Page 83 of Demon Bound

She went too long without speaking, and she feared Azreth’s judgment. He was conspicuously silent, hiding whatever he was thinking.

“I hate him,” she said. “I hate everything he’s done to me, and how he makes me feel, and how much of my life he’s taken away. Everything about who he is disgusts me.”

She sniffed. Azreth was silent, and something heavy hovered between them.

“Was he never kind to you?” Azreth asked after a while.

He was backing her into a corner. “Of course he was, sometimes. Or, I thought he was. I wouldn’t have married him otherwise.”

He hummed his agreement.

“Just say what you want to say,” she said.

“You love him and hate him.”

She was surprised he’d identified the feeling so accurately.

“I don’t love him,” she said. “Maybe I loved the person I thought he was. That person was never real, but I still miss the way I felt with him in the beginning.”

“You mourn the future you thought you would have together.”

Tears pricked her eyes. “Yes.”

“But you will never have that future you imagined. He destroyed it. There is nothing left for you to love.”

A tear fell down her cheek. She gave a heavy sigh, rubbing her face. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m…”

Azreth stopped. He knelt down and put a hand on her face. He held her there for a moment, looking alarmed, and it seemed that he didn’t know what to do next. He’d wanted to comfort her, but didn’t quite know how.

“Think of a future with me, instead,” he said.

Raiya stared at him. Was he being serious?

He was very still, his jaw tense.

Hewasserious.

“I do think of that,” she said. Azreth’s eyes brightened, almost imperceptibly. As impossible as it was, she did. She thought about it every day.

There were raised voices ahead. The caravan had stopped. Raiya and Azreth both squinted down the road.

The road sloped gently downward, giving a clear view of someone coming up the road from the opposite direction. They were moving fast, their wagon bouncing unsteadily on the rough road. A swarm of large birds followed.

The birds were like none she’d ever seen. They were as big as grown men, and so black that they seemed to consume all the light around them, but their eyes glowed like green fire. One of them swooped down, talons extended, and ripped into the shoulder of the woman in the wagon. The woman screamed, clutching the wound and ducking her head.

“Do you have your bow?” Azreth asked, moving quickly toward the approaching wagon. She handed it to him without comment.

He quickly strung it and took the arrow she offered him. They weaved through the crowd of Roamers until they reached the front of the caravan, where Azreth stopped and took aim. The bow looked comically small in his hands, but his shot was perfect. The arrow arced gracefully, piercing the chest of one of the birds just as it dove toward the wagon.

The rest of the creatures continued circling, watching Azreth as he took another arrow from Raiya’s outstretched hand. He rested the arrow against the bowstring, but didn’t draw it yet.

The birds seemed to think better of their choice of targets. They turned and flew back the way they’d come. It appeared that lesser creatures of the hells knew better than to try to fight a demon.

As the wagon rolled to a stop, the riders turned their attention to Azreth. He met their gaze as he handed the bow back to Raiya.

Then a man in the back of the wagon stood up. “Lady Han-gal?” he asked, eyebrows raised. “Is that really you?”

She realized she recognized the man. He was a baker in Frosthaven. They were not close, but her stall had been next to his in the market before she’d married and closed her business. She knew he’d lived in Frosthaven all his life. She hadn’t expected he’d ever leave, but the wagon looked like it had been packed up with everything the family owned.

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