Page 51 of Shadow Dreaming

That, I could answer. “No. I don’t think they would have backed off and then at least one of us would have been hurt. I’ll be honest. I don’t regret killing the woman vamp. I do, however regret not making a conscious choice. I want the choice, Seton—I want the choice to let her emerge.” I leaned forward. “How do I do that?”

“You need to quit being afraid of this part of yourself. You’re so afraid to embrace your emerging powers. You must learn to embrace your shadow, because your inner demon lives in the shadow world. But most of all, you need to stop viewing ‘her’ as the other. She’s part of you, not a separate entity. You’re both the same person. She’s simply another aspect of yourself. And yes, I agree. You absolutely must learn to control the anger that comes with this side to yourself.”

I listened, taking in the advice. “How do I do that? How can I embrace a part of myself I don’t even understand?”

“I want you to start talking to your inner demon. Ask her to work with you.”

“Just like that, huh?” It sounded so incredibly hard.

“It’s not as hard as you think,” Seton said.

“What do I do until then?”

“In the meantime, I’m going to send you home with some information about your powers. You’ve learned to feather-float—for the most part. Now, it’s time you began making a connection with the wind. The strongest of your father’s kind can summon up hurricanes and tornadoes. I don’t know if you’ll ever be that strong, but you have to understand how to summon it, so that it doesn’t just erupt out of you like some rogue storm.”

I let out a shaky breath. “Storms can be scary.”

“I know that your powers frighten you, but if you can’t accept that part of yourself, you’ll never feel whole. And you’ll be far too dangerous if they emerge sporadically.” Seton brought up his email and pasted several links in it, then hit send.

“I guess I can’t change who I am, can I?” I said. “Can’t you tell me a little more about the Arosien Clan?”

Seton cleared his throat. “All right, but you must promise me that you won’t shy away from our work just because of your lineage.”

I nodded. “I promise.”

“The Arosiens are power hungry demons who specialize in manipulating others. If they can’t persuade others to work with them, the Arosien clan takes what they want. They’re top tier predators in the world of Demonkin, and they know no fear. At the same time, they’re loyal to clan. They’ll never sacrifice one of their own without absolute necessity.”

“What do they think about other demons?” I asked.

“They’ll work with them, but they see them as inferior. However, they rule over the other Demonkin with a fierce protectiveness, so most other demons kneel to them. Arosiens reward loyalty with gifts and beneficence, and disloyalty with a reign of death and storm.”

“Real bunch of winners, it sounds like,” I said, wincing. My father’s bloodline were basically a bunch of power-crazed maniacs, then.

“You have to accept what you’re born from in order to curb the traits that can harm your relationships. At the same time, this acceptance will enhance the positive traits. Kyann, we all have parts of ourselves that we don’t like, that we hope nobody ever sees.”

I knew the Arosiens were ruthless, but I hadn’t realized how ruthless.

“Warlords,” I said. “Arosiens are the warlords of the Demonkin.”

“That’s a fair assessment,” Seton said. “I’ve been researching the clan ever since we met, in order to better help you. The Demonkin work within a feudal society. That’s one thing Brim Fire doesn’t understand. On the surface, the demons appear chaotic, but there is order to their chaos. As far as I can tell, most Demonkin don’t necessarily want to rule our world.”

I listened to him carefully. “Will you write up a bullet list of things you’ve learned? As I told you, Hecate has elicited a price from us of dismantling or thwarting Brim Fire as much as possible.” I paused, then added, “That’s another thing. Finding out that the gods can visit here, in the flesh, has thrown my world view into a tizzy.”

“I imagine it would,” he said.

“Did you know?” I asked. Seton seemed so brilliant, and he knew so many things, and yet—he seemed so young.

“That they’re as real and tangible as you and I? Yes.” He leaned back. “How does it make you feel, knowing they’re capable of walking the streets?”

I thought about it for a moment. “For some reason, meeting a goddess face to face was terrifying. It scared the hell out of me. If the gods can walk among us, what else can happen? Somehow, it made reality seem so…tenuous?”

“Because if the gods can walk among us…” Seton prompted.

“If the gods can walk among us, then anything can happen. Then the world isn’t as fixed as it sometimes feels. The portals open into world after world after world. What if, someday, the demons do decide to waltz through? Or something equally as bad? What if we’re one portal way from destruction to our way of life? One portal away from the apocalypse?”

Seton set down his pen and crossed his right leg over his left. “You grew up in chaos. Your mother did her best but look what happened. The rug was yanked out from beneath your feet when you were fourteen. Everything you knew crumbled when she was murdered. You were forced to fend for yourself at a time when you should have been able to focus on school and dating and deciding what you wanted to be.”

“It was only for a year—” I started to say, but Seton shook his head.

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