Page 23 of The Demon Mark

He sighed again, the sound coming out of his lips ragged and angry. “I believed that if I kept her alive, then I would still have the object that everyone else desires. And, I’ll admit, the demon inside of me certainly did not enjoy seeing that circus man having claim over someone I did not. Especially someone so powerful.”

“But will you use her if you keep her alive?”

He considered the question before shaking his head. “I do not enjoy the thought of others seeing her, either. Her prophecies will be mine. That is what I have decided. I will keep them and I will be the only one who knows them.”

“For leverage over other kingdoms?”

“So I can say I knew it was going to happen, but that they should have begged me on their hands and knees to know what would occur.” He grinned, knowing his expression was filled with malice. “I have no intention of saving any kingdom other than my own.”

Orphe nodded. A spirit of ambition like herself knew what it was to desire to hold something over others. She searched for power. It was why he had given her the raven form, as it was easier to find power when not limited by the spiritual.

Envy and Ambition went together well, after all. They both understood what it was to covet power, and that they would do anything possible to get what someone else had.

A silence fell between them for a while, and he knew what Orphe was thinking. It took some time for her to piece together plans, but often she gave him an answer that made more sense than his own musings.

He watched the flames until he heard her beak chomp.

“Why keep her alive if you will not use her? You will be able to prophesize without her. Take her power for your own and get rid of the woman who has been causing so much strife.”

He supposed he could. The thought of taking her life, however, was uncomfortable.

Perhaps it was her beauty that confused him. She was eerily stunning, with eyes that saw straight through him and a courage that was intriguing. He enjoyed seeing a woman like her. Someone who wasn’t afraid to thwart him.

He liked the way her eyes softened when he had met her at the circus as well. She’d felt something for him then, even the briefest spark of it. So few people cared about him. They feared him, yes. They ran from him and hid their people. And yes, some of them found use for him in protection or magical objects. But no one would be overly upset if he disappeared.

It had been a long time since someone had looked at him like a person. Even if it was just the barest flicker.

“I want to make her see me as someone other than the king,” he said quietly. “I believe she is capable of that.”

“She is not, Envy. She’s already chipping away at the beautiful walls you made for her, searching for a way out. She wants you to let her go and she will never give up on her search for freedom. If you want her power, you need to take it for yourself. Sooner than you think.”

He knew she was right. This woman wouldn’t give up, and yet...

He was the king. He was supposed to do this. Envy had taken power from people his entire life and he had no reason to continue to put this off. Not when she was so unwilling to give him what he wanted. He’d just hoped for more from this one.

But that had been a silly thought. A moment of weakness because he’d seen what his brothers had. Nothing more, nothing less.

He stood, feeling older than he had in years. There was something uncomfortable about knowing he was about to kill this woman. It became a strange feeling in his chest that he couldn’t rub away.

“You’re right,” he murmured as he lifted his hand to conjure yet another portal. “There is no reason to wait.”

He stepped into the room he had built for her. A room of beauty and more loveliness than he’d thought he had in him. The creativity to build this room for a delicate woman had come from deep within his soul. Perhaps it had come from his own desire, as he’d continued to ask her about her own.

What a disaster this was. He would need to consume so much magic just to give himself something to do in distraction.

He expected her to be ready to throw a boot at his head again. Most often, she seemed to resort to violence or to shrink away from him in fear. Instead, he found her asleep on the bed.

She had laid out in the wrong direction, side to side on the bed like a lunatic. But her hair spilled down the edge of the skins there, a waterfall of pale color. One of her legs was hiked up, and he couldn’t help but follow the graceful line of her hip and the rounding of her bottom with his gaze. What he wouldn’t do to smooth his hand over that surface? To pull her pants from her legs, freeing the warmth of her skin to his touch.

Envy yearned for this woman. With every fiber of his being. He wanted to touch and be touched. He wanted to taste the salt on her skin and feel her power thrumming through her form. He wanted to rip it out of her and then give her even more power anew. Power that only he could give her.

Instead, fate had dangled a remarkable creature in front of him, and then bid him to destroy it.

He walked over to the side of the bed, ghosting his hand over her form as though he were touching her back. Something in him pulled toward her. A thread that yanked his very soul into the orbit of hers.

Even asleep, he wanted to please her. He wanted to hear the little sounds she made in the back of her throat. But even more, he just wanted her to open her eyes.

What a sad sap he was. Longing for a woman to just look at him when he knew damn well what would happen if she opened those lovely eyes. She’d scream when she saw him. She’d try to get away or attack him again.

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