Page 38 of The Demon Mark

“There are more,” she whispered.

But in her gaze, he could see there was the faintest hint of blue eyes staring back at him through the milky white sheen that covered them when the oracle was in control.

“You’ve told enough fortunes for the night,” he replied, flicking his fingers underneath her back to conjure a portal that would bring them right to his castle. “You are finished, oracle.”

“But—”

“No,” he interrupted. His voice was firm and hard. There was no arguing to be had. “You are finished, oracle. Do not make me repeat myself a third time.”

She fell silent, and he was certain that he had Lilith back in his arms. The woman went limp as he stepped toward the portal and then through it into the room he’d built for her. Even the pain of portal jumping didn’t wake her, or perhaps she was simply getting used to it like he had.

So much for the prison he’d been so certain he had successfully built. How was he supposed to guess that she was crazed enough to walk through an unknown portal?

Mad woman.

Insane.

Foolish and uncaring of her own safety.

And yet, he laid her down on the bed carefully. She was already asleep in his arms, just underlining how little she cared about her own safety, considering he was her largest threat.

But still. As he brushed his fingers through her hair, laying the pale locks around her face, he couldn’t help but make sure she was comfortable. He didn’t want to take care of her, but damn it, the woman had no one else.

And some part of him whispered that he had to do this.

Someone had to take care of the oracle. Why couldn’t that someone be him?

15

Her dreams were strange. All she saw were the people whose futures she told and all the other paths they could have taken. The oracle didn’t let her rest, not at times like these.

What if she’d walked down the wrong path and told them the wrong thing? Most were wandering about in this life with no guidance, that was true, but she was here to guide them. She was the only person who could help them. Her words and her power gave them the ability to do the right thing. That was what her purpose was in this life.

And yet, what if she had made a mistake?

The oracle was certain that they hadn’t. But the magic was so much more certain of everything than Lilith was.

So when she woke, covered in sweat and uncertain of where she had ended up, she could already feel the power boiling inside her. The oracle wanted to do more. There was no limitation on her power, and the oracle could easily burn her from the inside out. It was how they were meant to be.

But Lilith didn’t want to die. The herb she drank was the one thing that dulled her power, but it also dulled her mind. She missed the blissful chill of drinking that strangely minty drink and allowing it to take her away from all of this. Because without it, she remembered too much.

She’d only been a child when she had first realized what lived inside her. She had been from a different kingdom, although that memory was still murky at best. Her mother had been the first one to realize that her child was different. Perhaps because Lilith had told her she would fall from a ladder and break her leg. Her mother had laughed it off until it had actually happened.

“What are you thinking of?” the voice came out of the shadows, coiling around her heart and squeezing with a strange comfort.

The demon king.

Of course he was here.

He never seemed to be far from her, no matter how much she wanted to recoil from him. Even on the tail of that thought was the whispered murmur of something else inside her. Something that enjoyed how he was always around her. How she felt so much safer beside him than she ever had with her previous master.

“The herb...”

He tsked in the darkness. “I’m not giving it to you. Your master is on his way to find it for us, and then I will provide it to your needy little lips.”

“I’m not talking about taking it,” she snapped, her eyes seeking him out in the darkness of her room. But she couldn’t see him, and somehow, that made it easier to talk. “Without it, I remember... too much.”

“What do you remember, oracle?”

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