sacrifice. One of his own little cult, his Libiri, need to wield the knife. Prove themselves to their God. It would be a waste of the God’s favor if I did the killing.”
My breath came out shaky but relieved. He’d already admitted to killing people — numerous people, probably dozens — but somehow it still mattered whether or not he’d killed an innocent like Marcus.
He was staring at me. Watching me. Consuming me with the fire in his eyes. “Does that make me less monstrous?” he said, his voice quiet in the dark. “Does it somehow make me redeemable, that I didn’t wield the knife? That I only dug up his corpse? That I only did the grunt work?” He didn’t really expect me to answer; he just kept going. “Do the atrocities I’ve committed get a pass in your mind because I had to choose between obedience and torture? Would you have forgiven me for taking you, if you knew it was to avoid pain?”
I gulped. His voice was tight, as if he was still in pain, as if whatever tortures Kent had inflicted to force his obedience were still lingering. “You wouldn’t have taken me.”
He scoffed. “What the hell makes you so certain of that?”
“You wouldn’t have,” I whispered. I didn’t know why I was so certain. Perhaps it was just that flawed survival instinct again, imagining I was somehow too special to die.
Or perhaps it was because I could so vividly remember him picking me up in his truck as I was walking home in the dark. Perhaps it was because I could still hear the fury in his voice when he’d said, “I don’t know why the hell you think it’s a good idea to go walking around in the dark, but you need to cut that shit out.”
“Why did you protect me, Leon?”
He looked appalled at my question. He shook his head, but I insisted. “Why are you protecting me? Why? What makes me any different than the last girl?”
He was really scowling now; his hands were working inside his jacket, as if he was clenching and unclenching his fists. His jaw, too, was tensing. But I let the question hang. I wanted an answer. There was a hell of a lot going on that I didn’t understand, but him? Us? Whatever the hell that meant? I wanted to know.
“I decided I wanted you,” he said simply, but the words barely made their way out from between his teeth. “I saw you, and...and I felt…” He winced, as if the word stung. Felt. What did a demon feel? “Not anger. Not hatred or fury. You…” He turned his face away, staring back into the trees. “You’re a light in the dark, and I’ve been in the dark a very long time.”
His words were like fists beating against my heart. It hurt, somehow, to hear something so genuine from him. And it terrified me, to feel it tug at me, to feel those beating fists press into my heart and pull.
He looked at me again, and I forgot how to breathe. “I want you. Irrevocably. But I can’t settle for less than all of you. Body and soul, Raelynn. We demons, when we see something we like, we need to possess it. It’s in our nature.”
He took a step toward me, and I took a step back. He smirked at that, his sharp teeth so white in the dark. “Does it frighten you, to be so desired? To know I want you regardless of time or distance? To know I want you as mine, wholly possessed without question?”
How could I be frightened of the very thing I’d wanted? I couldn’t imagine being desired so determinedly that eternity wasn’t a question, but a demand. It was not only a promise of protection, of safety. It was a promise of ownership. Desire. Bondage. A reassurance of forever.
“I can’t settle for less.” He circled me, slowly, shoes crunching on the twigs and leaves, his voice deepening to a growl as he said, “It’s enough to drive me to madness, Rae, wanting you so fucking badly. But I’ve lingered on Earth for too long now.” He laughed humorlessly, and I felt the familiar caress of him getting inside my head, the subtle influence that made my spine tingle like fingers brushing over my skin. “I want to have you, but I can’t unless you agree. That’s the curse of it all. I can’t —” He cut himself off, wrestled with