, an order that made even the power in her freeze. “You will not wander from me, oracle.”

She would, though. She had to. The people here needed her. They had seen her power, and they needed more from her.

“She needs this.”

Lilith knew what her old master had produced. He held her life in his hands if he showed the demon king that she had an addiction to the herb that only he could grow. Of course, it was dangerous for anyone else to know that she had a limitation.

Whoever had that herb controlled the oracle. It was as simple as that.

Her life would be handed over to this demon. Already she relied on him for everything, but if he knew about that herb? It was all lost.

The deep voice rumbled next to her ear. “What is that?”

“Her medicine.”

“And without it, she’s like this?”

Lilith didn’t need to see to know her old master had nodded. Her mind got lost a bit in another possible future where one of her fellow performers took over the circus and made their master perform, but she heard Envy’s response.

“If she’s like this without it, that is not medicine. It’s a drug.”

“They are the same thing, demon king. Without this, she is little more than a limp leech, seeking the next victim. Her power wants to see the future, and she cannot control her power. She needs to be controlled. This is the only thing that can control her.”

She hated it. She hated that herb with every fiber of her being and yet, some part of her desperately wished they would stop talking and pour it down her throat.

Envy’s hand shifted underneath her head, his chest muscles flexing as he moved.

“Make her drink it,” her old master said, his voice disgusted. “It’s not easy, sometimes. She’ll fight you.”

“This is wrong.”

“No, it is a mercy. Look at her. Do you want her to stay in this state? Trust me, she doesn’t leave it. I let her stay like this for two weeks once. It nearly killed her, and still, the power didn’t let go. She gave me scars on my arms when I tried to make her drink.” Her master tsked. “Still haven’t gotten rid of those. The bitch’s claws are sharp.”

Envy’s voice hardened. “You can go. And if you ever refer to her by that word again in my presence, I will make that future come true sooner than it has to.”

“What? Calling her a bitch?”

Another low growl. “Try me one more time, circus master. I will make you drink your own blood while you die.”

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