Page 390 of Flirting with Darkness

I ignore the mocking moniker. “Horned and disfigured. Grotesque and enormous and stinking of the pits of the Underworld.” As any demon should.

Yet what stands before me is anything but. This man is raven haired with sharp, deep-set eyes and even sharper cheekbones. The only thing that marks this man as the demon I know him to be is his voice and the cruelty burning in his gaze.

Unkind eyes on me, the man sprouts a pair of black and twisting horns from the sides of his head. “Is this better?” He spits the question at me. “Or maybe this?” His silhouette glimmers before shifting into a huge hog-beast with tusks and a frothing snout, dribbling saliva onto his leather armor. “How about this?'' The hog screeches as it changes to a skeletal thing, chunks of flesh falling off his face, skin peeled away revealing rotting, worm-infested meat.

I step back, bracing against the tree behind me. “Why do you keep torturing me so? Night after night, and this too? Why must it be like this?”

It comes closer, hovering over me. “Why must you keep me bound in a box beneath your house, little bird?” it asks in turn. “I’ve done nothing to you, yet your family insists—”

“If you’re allowed to roam the earth freely, you and your ilk will bring about the end of days.” My answer comes quickly. I know the scripture. I know my duty. “Demons are not for this world. Go back to wherever you came from and leave us alone.”

“If only I could, princess. If only I could. Humans have become much more cunning. That box of yours is quite a feat of magic. I cannot escape it. You must set me free so I can return to my home.”

Loose waves fall in my face as I shake my head. “I can’t. I won’t set you free to burn the world to soot and ash.”

He shifts back to his first form, the man with smoldering eyes, and curves his lovely mouth into a devious smile. “Ah, but you will, little bird. You will.”

I wake with a start, straining against the flax ropes at my wrists, panting and groaning as the heat coursing through my veins threatens to turnmeto ash.

The room goes quiet. My head empties of everything but his presence.

Come to me, princess.

I won’t,I say to the deep, honeyed voice in my head.

There’s no way I’m helping a filthy, lying demon. Even if he says he only wants to go home. Even if he promises riches and life everlasting. Even if one of his aspects might be the most beautiful face, most beautiful man, I’ve ever seen. I’m not helping the demon my family has protected the world from for generations.

I can roam freely in your mind. I can make you do my bidding.

I suck in a sharp breath. Does he plan to make good on that threat? Or is this merely the blustering fabrication of the fallen? Lies and tricks. The only thing demons truly know how to do.

Although…

The raven-haired man didn’t look like any demon Father had ever shown me.

Neither did any of the other forms he’d shown me.

But then, demons are made of deception, through and through.

If you could have, you would have. You wouldn’t have stayed locked here all these generations if you could simply compel your way out, beast.

Deep, rolling laughter fills all the space in my head. I clamp my hands to my ears, straining against the bindings holding me tight.

You could be right, little bird. But I assure you, you’re not.

Lies. He would have left if he could. He’s only trying to trick me.

You’re the first female to hold this position, yes?

I seal my mouth shut and empty my thoughts. I’m not giving him anything more.

What’s the harm in answering a simple question? One I already know the answer to.

No.Go away.

You are the first female Keeper, Liesl Aderyn. I’ve simply been biding my time, waiting until the berry was ripe enough to pluck from the branch.

I don’t know exactly what that means, but I don’t like the tone or the fire licking up my thighs as he says it.

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