Page 110 of The Devil and His Goddess

“Crazy bastard!”

“Me? Oh, no,” I chuckled while getting off Drake and backing up toward the wall where Zagan and Xander waited. “I’m not the crazy bastard you should be worried about right now.”

A black snake appeared between my feet and slithered slowly across the floor.

“As much as I want to kill you myself,” I hissed, “that would be too merciful.”

The snake drew up short near Drake’s purple and red face.

“And didn’t you know?” I asked coldly, letting my voice drop. “We demons show no such thing.Coldin!”

The black snake grew larger as the shadows around it changed. The black mass was no longer a snake but Coldin standing before Drake in dark jeans and a t-shirt that exposed his many tattoos. The Letum demon stared blankly at the human on the floor, who screamed and tried but failed to crawl away.

Xander laughed under his breath and rubbed his hands together. “I’ve been waiting for this.”

“Should’ve worn ponchos for all the blood that’s coming,” Zagan noted with a look down at his band t-shirt and jeans.

Snickering along with my boys, I yelled, “Coldin.”

The Letum’s human green eyes met mine.

“Remember what I said. Keep it tame enough for us to stomach. You can do more once he’s yours.”

Coldin’s fingers curled one at a time to crack, and he rolled his head to loosen up the muscles.

With one final look at Drake’s wailing, bloody face, I ordered, “Kill Drake.”

The green of Coldin’s eyes broke apart in dark lines before turning solid black. Flames erupted in the void of his eyes, and when he snickered, fangs had sprouted in place of his canines. Black ram horns jutted out of his brown hair, and his clawed fingers curled in excitement.

I was used to the demon, but that didn’t stop a shiver of fear from rippling down my spine at the sight of his demonic form, though this one wasn’t nearly as terrifying as histrueform. If he’d been able to slip into his real form, none of us would’ve been brave enough to stay in the same room as him. Thankfully, he wasn’t allowed to go into that form with the demonic bindings wrapped around his wrists.

Even still, this half-demonic form of his was enough to have a nervous sweat breaking out on the back of my neck, because I knew what he was capable of. I knew what dying by his hands meant. It was why he needed to be the one to kill Drake.

Anyone killed by a Letum demon became their prey for eternity. Their soul would be trapped in the Letum’s collection where the demon could torture themforever. They’d feel every ounce of pain as though alive and never be able to escape it through death. Suffering would be all they knew once killed and claimed by a Letum.

That was the only ending fit for Drake.

Or rather, a beginning—the beginning of an eternity of misery.

I wouldn’t have access to him once he became a part of Coldin’s collection, so I was happy to witness the death of his pathetic human life. I wasn’t typically one for violence. I didn’t get off on blood, screams, or the pain of others. Not all demons were like that, and Incubi certainly weren’t.

Tonight was an exception.

Coldin shoved his clawed fingers into Drake’s stomach and slowly shredded his abdomen like a hot knife through butter. Drake’s face contorted in agony as he kicked his legs and shook violently from the sensation of having skin, tissue, and organs sliced open. Sickly wet screams that could unnerve even the big man himself echoed in the basement as blood gathered in his throat and spurted out of his wide mouth. The sound had a grin lighting up my face.

A breathy laugh of pleasure seeped out of Coldin’s peeled back lips. He crouched over a twitching Drake to dig two clawed fingers into his eye sockets, plucking out the white balls with a hard yank and a spray of crimson, which splattered Coldin’s cheeks. That only made his eerie grin wider and the flames burning in his eyes brighter. I curled my fists to keep them from shaking with the same kind of excitement that thrummed through the Letum demon.

When the room went quiet and filled with the smell of fresh, warm blood, I inhaled and savored the scent.

Coldin straightened, and the wild grin he’d sported during the killing faded until his face was dotted with crimson and blank. He turned to look at the three of us and held up his tattooed arm to lick the blood dripping down his wrist. His tongue piercing glinted in the dimly lit room. “Done.”

Silence stretched for many moments as the rest of us let the sight of the bloody scene settle. Even though Coldin had gone easy on him, the sounds, smells, and sight of it wouldn’t have been easy on the two demons standing with me. For once, I relished in it. I wanted to bathe in that blood and laugh at the face of the mutilated, open-mouthed corpse.

Zagan was the first to speak, though he had to clear his throat many times before he could. “Feel free to go to your hole in Hell and play with your new toy. Clean this up first, though.”

Every Letum had a hall in Hell that housed the souls they claimed. It was where they could pay them visits and continue the torture into the afterlife. It was also where he took his time with them and performed his more …gruesometorture.

Coldin’s black-and-fiery eyes surveyed the dead body and pools of blood around the room. “What a shame.”

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