Page 18 of The Demon's Due
Cam’s knock rattled the wood. “Sio? Are you in there? Are you okay?”
Inside, the air was laden with heat and hunger. Síofra’s pupils were blown wide, her breath ragged. Morgan could see her body straining, scenting, calling and every part of him screamed to answer. She was in the grip of her heat, rational thought having been lost on the wayside.
Ashmedai’s voice coiled through him, smooth and certain.“Give me control. I will get us somewhere safe.”
Morgan’s throat worked.“How?”he whispered back, terrified she would hear.
“Just leave it to me. Let me take control NOW.”
Morgan’s eyes flicked to the door. If it opened, if Cam saw Síofra like this, they’d take her from him. Cam’s scream could drop him to the floor in an instant. He couldn’t risk it. Not when her scent was thick in the air, when his wolf was clawing to claim her. They would take Síofra away and never give her back, raged his wolf.Then he would go into rut and destroy everything in his path to get to her. They would have to put him down like a rabid dog to stop him from hurting her.
Desperation won. “All right.”
Blackness surged up and over him, liquid smoke wrapping his body, enveloping him whole. It was like being eaten alive. Tar-like thick shadows bled across his skin and hardened into scales dense as armor. Morgan could feel his own body inside the demon’s, small and helpless, but aware of every movement. In the cockpit but not in control.
Wings burst from his back, vast and leathery, sparks running along their edges. He towered at least seven and a half feet, horns glowing with embers. In one arm he cradled Síofra like a child, her head lolling against his chest. His grip was possessive but gentle, like Síofra was his most precious treasure.
With a roar, he launched himself straight through the rotten wood of the window, splinters exploding into the night air. Wings snapped wide, catching the wind, and they merged into the black of the night.
Morgan felt the surrender of sliding out of the driver’s seat of his own body and letting someone else grip the controls. Until yesterday, his body had always been his own. Now it was a crowded cockpit.
One cranky demon with a superiority complex had taken the pilot’s chair, his molten eyes fixed on Morgan’s mate as though she were already his. Between them, the wolf snarled and paced, restless, angry and confused at having to share-more protective than Morgan had expected. And then, when Ashmedai spread those monstrous wings and threw them into the night sky, his wolf’s response had been instant and comical.
Terror.
Heights, Morgan realized with grim amusement as the beast whimpered in the back of his skull. Great. My wolf could chew through a steel door, but get him more than a few feet off the ground and he’s a mess.
Meanwhile, Ashmedai was having the time of his life, a king reborn, wind ripping around them as if the world had been made for him to conquer.
Morgan ground his teeth inside that shared cockpit. So this is my life now. Playing chauffeur to a demon king, babysitter to a wolf with vertigo, and praying the girl I love doesn’t decide she’s better off with the monster in my chest.
“To your room, mutt?”Ashmedai’s voice boomed inside Morgan’s skull, amused.
“No,” Morgan shot back. His awareness pulsed, steady inside the demon’s body. “The caves. I have a place.”
Ashmedai’s head tilted, grinning.“Then lead the way.”
They flew hard and fast. The campus fell away behind them, swallowed by forest. One of Síofra’s shoes tumbled from her limp foot, dropping down into the treetops below. The mountains rose on the horizon, jagged black against the silver moon.
Morgan guided him-north, past the broken ridge, across the frozen riverbed-until the cliffs came into view. A hollow mouth yawned high above the treeline, carved into stone by time. Morgan had found a cave system a couple of years ago whilehitchhiking through the ranges. In his free time, he liked mapping it. It was like a termite colony, the passages leading and crisscrossing deep underground where the air felt saturated and water dripped into crystal clear pools .It had become his sanctuary and retreat, a place no one else knew. No one but Merrik.
Ashmedai landed with a jarring crunch, talons scraping the rock. They were at least a hundred feet above the ground, hidden within the folds of the forest. It would take days, maybe months before anyone found them.
Síofra stirred restlessly in his arms, a shiver running through her body.
Ashmedai bent his horned head over her, tongue flicking. “Delicious…”
“Let me out,” Morgan growled.
Ashmedai chuckled, but the shadows peeled away, receding like smoke until Morgan stood in his own skin again, panting. He clutched Síofra closer, breathing in the scent of her hair, the heat radiating off her trembling body.
There wasn’t much time.
He carried her deeper into the cave, heart pounding, every instinct screaming. He needed to speak to her before she lost herself completely to the fire clawing through her veins.
“Síofra…” he whispered against her temple. His hand brushed Síofra's damp cheek. “Stay with me. Please.”
He carried her carefully through the twisting tunnel, feet sure on the uneven ground. The passageway narrowed, then widened, until it opened into a vast cavern. A small pool glimmered to one side, its surface reflecting the flicker of starlight filtering through a high fissure.
