Page 60 of Demon Queen
He sat on his enormous haunches and looked at one paw then another, before fixing me with a raised brow. “What in tarnation is this supposed to be?” It was Dorian’s voice with the rumblings of a natural phenomenon. Dorian was a bear? And he said tarnation? I wasn’t sure which was weirder.
I blinked at him. “Tarnation? I don’t know what that is, but you’re a full-size cinnamon bear. Are you going to metamorphize into a new weird thing every time I…” I took a shaky breath. He knew I’d eaten him. Only one thing tried to eat demons and succeeded. I licked my lips. Maybe I could get his blood off and then…
He leaned forward, large nostrils snuffing at me. “I think it’s time to talk.” He nosed me, and I grabbed onto his head so I wouldn’t fall over.
“Talk? About what?” I asked, staring into those molten lava eyes and feeling my own heart quiver. He was such an absolutely terrifying teddy bear. His eyes were so big, and he was so deadly. Also so cute! I stroked the fur on his cheeks, the lava fur, but like his fireplace, it didn’t burn me, just felt incredibly good.
He turned his head and roared, “Regis!”
The chaos demon showed up almost immediately, took one look at Dorian, screeched and then fell down the stairs until he rolled into a basket of gears and hard candy.
Everything went over onto the floor, including the Candy Man demon who just sat in a puddle of chaos and stared at Dorian like he’d never seen a teddy bear demon before.
“Why did my queen bite Straldi?”
Regis shifted uncomfortably, not meeting my eyes before he murmured, “She was trying to get him to help her talk to the White Rabbit. He brought up his hand to stop her, and she bit him.”
Dorian the bear swung his huge head back at me, eyes flickering madly like the ones in the fireplace. “Why would you want to see the White Rabbit?”
“Um. It was a vision Gloria had. He’s on my side, and if we’re going to war and freeing Wilkie, we’ll need help from someone who knows the Mad Hatter.”
“Frisco!” the bear Dorian roared while I flinched and my ears rang.
The large demon came in, stopping at the top of the stairs to look at the scene spread out below him. He was wearing his chef hat, which was interesting with his demonic skin. He nodded. “We’re going to war then. Good. My Queen will be kind enough to bite the soldiers.”
“What? Why would I do that?”
Dorian nudged me with that huge head, knocking me back a step before I sank my fingers in his lava fur and steadied myself. He was so soft. And felt as good as he smelled. And tasted, but I wasn’t going to mention that.
Dorian growled, “You don’t have to bite anyone you don’t want to bite. Frisco would like an easy win, which means unbeatable soldiers. Your bite will give them that, but you don’t touch anyone you don’t want to touch.”
I stared at Dorian Bear while my heart beat too fast. He was saying that I was an angel, and he knew I was an angel, and hadn’t said anything for all these weeks when I’d been walking on eggshells!
I punched him in the nose. “You knew I was an angel all this time? Why didn’t you say anything?”
He blinked his big pretty eyes and the flames seemed to settle down. “I didn’t want to tell you anything you didn’t already now in case it stressed you out.”
“But you hate angels! Dorian, I’m an angel. The kind you hate. Wilkie’s our son. And I couldn’t save him. I can’t save anyone. And I want you to go to war and get him back. But if that kills all the demons and destroys the world, settling loose a zombie apocalypse on the earth, you probably should just kill me instead.”
His paws landed on my shoulders, heavy weight that grew heavier and heavier as his enormous paws covered my shoulder and arms past my elbows. His paws were killer. Literally. They also had molten lava tipped claws. Big. Scary. So, he was going to kill me then. About time someone put me out of my misery. Except that wouldn’t save Wilkie.
“You want me to go to war?”
That’s what he got out of that? I craned my neck to look at him. His eyes were mesmerizing, cinnamon with flickers ofmolten gold in a ring around his fathomless pupil. “Only if it doesn’t destroy our world.”
“The Hatter was given the demon world for his service in the Queen’s army. To go to war against him would reclaim my world.” His voice was a low growl that sent a wave of alarm down my spine.
“I’m an angel.”
His eyes flickered brighter for a moment before settling down. “No, you’re an original. You should probably make a point of keeping that to yourself.” He squeezed me a little tighter then released me and dropped onto all four paws.
“You really knew?” I stared at him, heart and stomach twisting around each other.
He gave me the most adorable terrifying bear smile. “The only thing I don’t know is why you named our son Wilkie.”
“Ah.” Was it a bad name? I studied him, but he wasn’t moving, didn’t seem like he was breathing, either. What was he doing? Growing more adorable. Cinnamon bears had always been my favorite, but this creature was just so cuddly. Right at that second, I could have used years and years of cuddling. Wait, all this time he knew what I was and he didn’t say anything even though I was sure he’d hate me? I scowled at him. “It’s a cute name. The cutest.”
His tongue lolled over his viciously terrifying teeth. Suddenly, he licked the side of my face. “Very cute. You ate Regis. I’m sure that was also cute.”
