Page 120 of Spit

Arlo shook his head, stepping back. He turned back to the others. “I can’t.” He whispered.

Legion stepped forward. “Bring Alexis, Mars, and Quinn. Let them leave. Then you can kill me.”

Camio narrowed his eyes. “I don’t believe you for a second.”

“It’s the best you’ve got.” Sev cut in on a snarl.

Camio sighed, the sound heavy as if he had been asked a significant burden. “They are already on their way up. There is no reason to keep them. I merely took your witch to ensure your cooperation. Mars and Quinn irked me, and I felt they needed to be punished.”

“Irked you?” Arlo’s voice was dangerously low. “They are your brothers.”

Camio shrugged. “They tried to bid for the scepter at the auction house. I couldn’t let them have it.”

The elevator in Camio’s office let out a ding, signaling that it had reached that floor. The doors swished open to reveal two nude demons, their faces he knew as well as his own—Quinn and Mars.

Hidden behind their leonine bodies, as if forming a barrier, stood Alexis Boudaire.

Her pink hair faded, her fingers coated in blood, and the once-white outfit she wore was stained with sweat, dirt, and more blood.

Alexis’s crystalline blue eyes rose to meet his like a punch in the gut. She knew everything, he realized. Sev had told him, but he hadn’t thought about what that meant.

She knew that his body hadn’t been his own for thousands of years, shared with the other six beings in that room. She had seen his failures—how his petty decisions had led to his brothers being torn apart to teach him a lesson.

Legion embodied pride. The unerring confidence that he knew himself. His humility had warped and become self-satisfaction. Legion had always viewed himself as strong. As a savior.

But looking at Alexis Boudaire made him think of his origins. Of how Humility became Legion, who became Pride. How heavenly virtue had become sin.

He wanted to ask if she was okay. If she was whole and unhurt, doing so would reveal to Camio that Alexis was more than just a null witch in his employ. That she meant something.

Legion allowed himself another moment, his eyes roaming the features of her heart-shaped face and hooded eyes before he turned back to Camio.

“Here you go.” Camio swept his arm out, gesturing to his captives. “You all may go. Legion, of course, you will remain.”

“Sure.” Legion dipped his head, waiting for the others to leave.

Many years ago, God had torn them apart and left them for dead. He had managed to protect them from death; it was only fitting that he do it again.

Legion owed his brothers.

Camio wanted to kill him, and Legion felt that he deserved death at his hands. After all, Camio had been the one hurt the most by his actions.

“Legion has to die for his brothers,” Camio smirked.

Legion waited for the others to leave, but no one moved, save for Arlo, whose skin bulged and burst to reveal his true form—a hulking red gladiator covered in scars.

Two rams horns curled on either side of his head, and Arlo's teeth grew sharp.

The room filled with his anger—lashing and writhing like a serpent, coiling around everyone’s throats and suffocating them.

“Like hell it is.” Arlo snarled, folding into thin air and reappearing next to Camio in a blink. The wrath demon's grip was so strong it took his head clean off.

Legion waited for Camio’s consciousness to flow back through the bond, but it never came.

As Camio’s body dropped to the ground, his wrist thumped on the carpet—weighed down by the heavy Devil’s silver cuff.

The cuff that protected Camio from their bond had also killed him.

Chapter Twenty-Two

---