Page 53 of Demon Loved
I unlock the door. And there she is in all her glory, the object of my heart’s desire. Katrina’s pink curls are pulled back into a ponytail today. Her white blouse is crisp and ironed, thanks to Zolroth’s prim obsessions. I can just make out the scalloped lace pattern of her bra through her shirt, and instantly, I have to swallow hard.
“Come in.” I pull the door open farther and let her walk in, enjoying the view of her skirt as it flaps against the curve of her ass. It’s like a matador’s flag. I’m the bull, and every tiny movement of her skirt entices me to charge. I really want to slide my hands up the creamy white skin of her legs again.
“I hate this school!” Katrina declares, dropping her bookbag and flouncing into the chair across from my desk. “Can I just quit?”
I want to say yes. That would mean I wouldn’t have to sit here day after day, listening to molehills turned into mountains by teenagers who are too hormonal to cope with the fact that life’s shitty.
But if I do, I’ll be teaching my mate to run from her problems.
Demons don’t run.
We fight.
I lock the door behind me and move to the front of the desk so I can lean back against it. I cross my ankles and use my best “counselor” voice. “Tell me all about it, sweetheart.”
Katrina glares up at me. “Don’t mock me.”
“I’m not, Trina. I swear I’m not. What’s bothering you?” I lean forward and put my hand over hers where it clenches the little metal hand rest.
“Everybody knows I’m dating Zolroth and Akor at the same time, and the looks… I just can’t stand them anymore. People are walking on the opposite side of the hall from me!” Katrina’s face contorts in pain.
But my heart is feeling another kind of twisted pain. The jealous kind.
I hate that she can acknowledge them but not me. I hate these stupid human rules and laws.
I find myself leaning towards her and caressing her cheek. “Trina,” I ask softly. “Are you ashamed of us?”
“No!” Sparks fly from her eyes, and I love how her reaction is instantaneous and fierce. But then she sighs. “It’s just…all the judgment.”
“Pioneers are often judged, and wrongly so,” I tell her, leaning down to place a chaste kiss on her cheek. “Lucillania is often called evil, when all she wanted was for souls to be free to make their own choices.” I think back to Hell, to the orgy pits I grew up in. Yes, a lot of those choices are twisted, warped, some even sick, some downright evil. But many are just…kinky. Different.
I take a deep breath and drag my thumb over the soft gloss on Katrina’s plush lower lip as I add, “Heaven and God abuse morality. Their goal is to make the world subservient. ‘Morality is just a fiction used by the herd of inferior human beings to hold back the few superior men.’”
Katrina’s breath catches, and her eyes dilate. “Did you just quote Fredrick Nietzsche?”
I give her a little grin. “He was a friend of mine, a century or so ago.”
Her chest heaves, and her hands fly to mine, all her worries fleeing her face. “Really?” She clutches at my hand. “Are you serious?” She has this starstruck look as she gazes up at me, and I can’t contain the heat that travels down my spine at her expression. I want more.
I give a modest shrug, but inside I’m flexing, showing off, anything to keep that look on her face. “Zolroth and I might have helped open his mind a bit.” Or a lot. Late nights smoking and drinking, arguing and…doing other things, briefly flick through my thoughts.
“Oh. My. God!” She yanks on my hands with each word. “He’s my favorite philosopher from decathlon.” She glances off to the side and then recites, “‘To live is to suffer and to find some meaning in the suffering.’”
I gently raise our linked hands and kiss her knuckles. “You’re the meaning in mine.”
It feels like a sunrise occurs in my own chest as I watch her eyes fill with tears and a smile dart across her face at my words. I light up. My heart becomes streaked with soft pinks and yellows and is full of the hope of a new day.
Damn.
Katrina stands up and then steps closer. I have to widen my legs so she can squeeze between them. My heart starts to beat rapidly when the wet streaks in her eyes spill over into tears. I unlink our fingers so I can swipe them away.
“Happy tears,” she says softly. “They’re happy tears.”
“Good.”
“I love you, Van,” she whispers, eyes going wide as the admission slips from her lips. It’s still new to her, hard for her, a phrase she’s hardly uttered in her life before, I’m sure. A phrase she hasn’t often heard.
Those words are my catalyst. Whatever restraint I have breaks at those words because they spark an unstoppable chemical reaction in my brain. Whatever sensitivity I feel about her discomfort at being judged by her peers disappears, wiped away with those words. Something primal wakes up in me. I have to claim her.
