of him, the feel of his body against mine, his arms around me. I didn’t want it to end. I clutched at his shirt and kissed him back, harder, hungrier, relishing the tingle of power and his clean, crisp scent. Like all good things, the embrace ended too soon. He swept my hair back, his gaze soft, lips softer. “Thank you,” he breathed, “for reminding me who I am.”
I bit into my quivering lip, afraid I might burst into tears. I couldn’t break down. Not yet. There would be time and space for tears later. He clasped his hands over mine and eased them open, peeling my fingers apart, forcing me to let him go. His eyes said it would be okay, but as I watched him turn and walk away, a bitter wind tore across the ruined park, carrying with it the cries from countless demons, and a sense that worse was yet to come. I pulled his coat tighter around me, gathering it in my hands as I had his shirt, and breathed in the leathery smell.
A punch from behind knocked the breath from my lungs. I arched away, or tried to, but my body seemed inexplicably snagged. A silent cry whooshed from my throat. My brother hooked his arm around my throat and dragged me back against his chest. “I have wanted to sink my blade through your flesh since I first laid eyes on you.” He hissed the words into my hair, so damn close it felt grossly intimate. I clutched at the cool slim thing protruding from my chest and looked down. Bright red blood dripped from the point of his sword. Obscenely calm thoughts said, Oh, he stabbed me. That’s not right. I saw Akil and Jerry, too far away to call out to. Stefan was a blur, slaying demons in his path as he made for the front line. He wouldn’t hear me even if I could cry out.
“Sweet sister.” Val shifted, just a little, but the pressure on the rapier burned through my body. “If you reinforce a belief often enough, it becomes reality. Do you believe you are destruction made of flesh, half-blood whore? Do you consider yourself my equal?”
“No.” I spluttered blood. The touch of his lips curled against my neck. He could tear my throat out if he wished or reduce me to a quivering lust-crazed wraith. “We are not equal.”
“No, we are not. I am immortal. I have lived a thousand of your finite lives, killed countless of your kind. Killed half bloods as babes when I foresaw undesirable futures in their innocent eyes. The elements breathe through my divine flesh. Your feeble human mind cannot begin to comprehend what it means to be demon. The Mother of Destruction would not die by the point of my sword. Perhaps, you are not the glorious creature I foresaw. Perhaps, you are the nothing I will make of you when I shred your mind.”
“Have you finished—” I coughed. Blood spluttered from my lips. “—stroking your ego?” More dribbled down my chin. “We are not equal because I am better.” My voice threated to abandon me, but not yet. “I am human and stronger than you will ever be because of it.” I tugged on his fiery soul, having latched onto it while he wallowed in self-admiration. He really was made of the elements. One in particular. I wrenched the fire out of him with one vicious, metaphysical swipe. He stumbled us both forward. In one step, I was demon. I turned, let out an inhuman cry, and diverted all nearby lesser demons to my cause. They came because they knew me, feared me. As Val spluttered and wheezed—wings down, sword arm limp at his side—the lessers pounced and buried his beautiful body beneath a heaving mound of demon flesh. You will die under tooth and claw, brother-mine. I will see to it they shred your body and mind until nothing remains, nothing but your ragged, immortal soul. I fed on his heat, like I had on Akil’s all those months ago. It wouldn’t kill Val, but it’d screw him up for a few hours, days if I was lucky.
I wobbled and reached out to grab a scorched tree trunk. Coughing up blood was never a good sign. As demon, I healed most wounds, but internal damage wasn’t as easy to dismiss. I needed time to rest and recuperate. The tree held me up as the world began to tip and