Page 78 of Demon Loved
“We didn’t do anything,” Lightning adds, flashing me a stupidly perfect smile. “But your demon here…”
“What?” Van jerks his head back as if he’s been shot.
And I swear, something inside of me…shatters.
Even before they confess the truth, I know. I can see it in Kastros’s dark eyes—eyes that once made me feel irrevocably safe and protected. Eyes that I could get lost in, traveling for hours and hours in their murky depths.
But now, those eyes are brimming with tears, tears he won’t let fall, and radiate nothing but guilt. So. Much. Guilt. It ripples through the air and settles deep in my soul, altering something inside of me. I don’t know what, and at the moment, I don’t care to look too deeply.
No.
No.
No.
“Your buddy here was in the area hunting for his Center.” Lightning squeezes Kastros’s shoulder good-naturedly, and this time, my demon doesn’t move away. He just continues to stare at me, panic and fear contorting his features into someone unrecognizable.
“What?” Akor growls, and he looks seconds away from using his powers onKastros, not the angels.
“He found her all right.” Water chuckles at his own joke as my heart continues to shred into pieces smaller than glitter.
Can you survive with a heart this broken? With a pain this intense and potent?
Do you even want to?
Agony bombards me from all sides, reminding me distinctly of a room that steadily shrinks around you, caging you in. There’s no escaping. There’s no running.
All you can do is pray that your death is quick.
No.
No.
No.
Kastros doesn’t bother to deny it. He doesn’t offer me petty condolences or apologizes. He…
He tried to kill me.
He succeeded in killing my nanny, one of the very few people who cared about me.
He took away my hearing.
And worse than all of that, he took my heart…and then crushed it in his large palm.
“You’re lying!” Van protests immediately, adamantly, but he knows as well as any of us that angels can’t lie.
Zolroth and Akor are glaring at Kastros with betrayal and hatred. So much fucking hatred.
And Raz…
He’s staring at his best friend as if he doesn’t quite recognize him. As if they’ve been apart for centuries and have now found each other, only to discover that time has corroded away all that was good and pure.
But he doesn’t look surprised.
Did he…?
Did he know?
