Page 98 of Living Legend

Annoyed, I took a long, disgusting pull of the beer. “Demons have souls or an essence, Nicholas. They aren’t as pretty or as pure as you angels, but they’re there. It keeps us in a type of homeostasis. Without them…” I trailed off, trying to find the right words.

He nodded, as if he had some type of understanding. “These shadow demons that ambushed us don't have a soul?”

I point my bottle at him. “Correct. I only overheard talk about it once between a few demons. You know Lilith can take souls like I can, but I always just kill them outright because it’s the simpler choice. Other times, I do take the soul, but I can’t keep them soulless. I have to remove them from existence completely, because when you have that sort of thing removed from you, you become…lost.”

One of his eyebrows perked up, but he didn’t speak. I continued. “I heard them talking about Lilith experimenting with removing souls but just leaving the demons as they are. You’re vulnerable without that sort of balance, susceptible to suggestion, as it were. You don’t remember much of anything about yourself, you just see dark and…nothing.”

He placed his beer down on the coffee table and perched his elbow on the back of the couch. “Is that what you were talking about in the Divine Library? You know, when you talked about losing your soul and being…what was the word you used? Voided?”

I tilted my beer bottle back and forth. “Sort of. I wasn’t speaking about someone ripping my soul out, just that one day after everything I’ve done, maybe I’ll reap what I sow.” I laughed at myself and shook my head, looking down at my exposed knees. “No one really knows what true darkness is like until you’re trapped in it with only a voice to guide your lonely thoughts. Lilith could mold them if she wanted, since they have nothing else going for them without their souls. She makes them ultimately submit, or I assume that’s how it would go.”

Nicholas ran a hand through his hair, making it stick up. “Well, that’s a scary fucking thought.”

I lifted my eyes in awell, yeahgesture. “These demons give off the vibe that that's exactly what she’s doing. Lilith sent them there to bombard us, clearly tasked to attack, kill, attack.”

“And?” Nicholas reached for his beer, his shirt lifting a bit, revealing a sliver of his abs and parts of the gauze covering his wound.

“Well, it's just so stupidly simple for Lilith. I’ve spent enough time with her to know she isn’t stupid, and she isn’t simple. What if those demons were just like Cullen? Sent as a test through the portal.”

Nicholas let out a hum against the top of his beer bottle, the sound of his breath against the top making a low whistle. “Then what happened with the demon before the ambush? The one Markus ended up finding.”

I pursed my lips and squinted, trying to think, the sound of the rain making it easier for me to gather my thoughts. “I don’t know about that one. Maybe it slipped through the cracks. If voided demons aren’t strong enough to maintain a bond with the host, the host being Lilith, then they can go rogue.”

Nicholas took a drink from his bottle, then another, and another. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

The crackle of the fireplace was loud from the way the silence enveloped the room. His answer was so simple, as if every new piece of information he got was just so much that he could only respond in monosyllables. He scratched the back of his neck and nodded. “Yup.”

“You aren’t going to interrogate me anymore?”

“That was hardly an interrogation.”

“I would know, wouldn’t I?” I said, sticking my tongue out between my teeth.

“I don’t think you have anything to worry about,” he said, looking towards the fireplace and gazing into the dancing flames. His face was illuminated, making his brown eyes brighter.

“What are you talking about?”

“About losing your soul or losing yourself. I honestly don’t see that happening. Elise, possibly. I’m not totally convinced she isn’t already consumed by the darkness.”

I chuckled, tilting my head to the side mischievously. “Nicholas, is that your version of saying something nice about me?”

“Think whatever you want.”

I fingered my hand through my hair. “Just because you fucked me doesn’t mean you have to say or do nice things.” He had pulled me out of that group of demons as if it was his mission to help me. I felt something tug at me the moment he had grabbed my hand and pulled me out. Gratitude? Happiness? Who the fuck knows.

Nicholas practically coughed up his swig of beer, pressing his hand to his throat to stop from coughing up a lung. “Dani…I already told you…”

“Yeah, yeah, it was a mistake. Whatever you have to say to make yourself feel better when you jerk off to the memory of my pussy in the middle of the night.”

He had his beer slightly tilted to his lips as I said this, causing him to scrub a hand down his face and place the beer on the coffee table. “Fuck. You have absolutely no filter, do you?”

“With you? Not a chance.”

He narrowed his eyes. “You know, I say nice things and do nice things because I’m a nice person. Sex is not the reason.”

I narrowed my eyes right back at him. “It isareason, though.”

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