Page 128 of The Demon Court

“No. I will come back and I will change you into what you should have been long ago.” Minerva lifted her arms and magic swirled at her fingertips. A storm built at her beckoning, raging toward them in a sky that gathered lightning. “With my power heightened by this place, you will become my right hand. The way you should have been years ago.”

Selene felt it. The power that built around her as though it were all created here in the sky. Except it wasn’t. Hadn’t Minerva said this was the most powerful place in the kingdom? Perhaps years of sorcery in this tower had actually given power to this place. Enough to keep her alive.

“How do you know he’ll even come for me?” she asked.

“Because he’s already coming. I can feel him,” Minerva sneered. “Now stay here and try to stay alive.”

Her mother swept out of the peak of the Tower, beginning her long journey to the bottom. Bathilda started after her, but Sibyl hesitated.

Selene reached out a hand for her sister. “Please.”

Sibyl shook her head, backing toward the door. “You shouldn’t have come back here, Selene.”

“What is she planning to do?” Selene tried to clear her mind enough to ask the question, but she couldn’t say it properly. The garbled words were even hard for her to understand.

“Nothing any of us can stop.” Sibyl’s usually beautiful face twisted with sadness. “She never trained us to be more than servants, Selene. Look at us. You can conjure light. Bathilda sees the future. I can only conjure illusions. Even Ursula only summons the wind. We are nothing compared to her. We cannot stop this, we can only endure and hope she doesn’t do to us what she—”

Her sister stopped talking, but Selene already knew what she was going to say.

Her sisters could only hope to avoid Selene’s fate.

“Will she let me die?” she asked, the words quiet and contemplative.

Sibyl’s expression cracked, and she pressed a fist to her mouth before shaking her head. “No. But I think you’ll wish you had.”

And so her sister fled, down the stairs and away from Selene, who rolled onto her back and stared up at the open sky above her. The top of the tower was surrounded by columns, but no roof. She could see the clouds as they rode the wind to pause above her. The great mist and blackened edges opened up.

She was glad to feel the rain. It was cold sliding down her cheeks, but the feeling was so much better than being numb.

ChapterForty-Three

He stood on the horizon beyond the Tower, his shoulders heaving with every angry breath he took. Lust had denied any help. His brother had offered a great army to ride at his side, but Lust knew what waited for him here.

Weak sorceresses who were afraid of their leader. A High Sorceress who thought she was far more powerful than she was and would stop at nothing to trap him. He’d seen this before. He’d endured worse.

Minerva thought she would hold Selene captive, and that she would trap him. She thought he would waste his time trying to save Selene first, and then ignore the rest of their people. But if she wanted a bloodbath, he would give it to her.

There were enough sorceresses in that Tower who deserved to die. He’d avoid the one with white hair, who had been kind to Selene and had thrown herself in front of Selene when Minerva had first enacted the curse. That one had earned his pity, and he would make sure she was rewarded for it.

The rest?

He ached to feel their skin parting beneath his sharp claws. Baring his teeth, his mind already screamed for their throats in his jaw.

He had become more than Lust, now. He had become the monstrous being behind the name demon king. If they wanted to see what he was capable of, then they had done the right thing. Minerva had finally provoked him enough to become the creature she so feared. Now he would show her why she should be afraid.

The snow parted for him, melting in the wake of the heat billowing off his body. He must have seemed a blur if any of the sorceresses were watching for him, and he knew they were.

Selene had come here to save herself. But her mother wanted her here for one reason. Him. Lust knew that Minerva would get desperate. Her plan hadn’t worked, and her daughter had a mind of her own. The lack of control would drive Minerva mad. And mad people did desperate things.

There would be a trick waiting for him. Some attack or cage, or perhaps she thought she could use Selene as a shield. He had to anticipate every possible outcome.

The doors to the Tower were open for only a split second. Just long enough for him to see through and notice Minerva standing in the center of her domain. She lifted her arms higher, magic pouring out of her in so much energy that it made the world crackle.

Then the doors slammed shut, sealed with magic more powerful than he’d anticipated. As if that would ever keep him out.

He took a deep breath, inhaling the acidic scent of rain and lightning in the air. But there was also her scent, the faintest hint of peppermint that filled his lungs and calmed the worst of his anger.

He’d get her back. There was no other option.

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