Page 124 of The Demon Court

“That’s not a good enough answer.”

“It is the only answer you will get from me!” Lust’s voice rang throughout the library. “Now get out of my way, Greed. I don’t want to kill your guard and I don’t want to fight you because you remember as well as I what happened the last time we battled.”

It was long and bloody, but Lust had won. Greed liked to think he had honed his body with centuries of battle, but Lust had one thing that his brother would never have.

Intelligence.

Greed tilted his head back and laughed. “Oh, brother, you think that five hundred years has not taught me a few tricks? No, I’m not going to fight you. But I am going to caution you against madness.”

“It is not madness that compels me to save her, brother.”

Greed’s second guard joined the other. The dark look in his eyes caught on Greed’s, before the man gave a soft nod.

What message was that? What game did his brother play? He would save her. Lust was going to piece her back together, and then she would stay in his arms until the very last moment of her breath. That was how this would end, no matter what Greed tried to do.

But then his brother snapped his fingers in Lust’s face, drawing his attention back to Greed. “Can you not even give a name to what compels you?”

“It needs no name. She is mine, that is enough.”

“That’s not what she told me.” Greed usually had a look of disgust on his face or one of desire for something that he could not have. But right now, that expression had softened into something that looked far too close to envy. “She begged me, you know. I never thought I’d see a woman like that so willing to get on her knees if that was what it took. All because she claims to love you.”

Love? Anger had flared at the thought of her begging anyone but Lust for anything, but then he heard that word and it rocked through his chest.

She loved him?

No one loved him. They lusted for him. They thought he was handsome or beautiful and they wanted to put their mouth on him. Or they wanted him inside them or around them, just to know what it felt like. But no one loved him.

Until her.

Breath caught in his lungs. He reached for the back of a chair and braced himself on it because if he didn’t, he was afraid he’d fall over. “She said what?”

“That she loves you. And that if she didn’t run, then she would never leave. And you would be forced to watch her die rather than knowing she was alive and just not with you.” Greed’s mouth twisted in disappointment. “I’ll admit, we both should have had more faith in you. I should have given you more time, but if you’d seen her, Lust, you would have done the same thing I did.”

He couldn’t quite keep up with his brother’s words. “What are you saying?”

“I let her go.” Greed met his gaze head on, and apology in his own. “She wanted to run, and she deserved to make that decision for herself. I sent my guard with her to make sure she got there safely. She said the High Sorceress would cast pity on her, and even if that meant she would be a slave for the rest of her life, at least you would not carry the guilt of her death on your shoulders. It was my mistake, but I do not regret making it.”

The words barely registered. All he heard was that she was gone. His brother had let her go. She was no longer in his castle, under his protection, with a curse raging through her body that would destroy her from the inside out.

Selene hadn’t trusted him to fix this. She’d gone back to her mother, the woman who had put them both in this mess. She had decided that Minerva was more likely to save her than him.

A blast of power surged out of him, thundering through the castle and sending every person in the room to their knees. It wasn’t just lust that raged out of him. It was so much more than he’d ever had before.

The power he’d been siphoning off Selene felt different, but maybe it wasn’t only the power that was different. It was him.

He felt his body warping and stretching and changing like he hadn’t felt since they’d taken mortal form for the first time.

Memories flickered behind his eyes as another wave of power shoved everyone closer to the floor. Forgotten memories that none of them had remembered considering how embarrassing and heartrending they were.

They hadn’t become kings because any mortal wanted them to be. No human wanted to see a spirit on the throne and even then, the mortals had feared the brothers that came to each kingdom. Their crusade had lost a soldier every time they devoured a floating isle as their own.

He remembered now.

He and his brothers were not mortal, then. They were monsters, and they had the power of the spirit world at their fingertips.

Fingers like his own. He lifted his hand and watched as it grew and curled into dark claws. His hands and forearms turned nearly black, so dark the purple sheen on them looked like an oil slick. It stretched up his arms, reaching for his shoulders, which were much larger than moments before.

A spike of pain raced through his skull as his horns grew larger, more massive, longer and more deadly than they had been in ages.

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