Page 19 of Demon Hunger
I awoke several hours later. I could sense it was almost dawn by the slight change in the light seeping through the window. Drevan was still lying next to me in the exact same position. His breathing was deep and rhythmic. I turned my head slightly to look at him. When I realized he was asleep, I faced him fully and examined his perfect face without care.
A familiar ache built in my chest. He was so beautiful. Before I learned what he truly was, I’d felt a similar sensation every time I looked at him. Except now, it was a heavier feeling, tainted by the horrible truth.
Against my better judgment, I allowed my gaze to rove over the planes of his high cheekbones and perfectly thick eyebrows, and at last, the curve of his full lips.
My fingers rose to my mouth where I could feel the phantom of his passionate kisses. The memory of his heated fingers traveling over my skin came next, and unsurprisingly, so came the heat between my legs.
I jerked my head to the other side and stared at the wall. Why did I feel this way about him? Why couldn’t I push him out of my head? Nothing I did seemed to work. He was embedded in me like a blade, one that I feared would kill me if I ever managed to pull it out.
The candles still burned, their light dancing against the walls. For a distraction, I focused on the shadows they created. Soon, the books on the shelves caught my attention. There didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to their order. Old-looking books seemed to be mixed in with newer ones, large with small ones, leather-bound tomes with cheap mass paperbacks, fiction with nonfiction. Some of the titles I could read from where I lay surprised me. There were books I’d read in school for assignments, as well as ones I’d read for pleasure. There were bestsellers I wouldn’t touch with a five-foot pole, and obscure titles I’d never heard of.
What was this place?
Riddled with curiosity, I rose, careful not to make any sudden movements that would wake Drevan up. I pushed the cover aside and scooted slowly to the foot of the bed, where I slid to the floor in my socks. At some point, he must’ve removed my shoes. A lump formed in my throat as the image of Drevan unlacing my high-tops and taking them off, painstakingly making sure he didn’t wake me up, the same way I was doing now.
Trying to put a lid on my emotions, I walked around the room, reading the titles on one of the largest bookshelves, trying to find some rhyme and reason to his topics of interest—except it was impossible. I doubted even small-town libraries had such a variety of texts. As I continued examining the shelves, I noticed something interesting. All the books were Stale books. There were no books on vampires, shifters, witches, or any other type of Skew. Interesting. Why would that be?
As I moved on to examine the bookshelf against the opposite wall, I noticed something I hadn’t spied before. On a stand, on the floor, there was an acoustic guitar. Did Drevan play? It seemed unlikely. How strange this place was. Maybe it didn’t belong to him. Yeah, that must be it. I’d jumped to the conclusion that this was some sort of refuge for him, but for all I knew, it belonged to some intellectual college student.
As I puzzled over everything, I fingered a silver tray with a fat candle burned to the quick. Red wax nearly covered the entire thing, melted in clumps, running down like lumpy rivers, and almost spilling onto the shelf. I found myself hypnotized by the flickering flame for a moment, then decided I should put it out. I wet my thumb and forefinger with a quick flick of my tongue and went to suppress the wick.
“Careful, you’ll burn yourself.”
Drevan sat up, sliding his feet to the floor. He’d also taken off his shoes, making himself comfortable next to me.
I pulled my hand away from the candle and hid it behind my back. “Is this… your place?”
He nodded once.
“And all of these books, you’ve read them.”
“These and many more.”
“Why are there no Skew books? You got something against us?” I tried to make the question sound like a joke but failed.
“Only that I wish I wasn’t one.”
I frowned. I never thought of Drevan or demons in general as Skews, but by definition, I figured he was. Stales were humans with no special abilities. Everything else was thrown into the other group. Not a very good categorization, but it was what it was.
“So you would like to be human?”
“I would.”
Shock slowly came with the realization. I never would have imagined the Prince of hell would wish to hold such a lowly, ephemeral position. He had already experienced countless lifetimes. Maybe he was tired of the drudge.
“Why?” I asked, trying to understand.
But he simply shrugged, avoiding the question.
“Do you play the guitar?” I pointed toward the instrument.
He smiled, walked toward it, and picked it up. He strummed the strings lazily and adjusted the pegs, tuning it. He sat back down on the bed and began a haunting melody, the same one he’d been humming last night before I went to sleep. Each note seemed to tug something deep inside of me. Tears stung the back of my eyes, threatening to spill. There was such a beautiful ebb and flow to the music that I felt myself carried away in its melancholic mood. Drevan’s fingers moved lithely, expertly, with the agility of someone with many years of practice. There was something sorrowful about the way he hunched over the guitar, holding it tenderly, and the faraway expression on his face. I listened for several minutes, barely breathing for fear he would stop. When he reached the end of the song, he looked up, blinking at the sight of me as if he were surprised I was there.
He smiled apologetically. “Sorry, I carried on too long.”
“No apology necessary. You play beautifully.”
He set the guitar back on its stand.
