Page 54 of The Demon Court

Lust gathered up an armful of clothes before sauntering toward the door. “I’ll get dressed in another room, considering it takes a village to prepare me. Take your time, little moon. Greed will be here by the time the sun hits its peak in the sky, but I won’t expect to see you until dinner.”

And then he was gone. Leaving her alone with her feelings that already threatened to drown her.

She didn’t know how long she stared at that door until a little misty being slipped underneath it. Affection looked at her with bright eyes, and that darned yellow glow cast shadows on the wall. “Oh! You don’t think he’s that bad anymore, do you?”

Growling out a frustrated breath, Selene landed flat on her back on the bed again. She dragged a pillow over her face and screamed into it.

Because the spirit wasn’t wrong. She thought she might actually like the bastard after all.

ChapterEighteen

Though he was nervous about seeing his brother and feared what he might do, Lust also found he was excited. It had been nearly two hundred years since he’d stood in the same room with any of his siblings.

They all were drastically different. None of them looked blood related, and in a way, they weren’t. But they had fought together for years as spirits, learning and growing stronger until they could take on physical forms. They’d helped each other scare off spirits that would have stolen their power. Their feasts. And now, they were the seven creatures who ruled these lands.

Greed had always been closest to Lust. They were two sides of the same coin. Greed took what he wanted. Lust also did the same. Although their wants were usually very different.

He stood in front of his castle, waiting for the gates to open. If there hadn’t been a certain distracting someone in his bed, then he might have met Greed at the end of the glistening bridge between their kingdoms. But the bridge could only be traversed by one spirit at a time.

Mortals had a hard time on it. The substance looked like glass, but bent at the slightest touch. Some of his lovers had once meandered across, coming from different kingdoms to provide him with something “new”. He remembered them saying the sway felt as though they were standing on top of a bubble that at any point could pop.

The magic wouldn’t. He knew it swayed because it must, not because it was weak.

As it was, he hadn’t met his brother at the bridge, as was customary. Lust hadn’t wanted to wake up. And when he did, he hadn’t wanted to leave the bed. Seeing her there, watching him as though she thought he was asleep? It was... sublime.

Maybe he’d fallen asleep again in her arms after she’d fixed his hair. But the tenderness of her light fingers slipping over his features, so careful to make sure that didn’t wake him, it stirred something in his chest he’d never felt before.

A curious feeling. He’d need to confer with his brother about what it might be. Perhaps Greed had felt it before, and would know how to cure him of the ailment.

The doors before him swung open and shouts came from the top of the castle’s walls. He was here. They were here.

Greed’s entourage came rushing into the doors, their whooping calls echoing up into the sky. They were the warriors of the kingdoms, those who reveled in the fight and trained until their dying breath. They took what they wanted, by force or in battle. Greed and his people had tried to start rumors that they were the most terrifying in all the kingdoms.

Wrath only laughed when he heard those rumors. But his kingdom in the underworld was and always would be, set apart from the rest.

A grin split his features, and he descended the stairs into the courtyard below. Greed’s people wore leather and furs. Some were in dark colors, most were in the natural tan hide of the beasts they killed each season. Furs decorated their shoulders and war paint covered their faces in streaks of white and gold. Some rode beasts that were similar to horses, but their skin was leathery and without fur, their bodies thin and appearing emaciated until one saw how fast they could ride. Their mouths were full of sharpened teeth, and he’d never thought to ask if Greed’s people filed them, or if the beasts were born that way.

In the very center of all of it, his brother rode. His mount was covered in golden hand prints that sparkled in the sunlight as if they were branded into the beast with gold. The closer he got, the more Lust thought that might be exactly what had happened to the creature. Even its ears were pierced with rubies dangling from countless holes.

Greed looked well, though. His brother’s chest was even broader than the last time he’d seen him. Greed’s flame red hair was shaved on the sides and a wild riot on top. His eyes were ringed in dark kohl, and the sarcastic grin on his face made him look downright wicked. Skin burnished by the sun, his only flaw was how many freckles covered his body. For a man who had chosen the desert for his home, his skin was made for fairer climates.

His brother swung off his mount and patted its side before approaching him with wide open arms. A long lion’s tail flicked behind him before stilling. “Brother!” he called out and then wrapped his arms around Lust’s shoulders. “It has been too long.”

Indeed. Lust gathered the other man up in a bear hug, the two of them clinging to each other. The brothers were always affectionate, even those who had fought in the past. Neither of them knew if it would be another two hundred years before they saw each other. Spirits knew to make time count.

They were the only people in this realm that understood what it was like to claw their way into a physical body. That history ensured they were closer than those even bound by blood.

“It has been far too long,” he repeated, then pushed Greed away to really look at him. “You’ve gotten bigger.”

“Well, I actually have to fight to stay alive. Unlike some of us who are happy to stay in a castle and let everyone else do the fighting for them.” Greed laughed, though, and the sound softened his words. “This place! I cannot say you have gotten bigger since I last saw you, but your castle certainly has.”

Lust turned with him, an arm over Greed’s shoulder to look at his home. And it had gotten bigger. In the last two hundred years, they’d added two additional wings and almost three hundred servants.

Of course, he filled Greed in on all of that, knowing it would satisfy his brother’s baser urges.

“You’ve taken what you wanted, then,” Greed said with a sly grin. “I thought that was my curse, not yours.”

“Ah, it is no curse. You live well and you live often.”

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