Page 39 of The Demon Court

Greed leaned back in his chair and sighed. “I did want to check in on you, and needed to know how you were doing. I know leading a kingdom can be exhausting, and you like it to be more exhausting than half of us. Always better than us, you were. You know, sometimes I wonder if you’re a little too soft for this. Less of the demon and more of the angel, yeah? Until I heard a little rumor that you were getting married and I had the thought, maybe he’s just going to corrupt this new bird on another level entirely.”

There it was.

“You’ve heard wrong.” Lust lifted his hand to dispel the magic. “Thank you for your concern, brother. But I have everything handled.”

“By getting married to a human?” Greed lifted his hand to mirror Lust’s, effectively stopping the spell that he would have cast. “No, you’re going to talk to me about this. Have you lost your mind? A mortal remaining for any longer than necessary cannot end well for either of you.”

“I’m not marrying anyone.”

“Really? That’s not what everyone else in the realm is saying, so I have to tell you brother, I question it.”

Lust rolled his eyes. “And when have I ever cared about what the rest of the realms say? I say I’m not marrying her, and that’s final.”

Lust had no intention of fulfilling whatever the sorceresses wanted him to do. He also knew for a fact that Selene didn’t want to marry him, either. And as he’d told her, he was not a monster. He’d not force her into anything she would regret.

“Then why is she there?”

As if he had an answer for that. Not one that Greed would like, at least. Sighing, he shrugged. “The sorceresses of the Tower are trying to grasp for power again. They wish for me to marry one of their own, thinking that would make me easier to manipulate.”

“This is not the first time they’ve tried to do so. What makes this time different? You’ve never even entertained them. Not even the last time when they cast spells over your kingdom. All you did was go around and unmake them, even though you knew damned well they would keep casting those spells.” Greed tilted his head to the side. “And there is something different about this one, isn’t there? You aren’t going soft on us.”

No, he wasn’t. He wasn’t going soft in the slightest. He was trying to figure out this woman’s mind because she was stranger than any other he’d ever met.

Newness made him uncomfortable. He’d grown complacent, knowing how everything would go and how everyone’s thoughts ran.

The last thing he wanted was to tell Greed the truth. But he had no one else to talk with this about, and he found himself begrudgingly admitting, “It seems she is immune to my power.”

“Hilarious. Why is she actually there?”

Lust stared at his brother with his brows raised. “That. That is why she’s here.”

“So she’s asexual. We have plenty of them here in my kingdom. Send her my way and you’ll be rid of her.”

“She isn’t immune to lust entirely. She’s just immune to it with me.” Seven Kingdoms. He hated even admitting that. It made him seem weak. Like he was losing control over his power.

Greed paused, then his expression shuddered into something terrifying. “You’re joking, of course.”

“I am not.”

“We’ve never seen anyone immune to our powers. We are spirits of our emotion, the strongest of our kind. Demon kings, they call us, because we can manipulate them.”

“Yes, I lived the stories.”

“We have ruled these lands for a thousand years and never has a single mortal been born with a power to resist the compulsion of our powers.”

Lust hissed out a long breath. “I’m aware of that, brother. Do you think I am not? I know how it is, that’s why I brought her here! She is under my supervision until I understand what is going on.”

Greed tapped his finger against his chin, shaking his head in denial of it. “Change is what’s happening. And I don’t like it.”

“Neither do I.” Lust had barely slept since she got here. Even now, he only slept in fits when he knew there was someone out there who he couldn’t control.

“You know we need to tell Pride about this.”

Their most meddlesome brother? The one who thought he was the true ruler over all seven of the kingdoms? “Absolutely not,” he snarled. “We will not tell him a single thing about this.”

“Then Wrath.”

The eldest of their brothers, and arguably the most dangerous. Lust already knew what Wrath would say, and that was to kill the problem.

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