Page 4 of Demon Sworn
In a steel box.
While I’m carrying a machete in my jacket and still wearing a set of gorgeous grenades across my torso.
I cackle maniacally, and he casts me a side-eyed stare, as if questioning my sanity.
Silly, scary man. Doesn’t he know that I lost my sanity eons ago? That it’s somewhere in the fucking forest with the little compassion I once had? Well, the compassion that doesn’t belong solely to Katrina now. She’s the only exception.
“When the pain. Comes marching in. Ohhhh, when the pain comes marching in,” I begin, singing at the top of my lungs, making sure to add vibrato to every word. When he continues to glower at the closed elevator door, I push up onto my tiptoes and stick my lips directly next to his ear. “Oops, I did it again. I played with your blood. Got lost in your pain. Oh, baby, baby.” I shimmy my hips as I sing.
Fuck, I should’ve considered a career in singing. I’m nailing this shit.
Literally.
I’m envisioning nailing Kastros to the wall of the elevator by his hands and feet.
Technical sidenote—people must be nailed through the wrist to remain suspended, but I’ve never minded the sound of flesh peeling from bone, sloughing off down either side of a nail, accompanied by a wail as beautiful as a musical saw.
But alas, Raz doesn’t want us to actually hurt Kastros, not until Katrina can sort through her own muddy thoughts. He was annoyingly clear on that before he let me leave the townhouse with Kastros. Grabbed my arm and made me repeat it after him like a four-year-old and everything.
She still loves him, blah blah blah. She’ll be sad if you kill him or even maim him, blah blah blah.
Spoilsport.
The thought of Katrina causes a lump to form in my throat, and an unfamiliar feeling of dread begins to circulate in my stomach. Because when I think of Katrina, I think of her little brother, and then I think of her asshole parents who dared to take what belongs to me and mine.
Make no fucking mistake—Adam isours.
That sweet little fucker. I just taught him how to fart and blame it on the person next to him. I had so many plans…like a set of brass knuckles custom-made his size, sitting in the sock drawer in my dresser, just waiting for a special day, like a Tuesday, to give it to him.
Pitch-black fury, the kind I’ve only felt once before, roars through me.
I’ll burn this entire fucking world down if that’s what I need to do to get him back where he belongs. And I’ll do it all with a gleeful smile on my face. Fire isn’t my preferred choice of weapon—I prefer sharp, pointy knives and sparkly grenades, becausehello,sparkles—but it can be just as effective.
You can tell you’re a sadistic psychopath when you’re practically salivating at the thought of burning your mate’s parents alive. I should probably see a therapist about this at some point.
Hmm. Maybe I should get a name card that says, “Hello, my name is Akor. If you fuck with my mate, I will eat you. Literally. Have a nice day!” Hopefully, that will keep all of the assholes who want to harm my family away.
Katrina’s parents.
The fucking angel flock who’s been attacking us at random.
What’s next?
Is the devil herself going to crawl out of Hell and declare war on us?
I like Lucillania, I honestly do, but if she goes after my girl, I’ll cut a bitch, ruler of Hell be damned. Pun unintended. I’m not one for titles, after all, especially since the only one I ever got was, “Akor, bringer of pain and agony and dismembered body parts.” Stupid Van is known as “Van, bringer of orgasms.”
So fuck titles.
And fuck our enemies.
And fuck Van for bringing orgasms.
I’ll kill them all with my bare hands if I have to.
Somehow, during my internal tangent, I’d followed Kastros out of the elevator, and now I stand in front of the closed office door of Leonard Parks, Katrina’s parents’ business partner. He’s just as dirty and crooked as the assholes we’re hunting. Back when he was a prosecutor, he once took twenty thousand dollars to conveniently lose the evidence that would lock a rapist up. Another time, after he opened this business practice to defend criminals, he slept with his client, a renowned serial killer, and paid the judge to get her off with a warning.
He’s a menace to society, and it’s my job as a concerned citizen, and a pain demon from Hell, to make sure he doesn’t see the light of day ever again. Okay, fine. Technically, that’s not how Hell really works, but you know what? That’s how everyone thinks Hell works. And perception is all that matters right? Well, it’s all that matters to me because it means I can punish him.
