Page 34 of Demons & Damnation

“I’d love to rip your heart out,” Adam said. His icy tone combined with his flat, emotionless stare sent chills down Kyla’s spine. “But I prefer watching you torture yourself every day.”

Kyla’s eyes widened. Where the fuck was Sam? Clearly, these siblings had some deep-rooted issues that needed working out. Remembering her thought from last night of Adam most likely having a micro-penis, she bit the inside of her lip and stifled a giggle. She then realised the catch with this pair wasn’t their lack of manhood but the freight train of baggage they obviously had.

“She was too good for you,” Ben said, resting back against the velvet bench with a sadistic smile. “You didn’t appreciate her at all.”

Adam jumped up and slammed his fists down on the table. The noise reverberated around the entire building, instantly silencing everything. Music stopped. Lights stilled. People froze. Chatter ceased.

Kyla held her breath and kept her focus on the large indents his fists had left in the table wondering what the hell was happening right now.

“You know nothing,” Adam said, his top lip curling back as he sneered at his brother. “You were a curse to us, always hanging around like a lost puppy. It was almost like you couldn’t let me have the perfect life unless you had it as well. Even when you did the most unspeakable thing, you took the cowards way out. You couldn’t even face your own reflection, could you? Did the demon within you smile back at you then, Octavio?”

With cat-like reflexes, Ben sprung to his feet and knocked the table clean out of the booth. Kyla shrieked and curled her legs to her chest, trying to make herself as small as possible. With clenched fists, Ben invaded his brother’s personal space, literally going head-to-head with him. Kyla felt like she had been caught between two warring bulls and had no way out.

“I did it to save you the pain of doing it. You really are a stupid fuck sometimes, Azazel. Get your head out of your ass and actually pay attention to what goes on around you. Some day you might just realise people do things because they care—” Ben’s chest heaved up and down with his laboured breaths “—about you.”

Kyla froze. Azazel? Who the fuck was Azazel?

Adam threw his head back and laughed. When he looked back at his brother, Kyla’s heart stopped dead. The trick of light she thought she’d seen earlier was now confirmed to her as reality. Adam’s eyes were no longer the colour of jade crystal but that of the deepest shadows of night. His flesh bulged with wine-coloured veins and his teeth had turned into a mouthful of lethal canines. The energy around him pulsed with menace, the promise of blood being spilled hanging in the air.

As Kyla took in the perilous sight before her, something deep inside her stirred, coming alive. A fire she’d smothered years ago that tried relighting every day suddenly reignited with a roaring flame. Whatever betrayal Adam spoke of, Kyla understood that pain, the agony of family, of your own blood deceiving you.

Kyla knew that kind of anguish never lessened, it was just something that had to be lived with. Some days, it could be plastered over, but it could never be aired because it would never heal. Because it would never heal, it was always there, pulsing, throbbing for attention.

Watching such a magnificent, terrifying kindred spirit feel emotions just as raw as Kyla did bewitched her. But that wasn’t the scary part.

The scary part was the more she watched, waiting, expecting, relishing in it, the more turned on she became.

Chapter 15

“Are you ok?” Ben asked Kyla, rubbing his hands up and down her upper arms.

Kyla, completely dazed, stared back up at him, blank, numb. “What? What just happened?”

“You drove, right?” Ben said, taking her hand. “Where’s your car?”

As the cold spring air bit at her skin, Kyla found herself pulled back to reality. Looking around her, she felt nothing but confused. Standing on the opposite side of the river, on the wrong side of the river to where her car sat, Kyla stared at The Black Iris crumpled into an unrecognisable heap of bricks.

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