Page 21 of Hell of a Thing

“It’s not and you are in an awful lot of trouble.”

Fire flashed in his red-rimmed eyes. Pain ripped through my neck as he wrenched my head to the side. I fought back the panic in my gut. I messed up, sure, but maybe I could talk my way out of it. Certainly, I’d been too useful to just get rid of, right? Didn’t this carnival prove that?

“My King—”

“Silence.” In one word, he stole the voice from my throat and the air from my lungs.

With a gasp, I reached up to rub my neck reflexively, trying to coax the muscles to work again.

“You dare to try and hide the one I chose from me? Maybe you took her for yourself, hm?”

When my apology came as a garbled gasp for breath, he leaned closer, tilting his head to bring one ear near my lips even as he gripped my hair harder. “Hmm? What are you saying?”

Remaining calm, I tried to silently ask him to release me. Hetsked, his forked tongue slipping between red lips. “When did you become such a festering pustule of disappointment?”

His words cut like a knife. All I’d ever done was try to please him. Were all those years truly meaningless?

While he continued to hold me with one arm, his other took hold of my chin and wrenched my jaw open.

Surely, he wouldn’t. Would he?

Could he?

I was a demon. Our souls were an inferior sort, bitter and gritty on the tongue, but there was a certainty in his eyes as his forked tongue flickered into my mouth.

I couldn’t look away from his evil eyes. I shoved at his chest, trying desperately to push him away, but it was like moving a boulder. As a demon, my strength was enough to crush humans, but I was nothing compared to the King of Hell. To him, I was little more than an insignificant bug.

With all my strength, I fought against him, but he didn’t flinch in the least, his grip unrelenting.

A crimson light swirled in his eyes as he stared back at me.

My light.

Self-preservation became my only concern, but fighting was pointless. My vision blurred, white and red fighting for dominance as searing pain exploded like fireworks in my mind. My strength faded until every muscle went limp. Shadows ebbed in the corners of my vision, tendrils of darkness growing until there was nothing left.

Icy cold seeped into my bones, weighing them down as every particle that was once me tumbled into the darknessof my King.

“Really, Isra, you shouldn’t have tried to fool the King of Trickery.” Of course, I knew what had happened to the soul of my prize, but I’d waited to see how Isra would deal with the situation.

My mouth was still dry and there had been an unpleasant graininess to Isra’s soul that spoke of her quest for power, but my underlings needed the occasional lesson and Isra’s attempts at deception could not go unpunished. With a grumble, I used my long black nails to pick a piece of something out of my incisor and examined it.

A blackened crumb wriggled pitifully on the edge of my nail, and I laughed as it fought to escape with all its might.

“Are you still trying to get away, Isra?” With a low growl, I licked the last bit of her soul up, reveling in her scream as I sucked her to the back of my mouth and swallowed hard. Casting her down to the endless darkness of my stomach where her being would slowly be broken down and consumed over the next two thousand years.

A presence hovered by the door.

“You, there.” My booming voice echoed in the cavernous room. “What is your name?”

A bold one to come so close without being summoned.

But I did like a bit of boldness in my generals.

“It is I, my King, Ta–Ta–Talsine.” Her fear was palpable.

I eyed the demon. The flesh she wore was a deep red. Only demons of high caste could influence a body that way, but the clothes she wore over her skeletal frame were torn and ratty.

How much of Isra’s demise had she watched?

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