Sympathy for the Demons (Promised to the Demons #1) - Lidiya Foxglove Page 0,37
will roast the pheasants and at least some level of normalcy and dignity will be restored, if not nearly enough…”
“Hm,” Bevan said. “I understand your chagrin, but…you might not really want to piss off the locals. They outnumber you here by…everyone. It’s not an exaggeration to say you’d be killed immediately. Unless that’s your intention. Maybe you can’t stand another day here.”
“I must get home,” Variel said. “I can hunt on my own lands. Everything is as I like it there, and if I’m gone too long, the servants will become willful.”
“Your route was blocked off by…”
“Lord Abiron the Gatekeeper,” Variel growled, putting a slab of butter on his potato. “You’re right. It is that little man to where I should direct my fury.”
“But you do realize that he has no motivation to help you,” Bevan said. “He will know you’re weakened here, and Lord Abiron is mated to my witch. You just had the bad luck of going up against someone more powerful than you, and you got licked. It happens. At least you weren’t killed like the Withered Lord.”
“You are very cocky for a small man who dwells in a hut.”
Lord Variel leaned closer to Bevan, his huge body hulking over the table, like he was about to crush him. “I certainly did not get licked. Bevan Soundhunter, are you aware that when I ate your covenant, I also gained the ability to control every bat shifter in your family line? I could bring them all here and torture them right before your eyes.”
“Don’t fight!” I said, getting more nervous by the moment. “I’m sure there’s an easy way to resolve all of this so you can just go home in peace, Lord Variel. What if—what if you just released the Soundhunters from your bond and let Bevan go home? I’m sure Helena could convince her demon—Lord Abiron—to let you go in exchange for that?” That seemed very simple, and then Bevan and I could both be completely free.
Lord Variel’s glowing red eyes trained on me, ever so briefly. “No,” he said.
“We wanted to free the familiars,” Bevan said. “And when the covenants broke, most of the familiars were free. But not Jenny. The covenants weren’t enough. There is some bond that goes deeper. I don’t think she was the only one who couldn’t get away. If you did some good for the world, you would have the admiration of all of Etherium, and you could go home.”
“And when I went home, everyone in Sinistral would tell their neighbor that Lord Variel the Devourer was banished to Etherium, cursed by a peon, and spent his time trying to bring freedom to a race of witches’ familiars. None of you even transform into anything bigger than a loaf of bread. In my corner of Sinistral you would be considered a snack. Once word of that gets out, every demoness who once flung herself at me to beg for my hand will snicker at me as I pass her at the Symposium Ball and the Night of Seven Dreads, not that I will receive invitations to any of those events anymore. And then the other demons will begin to sniff around, considering that they might just be able to topple me and seize my castle…”
“So you’re afraid of being cut out of society if you do something good?” Bevan said. “High demons have all the courage of Helena’s mother?”
“You are bound to me, Bevan, so it will be no laughing matter to you when the demon armies converge on my castle and conquer it. You will be tortured for sport, along with all my other servants, and toads and bats make for wonderful spell ingredients as a bonus… This is not a joke, but a simple fact. Perhaps I am quite soft after all, because I would not like to watch as all those who are bound to me are drawn and quartered, broken on the rack, or cut to bits and forced to eat one’s own body parts while still living…”
“Okay, okay,” Bevan said hastily as I started losing my appetite very quickly. “I see your point. But the Ethereals will also destroy you without blinking if you disrupt the order of things, and I think you know that. I also think maybe you don’t really have a death wish.”
“So you expect me to just live here in your hut and behave myself? What is the point of my existence?”