Page 67 of The Demon Mark

He leaned down and nipped at the small of her neck, enjoying the way she yielded to him. In his youth, he would have pushed to fuck her now. He would have wanted to sink inside of her and it wouldn’t have mattered that she was inexperienced or that he’d lied for weeks to steal her power.

But now, all he wanted was to kiss her. To linger on the sands and bask in the happy sounds she made as he kissed along her throat.

There was a threat in his kingdom, and they were likely going home to yet another trap. But right now? He was lost in her.

And Envy intended to stay lost for as long as possible.

26

Something about what he’d said didn’t sit right with Lilith. Part of it was that she made him feel guilty for being a terrible person. That was good, though. He should feel a little guilty and if he didn’t, then that was a problem she couldn’t fix.

But something else stuck in her mind. The circus master was going to replace her. He wanted her dead because everything would be easier that way. Even Envy himself had agreed with that. It made her feel like she wasn’t good for anything other than being an instrument of prophecy and that... well; it felt strange to her.

Envy had disappeared for a while now. He’d claimed that he needed to be a king for a bit. There were many people who were still part of his kingdom, and those were the ones that he needed to focus on. Magical items to review. Amulets to approve and send to other kingdoms. A hundred jobs were his to approve, and he’d taken quite a bit of time away from everyone to be with her.

At least this time, she was able to leave her room and the pool area. Envy had given her a little more freedom, and by a little more, he apparently meant the entire castle. It kept her busy for quite some time, walking through all of his living quarters before she poked her head out back into the endless tunnel that disappeared below her feet.

Envy had fixed the stairwell since the chimera’s attack. Apparently, he’d reordered quite a few of the stairs to get to her, and she still felt a little nervous walking around by herself.

He claimed he had put all the protection that she would ever need in this place, but she couldn’t shake the fear. He’d been wrong once, after all. What if he was wrong again?

As she stepped out into the stiff wind that toyed with her hair the moment she stepped onto the stairs, she knew she had to face her fears. If she was going to live here, she had to. She would not stay in the cage he’d created for her.

Wings flapped above her head. She froze, terrified that there would be a chimera hovering above her head for a moment before she remembered chimera’s didn’t have feathers. And the sound was definitely feathers.

She took a long, steadying breath before she opened her eyes to see Envy’s raven had landed on the steps just below her. It hopped a few times closer to the edge, then peered down into the mist that had gathered there.

“What are you doing out of your room?” Orphe asked, her voice little more than a croak that was surprisingly easy to understand today.

“Exploring. I cannot stay trapped in those rooms any longer. I needed to get out and do something.” She moved to walk past the creature, only to be stuck against the wall when it didn’t move. In fact, the raven spread its wings wider so she couldn’t go by it.

Huffing out a breath, Lilith crossed her arms over her chest and glared at the small creature. “Just what do you want now?”

“I think you need to know what you have done in this kingdom. You are ignoring all that you have caused.”

“I’m not ignoring anything. And I caused nothing personally.” But it was a lie.

Or at least, in some sense, it was. Lilith hadn’t wanted any of this to happen, and she hadn’t summoned her old master to her side or bid him to kill her. In fact, she’d been nothing but a good little pet to every single person who had gotten involved with her.

With that thought, she straightened her shoulders and glared at the creature who suggested otherwise.

But Orphe was no mere raven. Lilith didn’t know if Envy had given her a personality or if he had imbued the raven with the ability to talk. It didn’t matter, because Orphe saw right through her.

The raven croaked, “You have spent too much time in this realm to believe that you have no power here. You are the one who sees the future, do you not? You have seen enough futures to know that much of what you say is a lie.”

Her breath shuddered in her chest. “I did not ask for any of this to happen. No one can blame me.”

“Does it matter that you asked for it or not? Want and need are two different things. You are an oracle. Even if your old master was the one poisoning your mind and making you forget, you are remembering now. And what do those memories tell you?”

That oracles had a keeper for a reason. It wasn’t because she was weak, but because others would covet her power. Her keeper made sure her whereabouts were secret. No one was supposed to know where an oracle rested her head, and she was supposed to move throughout a kingdom her entire life. She wasn’t supposed to be so easy to find and certainly wasn’t meant to be a wandering sideshow.

But also she knew that the oracular order had no plan to save her. An oracle, once given to a keeper, was expected to live on her own and manage her own life. Unless she had become a teacher, she would never see another oracle again in her life. Or if she did, such an experience would be entirely on accident.

She leaned her back against the wall and slid down until her butt hit the stairs. “The oracles are no help.”

“Your own people should have come for you.”

“They forsake anyone who is weak. Considering he did everything to me and I allowed it, then it was my fault.” She shrugged at Orphe’s angry look. “It is just the way of things.”

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