Page 83 of The Demon's Delight
I pulled her down for another lengthy kiss, both of us slick with a sheen of sweat despite the chill in the air.
Once the temperature caught up to us both, I retrieved a fresh cloth and cleaned us up. She huddled under one of theblankets from the bed as we made a picnic in front of the fire out of some bread and cheese Merry had sent. The pair of us were quiet but happy as we broke our fast.
Then, somehow, I was kissing her again, and she was moaning beneath me on the rug.
I would never get enough of her, I was sure of it, but I was thankful we were getting a chance at a bit of a head start on eternity.
“I supposeI should start putting things away,” Hailon sighed, pulling on a pair of trousers and a tunic.
We were both refreshed and ready to move on after another quick trip through the bath.
“I know you’re right, but there’s no need for such haste.” I used my finger to lift the hem of her shirt, getting a decent glance at a strip of her stomach.
“Stop that.” She rewarded me with a small chuckle. “We need to get on the road.”
I groaned. “I suppose you’re right. Places to be, people to meet, and all that.”
She squatted down and picked up a stack of her things so they could be transferred to the pack she had open on the bed. As she stood again, the weight wasn’t balanced. Everything tipped, too quick for either of us to catch. As the strongbox hit the floor, it made a ticking noise.
“What was that?”
Hailon went to her knees and opened the lid. The top edge of what appeared to be the bottom of the box was tilted up.
Her hands flew as she took everything we’d already gone through out of it, piling it to the side before lifting the thin pieceof wood that had served as a false bottom. She gasped at the contents hidden underneath.
There were three small, worn notebooks and an assortment of tiny bottles.
“That prick,” she swore, lifting out the bottles one by one. “Hair. Nails. Blood. These are Dr. Lang’s precioussamples. And his research notes.”
I stared, horrified. We’d had this with us the whole time and had no idea.
“Keep those hidden, Moonflower. They could give someone a reason to continue his cruel research.” I felt my blood heat at the very idea. “His brother wanted more than that little spell book. I’d bet anything he was looking for this box. What was hidden inside of it.”
Hailon flipped through the notes, nose wrinkling more and more the further she read. Eventually she slammed it shut and tossed it back inside the box.
“Why would they have been trying to summon a demon, though?”
I shrugged. “Maybe they thought one could help them find the missing piece to their research. Maybe they wanted to barter for some magic item to replicate your power. Wouldn’t have worked though, that’s all against the rules. Whatever demon they might have managed to call up would have either told them to go fuck themselves or given them something fake and taken their offering back to Hell. And they wouldn’t even have been punished—summoning contracts don’t work like that.”
“Their offering was me.” She frowned deeper.
“No, not quite. Your spilled blood in the circle was the offering. Maybe their own rotten souls, too, but never you.” I took her chin between my thumb and forefinger, gazing deep into those unique eyes. I looked between them several times. “Your eye…”
“What’s wrong?” she asked, nervously searching my face.
I pulled out the scrying mirror and had her look in it. “What do you see?”
“My hair is so white,” she lamented, combing it back with her fingers before leaning in to look at her eyes, one at a time. “I don’t… How is that possible?” She took the mirror from my hand, gazing at one side and then the other, her cheeks growing pink, her breathing more rapid. “Seir?”
Her right iris appeared to have turned ninety degrees. The bright blue that had once been on the left side of her eye was now at the top, and the opaque yellow from the right side had shifted to the bottom. They were slightly off center, which made me wonder if they were somehow still moving.
“I don’t know, beloved. Do you feel any different?”
“No. I feel fine.”
“Your vision?”
“No change.” She handed the mirror back to me and gazed into the distance. “At Sal’s, when I got really, really angry, I felt… something. I figured it was because I was so upset. What do I do? What does this mean?”
