Page 39 of Gift for a Demon

Only Astaroth was inside the room, sitting in the chair to the right of Flaga’s, the demon currently presiding over their meetings.

“Brother.” The Prince kept reminding him of their familial relationship. It had taken Melchom years to train himself out of giving a reaction.

“Astra. Are the others on their way?”

“In about twenty minutes.”

Melchom had been about to sit down, but his body drew taut as he spun around to eye his… brother. “Then why was I summoned now?”

“I wanted to talk to you.”

“About what?”

Astra waved his hand around. It had always been one of his tells; he had something to say, but he didn’t know how to tackle it and pretended it bore no importance. It had been that way since they were tiny cherubs with no scars in sight.

“When are you gonna let me meet your gift?”

That was an easy question to answer. “Never.”

Melchom was surprised when it was met with silence, though. Hadn’t Astra expected that very thing?

“You’re stubborn.” Astra rolled his eyes but didn’t move from his seat. In fact, he adopted an even more relaxed stance. The next step to really sell his supposed nonchalance would be to stack his feet on the table. The other princes would kill him, though, and he knew it.

“He’s mine.”

“Yes, but tell me.” Astra fiddled with the belt in his tunic. Most demons didn’t bother to cover their chests, but he’d always preferred to. “How come you pass by a painting of your demise every day and still haven’t learned your lesson?”

Melchom’s nostrils flared.

“What lesson?”

As far as he was concerned, that painting held no educational purpose and never would. Melchom fumed just thinking about it. The idea that his family was trying to teach him something or thinking about his well being in any way was laughable.

“You didn’t let me meet your human back then either. If I had, we wouldn’t be here right now.”

Of course.

In the decades after his demise, Astra had rubbed his special talent in Melchom’s face every chance he got. All demons could read thoughts and feel and feed off emotions, but they had their own unique set. Melchom could command bodies to do their bidding. Astra was a master at reading future intentions in people. He could’ve known the unnameable would betray and dethrone him.

He would know if Melchom’s gift would hurt him or fulfill his prophecy too—assuming that Dove was the gift in that prophecy.

“Don’t fret, little brother.”

Astra’s nostrils flared. Getting a rise out of him was still so easy.

“Honey shackles will tie the demon’s wrists,

They shall come as a present, the utmost sacrifice,

The gift shall be fractured, fluttering by,

He will make Hell his own,

And restore the place of the one who fell.”

His voice boomed as he recited the verses. He’d always had a flair for the dramatic.

“Will the one who fell reclaim his crown?

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