Page 43 of Demon Sworn
No shoe,he signs. Or half signs, since he still keeps one arm locked tight around my waist.
I narrow my eyes at him. “I know what you’re doing. And this isn’t enough. You are not forgiven just because—”
I know.
But Kastros doesn’t put me down. And I stop fighting. Because even if everything isn’t quite right between us yet, it feels good to be back in his arms.
18
Akor
There’ssomething beautiful about pain. It’s a dance we perform, pain and me, and one that I’m intimately familiar with. I can close my eyes and still feel the tempo reverberating through me, real and warm and vibrant. The screams are my chorus, and every slice of my knife against flesh is a different verse.
There was only one time in my life when I didn’t find pleasure inflicting pain onto others.
Sometimes, when I’m alone at night, when the darkness seems to press in on me from all sides, when my mind can’t stop spinning and spinning and spinning, I think of my mom and dad.
The demons I killed.
And if pain usually has its own distinct song, theirs could best be described as the slow, wallowing screech of a thousand violins. You can’t dance to the tune, you can’t even enjoy it, though I sure as fuck tried, because joy was better than the alternative of gripping despair, knowing that I’m the monster they always accused me of being. All you can do is brace yourself as your ears bleed and the music thunders through you, demanding your complete and utter attention.
The same day I tortured and killed my parents, I butchered thirty-seven other members of my family as well. Uncle Gury, who taught me how to wield a knife, was one of the first to die. Aunt Marmalla, who showed me where to cut in order to ensure the prisoner will remain alive long enough to extract information from him. Cousins. Grandparents.
Only one was spared.
Maybe it makes me a monster that, even now, I feel no guilt. I imagine if my sweet cherry discovers the truth, she’ll run towards the hills as fast as her sweet little ass can go. Of course, I would chase her down, tying her to me so inextricably that she would never think about leaving me again.
Because I may be a monster, a creature of night who wields pain and destruction like they’re my own personal sword and shield, but I’m Cherry’s monster, first and foremost. Whatever m’lady requires of me, she shall receive.
If that means cutting off my own dick to appease her, then so be it. It wouldn’t be the first time I did that.
It was a dare a few centuries ago. Shut up. And it grew back, didn’t it?
So now I’m here visiting my uncle, though I’d rather stab myself in the bumhole than see his face again. We’re here standing on the stoop of a dilapidated old human house, the likes of which might terrify Katrina with its peeling paint and haunted aura. If it weren’t for the demon I know is inside those walls, I’d think it looked like a cute place for a picnic with my girl because it’s nice and private and we’d unlikely be disturbed, even if I made her scream with my tongue and horns and dick.
Raz stands beside me, his customary scowl firmly in place as he folds his huge arms over his chest and stares over at the dark windows of the house, which looks abandoned but I know is not.
“Are you sure this is where he’s supposed to be?” he asks, but I don’t get the sense he’s questioning my judgement. It’s more like… It’s more like he’s scared, like he heard the horror stories concerning my Uncle Dothamala.
The man I let live.
When Lucillania discovered that my family was conspiring against Hell with Heaven, I didn’t want to believe it. I didn’t love my family the way most people do, but I didn’t necessarily want to see them dead. At least, notdeaddead. Slightly dead, at the very most. Just a smidgen dead.
But then I saw the letters between my own fucking father and the archangel Gabriel, and I knew. I fucking knew.
My dad? He squealed like a little piggy when I cut into him without remorse, using all of the tricks he taught me against him. He had no loyalty to his wife—my mother—who wasn’t his Center, so he gave me her name. And my mom? She easily gave up all the other members of my family without an ounce of hesitation.
I cut into all of them, reveling in the way their skin slid apart like butter. Sometimes when I close my eyes, I can hear my grandparents hurling insults my way as I skin them alive. I can see my cousins glaring at me with all of the anger they can muster…but also a heavy dose of fear too.
I don’t believe I was broken when I first started torturing them, under Lucillania’s orders.
But afterwards?
Something shattered inside of me. Something that had always been only held together by a precarious string, just waiting to snap.
They call me mad, but I don’t think that’s it. At least, not fully.
I’m just…obsessive. Yes, that’s the word.
