Page 26 of Vengeance and Vipers
I frown as I see a glint of something in her hand, realizing a split second too late as she gets a triumphant look on her face that it’s the fucking tacturn I threw away!
She wasn’t dying, she was rooting around in her fucking pocket for it!
She slaps it down on the claw at her throat, keeping hold of it.
‘No!’ I snarl, but it’s too late.
‘How did you get in my cell?’ she asks a little breathlessly.
I look around us. We’re sitting on the edge of a cliff in the dark, the Milky Way looming over us in the night sky. It’s a beautiful sight.
‘It wasn’t me,’ I say distractedly. ‘How did you work the tacturn?’
‘Fae shit is pretty simple, really. Why are you trying to kill me?’
‘I’m not. The demon is.’
She heaves a sigh and touches her neck. ‘Are you still choking me? Am I dying right now while we’re in here?’
‘No. I took over as soon as the tacturn was placed on him.’
‘So, what? You’ve got like multiple personality disorder?’
I snort. ‘That’s a very human way of looking at it, but I suppose it’s a bit like that. That’s what going rogue as a demon means. The darker side gets stronger; thehumanpart gets weaker. I can’t control it now.
‘Are you … is he going tofeedfrom me … like without my consent, I mean?’
I try to hide my grim look, but I know she sees it. ‘No,’ I say. ‘He wants you dead, Jules.’
‘Why?’
‘Because when he got you to feed us, he was playing with you. He didn’t think your energy would make me stronger.’
I look at her to watch her reaction, see if she knows anything.
‘It shouldn’t have; once we’re that far gone, nothing can bring us back. There’s no cure for this. How did you do it?’
Nothing shows on her face. ‘I didn’t do anything except let you feed from me for a bowl of stew.’ Her cheeks turn pink. ‘And I didn’t even want it after that anyway,’ she mutters.
My brow furrows. She’s self-conscious about what she did. I don’t think I’ve met a human who was embarrassed about sex before, but then the usual ones are on-call girls, used to life around us … although there was that one from before whom I can vaguely recall Maddox bringing to me. She was similar, but the energy she let me have to give me a little more time to get my affairs in order was nothing compared to the power-up Jules provided. It looks like she has no clue about any of it, though.
‘Listen,’ I tell her. ‘I’m in control in here, and I will be for a few moments after we get out. I’ll give you as much time as I can.’
‘For what?’
‘To run. He will kill you, Jules. I underestimated him, and now he knows the words to open the cells. You need to get out of here.’
‘But the door to the wine cellar is locked,’ she says. ‘There’s nowhere to go. How long can we stay in here?’
‘Not long enough. The tacturn has a safety, so you can’t get trapped in the mirage.’
‘Perfect,’ she mutters. Then she side-eyes me and cringes a little. ‘What if I did what I did before, but in here?’
I tilt my head. ‘What you did before?’
She looks down. ‘Feed you. Make you stronger. Then you can fight him, right?’
I look down at her, at war with myself and not the demon for once. I should tell her no, that it won’t work, but I don’t know that for certain. The truth is that she’s practically irresistible to me at the moment. I thought I was past caring, past feeding. But I guess not. Maybe this is the glimmer of hope I’ve been waiting for because her energy did make me stronger, a lot stronger than she should have been able to, considering we didn’t even touch before. What would sex do for me?
