Page 31 of Demon Hunger
“I’m sorry. It was a risk I had to take,” he explained.
He suddenly grew a second head and one more set of arms. My Truesight came in and out, blending his monstrous semblance with his gorgeous, arresting one.
The man became the monster. The monster became the man.
For a moment, they blended seamlessly until I couldn’t tell one from the other.
“Lucia, are you all right?” Drevan grabbed me by the shoulders to steady me.
“What are you doing to me?” I asked. “Why? I want to go. I want to forget. My sisters, my brother, Mom. I need to see them. Things are turning gray. There was blood on her head.”
“Oh, God.” Jenna’s voice came in garbled. “She’s going mad. You need to take her to the infirmary. Now!”
I giggled. “That demon… she’s so damn cute.” I started laughing, remembering Phenog with her freckled face, pudgy arms, and curly hair. “But the other, the other one’s mean.” I grabbed my head, swaying.
Drevan slid a hand behind my legs and one at my back, and quickly swept me off my feet. He pressed his face to my hair and started whispering in my ear.
“Be all right. Please, be all right.”
The room rushed fast in a blur. Lights flickered in my vision. Weakly, I wrapped my arms around his neck and inhaled his scent. He always smelled so good, but now there was something else there combined with his musk. Something acrid and smoky… brimstone.
“I had to do it. Please forgive me. Forgive me. Be all right.” Someone pleaded.
I snickered. “You saved me from being a pancake. Blood for maple syrup. Yuck. This is better. It’s wonky, but it’s not bloody. Yep, better than Humpty Dumpty. How many days to put me back together?” I sang the last part, and I thought I sounded pretty good. No idea why Mrs. Grossman didn’t let me join the choir. I could’ve been the next Taylor Swift. Their loss.
Suddenly, I was lying on clouds. I curled up on the inside to sleep, but someone was poking and prodding, shining a light into my eyes.
I swatted an arm. “Leave me alone!”
Something clattered to the floor, and I was blissfully left alone, but only for a few seconds. Then something jabbed my arm, and a terrible heaviness, like paperweights on my eyelids, sent me into a deep slumber.
The heat was horrible, but despite its scorching quality, I was shivering. I hugged myself tightly, wondering why Mom and Dani were taking so long to come. They always fixed me right up. Dani made the remedies, and Mom forced them down my throat, especially when they tasted like shit.
But they were not here.
They hadn’t been here for hours, days, maybe weeks. They didn’t care anymore. Everyone had their own lives, especially my brother, Leo. I didn’t see him for a long time then, on the day of my high school graduation, he showed up and promptly disappeared again. Toni had her Mate Tracking Agency and a werewolf boyfriend she was probably going to marry. And Dani… she loved healing the little children and was too busy with work to bother with me.
Why did families break apart like that? Why couldn’t they stay together? They used to, right? What was wrong with us?
What is wrong with me?
A hand rested over my eyes.Never to wake up, a voice said. Sounds like a plan. I didn’t think I would mind sleeping forever. Still, my head spun, flipping through images of my past like a roulette wheel. Except I didn’t want to think about any of that. There were more pressing things, like classes and swords and hot dogs.
Hot dogs?
“No, no, I don’t want any hot dogs,” I protested, pushing them away.
“These aren’t hot dogs, Luce. It’s medicine. It will make you feel better.”
That voice sounded familiar. I’d almost figured out who it was when they were shoving hot dogs in my mouth again.
“No more wieners! NO MORE!”
There was another prick in my arm and everything went black again.
At least the wieners went away, though I couldn’t say what replaced them was any better because, once more, my mind was saturated with images of Drevan’s monster semblance blending with his human one.
Weeks turned into months, months into years, years into an eternity of Drevan with horns but beautiful feathered wings rather than leathery, membranous ones. Drevan with gentle, long-fingered hands, but with glowing red eyes and a pointed chin. Drevan massively tall, his head nearly touching the ceiling, but his mouth without awful teeth that could tear me apart.
