Page 61 of Demon Queen
I wiped my face with the back of my arm, but it hadn’t been a slobbery thing, just warm and delicious. I cleared my throat. “The Regis thing was horrifying, actually. Really, really, really awful.” I shuddered at the memory.
“That’s why you ran off to visit the White Rabbit. And now you want to go see him again to help go to war against the Queen. Why do you think he’d help you?”
I licked my lips. Being asked such a serious question from a lava bear was kind of intense. “He didn’t kill me, so the Zombie Queen will kill him once she realizes what I am.”
He studied me for another long moment before he leaned closer and carefully nosed my forehead. “I don’t want the Zombie Queen to know what you are. But having the White Rabbit as an ally against the Mad Hatter would be deliciously ironic.”
“So…Why are you a bear?”
Dorian bear shook his large head. “I have no idea. There were some ancient cave drawings of fire bears, but I thought that was mythological.”
“Right. The demon thinks the bear is mythological.”
He smiled his terrifyingly cute bear smile at me. “Fire bear. You may bite me any time you like, but it will probably result in more interesting transformations. I’m sorry that I can’t be human for you.”
“I want you, whatever you are.” I frowned and thumped his nose. “But I thought you hated angels! You’re notorious for hating angels because they exiled you or something. Why didn’t you tell me you knew? I thought you were going to kill me.”
He nuzzled my cheek, warm, soft, terrifyingly large. “The less talk the better when you have the Zombie Queen hunting down your kind. Frisco disagreed. He wanted you to practice compulsion and bite as many demons as possible. The biting makes us stronger and more loyal. He shouldn’t have recruited Regis to help him, but he’s a tactician. He can’t help himself.”
I tugged his silky lava ear. So soft. “How long did you know?”
“When I knew you before, I started to change. Feeding on the desire of others wasn’t enough. I needed violence. And you attracted demons. You always attracted demons, but you seemed so human, so delicate, sweet, pure. Then when you walked into my den…King spikes aren’t normal. Those combined withthe fact that you were clearly at my club searching for a baby demon…” He nudged me so carefully, like I might shatter, his eyes so softly burning. “You were so brave. It took you a long time to finally faint so I could catch you.”
“But you hate angels, don’t you? Are you just pretending not to hate me so you can use me to make your people loyal? Is it a power play? You could use the angels like the angels used the other demons. Poetic justice and irony.”
He licked my forehead and shook his head. “You aren’t an angel. You’re my angel. My heaven. My home. My purpose. Everything in the old lands is ashes. You aren’t part of that system and you never will be. You could have forced me to your will in the strip club, had me murder the other females I was with, and then fed on everyone else until they were your slaves. Instead, you ran away and built a candy Kingdom.”
I just stared at him, those soft eyes of the demon who smelled like cinnamon bears and was cinnamon bears, while my heart pounded and tried to explode and kill everyone. “Wow. I mean, because I didn’t take over your mind and then have you murder everyone and then enslave the entire club I must be an angel. You know, the kind with halos and stuff. Talk about a low bar.” I stroked his cheeks while he rumbled a growl that went through my fingers to the bone. “So, now I bite the demons so we can go to war?”
“You will not do anything you do not wish to do.”
I smiled and tugged on his cheek fur. “And if I wish to sit in your cuddly lap while I bite demons? Can I do that?”
He pulled me against him, soft, squishy, warm, and wrapped an enormous paw around my waist. “Yes. Always. Forever, anything you want with me, the answer is yes. Frisco, you may send in the soldiers.”
At first it was awkward to bite random demons I’d never met, particularly the way they shrank away from Drigo whilethey knelt and offered me their hands, but the moment my teeth sank into flesh and I felt their wills, the connection continued to Dorian, and from Dorian to Frisco. It was like delegation, so I just went with it.
Being wrapped in cinnamon bear demon was so nice. Every once in awhile he’d snuffle my neck, giving me shivers, and once he’d licked me, not saliva, but liquid lava. The kind that didn’t burn me.
I bit demons for hours, until there was a lull, and then Maurice was there, looking sheepish and terrified.
“My Queen. My King. I am sworn to his service, bound to your will. There is nothing else for me. May I join you?”
He looked so meek and pathetic, wringing his hands and looking so beaten.
I pointed at him. “You were going to cut off my cakes.”
He bowed so low, his face almost touched his knees. “I am unworthy.”
Anger burned my skin. Maybe it was all the demons I’d eaten, but I wasn’t feeling very forgiving. At all. “You betrayed us to the Mad Hatter. You deserve death and torture.”
Regis stepped up behind him, barely glancing at Dorian-bear before he fixed a cold gaze on Maurice. “He betrayed us to the Mad Hatter?” There were no more words, just Maurice, sliding apart in two vertical pieces in a mess of blood and bone while Regis’s seemingly non-violent tail flicked blood off the end. He had a blade tail? And he’d just sliced Maurice in half?
I gasped. “Why did you do that?”
Regis blinked at me. “Didn’t you want me to execute him? You said he betrayed you. Did you want Frisco to do it? He’s the general in charge of tactics, but if you’d prefer his methods of execution…Perhaps it’s time to appoint an official executioner.”
“You don’t kill everyone who betrays you. And he’s the one who supplies my shop with cakes. Also, you don’t just killpeople! I mean, you tried to kill me, and Frisco delivered the last demon king’s head to the Zombie Queen. Everyone makes mistakes, but as long as you’re alive, there’s the chance that you can change!”
