Page 6 of Tortured Soul
We stared each other down for long uncomfortable seconds—or was it minutes? I couldn’t tell. Every time I moved he shifted, ready to pounce. But every time he shifted or tilted his head at me, I felt likeadjusting my stance to escape quicker. From the other Immortals’ point of view, it must have looked like a weird and awkward intimidation dance.
“Did you get lost?” he drawled.
Goosebumps erupted on my skin as I fought the shudder climbing up my spine. His voice was low. Cold. Then why was my skin burning all of a sudden?
“I did not.”
His eyes narrowed a little more, so much that I could hardly see the blue in his right eye anymore.
“How did you find us?”
“GPS coordinates.”
“Given by whom?”
I refrained from shifting on my legs. “If this place was as much of a secret as you seem to think, I wouldn’t have been given said coordinates.”
“You’re not answering the question.”
I gritted my teeth.What a stubborn ass.
“You’re not getting an answer.”
“Then you’re not leaving this room.”
My hands turned to fists against my thighs and I focused on the pain of my nails digging into my palms, grounding me.Deep breaths.
He slid his hands in his dark jeans’ pockets, the motion making his muscles ripple under his simple black T-shirt. Beingthathot while wearing such casual clothes should be forbidden.
“Look,” I started, “I’m not here to cause problems. I’ve come here because I was freed from my contract a week ago and I’ve already been attacked twice. I’m just looking for someplace safe where I can start to live for myself after centuries of—”
“Fucking people to their damnation?” he rudely interrupted.
“Centuries ofservice,” I corrected him through my teeth. “And to be honest with you, the whole discrimination toward succubi is getting old.”
He shrugged, inspecting his nails casually. “Is it? Was it not an Incubus who was to blame for the start of the war?”
I groaned as my whole body vibrated with annoyance. “Yeah, I know. Males, right? Always fucking it up for the rest of us.”
I tried to keep my tone light, teasing, but the expression on his face didn’t soften.
“Can’t incubi change their form to female and vice versa?”
Some of us could. I’ve been traveling as a man for the last couple of weeks, knowing it would be safer and I was less likely to get attacked. Any Incubus who could, rarely took a female form though, for that same reason.
“It’s irrelevant,” I snapped.
“It took less than forty-eight hours for that Incubus to reveal all of the immortals’ dark secrets to the former president after he’d been caught sleeping with his wife. To tell the politician and the world about how she loved him more because he could be either male or female and indulge in her wildest fantasies. It took him less than a week to reveal half of what humans now know about all the other Immortals. Your kind is nearly extinct now because of that. So how can I know for sure you’re not here to harm any of us? That we can trust you?”
“One does not define a whole species.”
The scoff that escaped his throat was filled with condescension. If I wasn’t so confused and scared by his whole energy, I would have punched his face.
“If it were true, maybe the other succubi and incubi would not have rebelled against your master, when he decided to punish his one bad spawn.”
Divine. Definitely Divine. He wouldn’t have talked about Lucifer like this if he was a Hellriser. If he was of demon kind. Then why did his scent, his whole aura, felt like it was flickering between evil and holy? Why were his ears tipped? Divines, even archangels or the mighty old dude himself, were not known to have tipped ears. It was a rare trait, only seen on Hellrisers or a few Earthwalkers. The first of their individual kinds. But then, why the blue eye? Why the confusing aura?
“They were all punished,” I countered, taking a step forward. “I was not. I don’t care for the other Succubi. It could have been any other Immortal caught doing the wrong thing. As far as I know,weare not the only ones enjoying ourselves, are we? Would you have been acting so pompous if it was a Divine instead? They’re not all innocent, and the result would have been identical. If the old president tried to kill a Divine for sleeping with his wife, it would have resulted in the same way. He would have found out that your kind couldn’t die. Bothof our kinds would have been outed one way or another. The only way it wouldn’t have happened is if it was an Earthwalker and even then something would have felt off, because in case you never noticed, dead humans rot. Their skin and flesh don’t turn to earth or stone or whatever else different kinds of Earthwalkers do and—”
