Page 43 of The Demon Mark

“I’m saying that perhaps this is inevitable. That after all this time, we are being punished for what we have done. Or rewarded for what we have succeeded in doing. Depending on…” Then he did drink. Sloth slugged back the entire glass of whiskey like it wasn’t vintage stuff meant to be savored slowly. “I should congratulate you, brother. You have done something right in your life for a woman to look at you and see anything other than a monster.”

“I take offense to that.”

“We all know what we are. Monsters, just like Gluttony always claimed. The others don’t like to admit it, and that’s fine. If they want to live in a world of their own imagining, they are allowed to do so. But we are not kind. We are not good. We are the demons they claim us to be.”

Envy pinched his nose and tried to remain calm. “How much have you smoked today? You are very dismal, brother. I called you here to remind me that I do not need to take this woman for myself. And that I should kill her and take her magic.”

There was a lull in the conversation. Envy refused to look at his brother because he had a feeling he wouldn’t like what he saw. Sloth wasn’t staggering. His eyes were still slits, not blown out into something that resembled a pupil. Sloth was entirely in his right mind and even Envy knew that. But it was easier to believe his brother was drugged than for him to say what he was saying.

And yet, eventually, Envy looked up.

Sloth was staring at him, that glass hanging from his fingers and his elbows braced on his knees. There was a sadness in that gaze. A self hatred that burned his brother hotter than any fire ever would.

“We all have our secrets,” Sloth finally said. “I have mine I am unwilling to share. But I will tell you this now, Envy. Take what you’ve been offered. Some of us are tormented by the choices we made, and others are offered a reckoning to amend what we have broken. You have killed and maimed and stolen your entire life.”

“It is who Envy is meant to be,” he replied, arguing his own case as though that somehow made it better.

“And yet, what fortune it is to be gifted a woman you do not have to take from. You could convince her to stay. Better yet, you could offer her a life filled with understanding and happiness unlike you or I were ever given.”

These were strange words. Strange thoughts. Almost as though this was not his brother at all.

Envy narrowed his gaze. “This isn’t like you to suggest such a thing.”

“It goes against everything we are, doesn’t it?” Sloth shook the empty glass, then stood to place it back on Envy’s desk. “I cannot make amends for what I did, my brother. I have brought this all down upon our ears and I will be the one who suffers the most. But you have been given a gift. I would advise you to take it.”

“I have no interest in this gift.”

“Look at those who remain.” Sloth opened his arms wide and gestured down to his bare chest and the golden loincloth that covered him. “Do you wish to be like me, Pride, and Wrath? Or do you wish to be like the other three?”

Sloth loped back toward the still open portal and disappeared. But he left Envy with more questions than not.

Did he want to be like Sloth and the other two? Not really. Sloth was deeply unhappy. Both Pride and Wrath were powerful, but they stayed in their own kingdoms and dealt with their own issues. Neither of them were brothers to look up to, or aspire to be. They were, he supposed, as equally unhappy as Sloth now was.

But the other three? Lust was so happy he was uncomfortable to be around. Greed was rarely seen now because he was often buried in his bride’s thighs. The two of them were inseparable. If they weren’t fucking, they were fighting.

And Gluttony...

Envy had visited him not too long ago. They were blissfully content wrapped in each other, with no one else to bother them. They’d holed up in that crumbling, gothic castle and made it a home.

He wasn’t sure why the last one bothered him more than the other two. But seeing Gluttony have a home, someone who accepted him no matter what he did. It stirred Envy’s heart.

He poured himself another glass of whiskey and shook his head. That wouldn’t be him. He’d rather stay just the way he was because that was so much less terrifying than knowing what “happy” actually meant.

17

After she escaped the castle, it seemed like her captor eased his chains around her. Of course, it helped that her walk about had eased the ache in her chest. She wasn’t misting so much, and that made him more likely to allow her to wander.

Of course, she still had her chains. He’d set up three portals in her room, each on a wall beside each other. They all went to different places. One to a poolroom where he had said she could “exercise”. Another to the kitchens, where he had allowed her time to make her own food in the ploy that she would feel more self sufficient. And the last was to his office. She planned to never use that portal.

Lilith had decided she didn’t need this man, nor did she intend to make it easy for him to be around her. After their evening in bed when he had disappeared, she was disinclined to give him any more attention than necessary.

In short, he had angered her.

She’d offered herself on a silver platter, even if she hadn’t realized what she was offering or asking for. And he had rejected her. Without hesitation. He’d tempted her, made her realize that she might see him as more than just the demon king, and then he’d left. It reached right into a very sensitive part of her heart and reminded her that she wasn’t really wanted by anyone. Not even by him.

Let the man rot. And if he changed his mind, she had no interest in what he had to say to explain himself. She was going to live here on her own, as self sufficient as he would let her, and then she would ignore that he existed.

Not that it was very hard. Envy didn’t even try to visit her again for a whole week after he’d set up the portals. Such behavior only made her even more angry at him.

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