The Lure of the Devil (The Demons' Muse #4) - Auryn Hadley Page 0,102

cannot exist without the other. Heat needs cold, pain needs pleasure, and endings always follow beginnings. Nothing can be everything, yet everything can become nothing if we are not careful.

"Him?" I asked.

It was Luke who answered. "We didn't have a word for women originally."

And Tiamat turned her gaze on him. At first, I made children who could not make more. Males. The world, and the chances of it, made females.

"But you're female," I said.

I did not think that my sprites, as you call them, should be able to make more. The gift of creation is not something to be taken lightly, but mothers rarely do. I did not expect that, yet it seems fitting.

"Wait," Sam said, reaching up to rub at his forehead as if struggling to make sense of this. "So, you're saying that you are God, you made us like sprites - the same way Sia made the flutterbee - and she really is this Ayala thing? You're a fucking dragon!"

And you are a demon. He is an angel. When you told the Ayala -

"I have a name!" I interrupted.

I do not know it. I was not the mother who gave it to you, and you have not yet shared. I did not want to presume that you would.

"It's Sia," I mumbled because her answer made me feel kinda bad.

When you demons, she tried again, told Sia what you are, you did not expect her to believe you, did you? You knew that what you are had been forgotten, turned into a myth by the world she was from. A world that lives so fast you can barely keep up. Well, you - all of you - live that fast to me. Your sun shines for such a short time, and then the beauty I created here is gone, and I start again, giving myself some company in the solitude of existence.

That was when I realized what she was really saying. "You're lonely?"

Before the worlds, I was. Now I have many. More than many. They keep me busy, and each one ages at a different pace. Earth will be gone before Vesdar. Daemin and Angelis will outlive them both.

"And then?" Ron asked, speaking up for the first time.

The dragon's attention swung to him, and then her pupil dilated. The giant of a beast sucked in a breath, her head slipping back slightly - which was feet for us - and then she simply blinked.

Ronwe?

"Yes, God," he answered. "That's the name I was formed with."

You are different. You are whole!

Nervously, Ron looked over at the rest of us, his eyes landing on me last. Swallowing to find his courage, he slowly looked back at Tiamat. "I'm not whole. I'm closer, but still not there. Why? Why did you create me to be half a man?"

Because you were the first. The very first. Of all the lives I have made in all the worlds, you were my favorite. I built you a universe, but you did not know it. You did not care about it. You simply sat and watched the clouds. You had no need of anything. No desire to do more, and you would not talk to me. You were nothing more than a statue, living in your nirvana.

Her tongue darted from her lips, forked like a snake's, and tasted the air. People believe that God and creation are perfect, but it is not. It can never be. Perfect is an opinion, and everyone has different ideas. That is the best part about life. The problem was that you had none. No opinions. No thoughts. So I tried to make another you.

"His twin on Angelis," I breathed. "You made two of him!"

No. I made one, and then I split him in two. From my perfect Ronwe, I created Stieviel. Each has one half of the old, but I could not make the new part fit right. I tried, but what he had seen changed him so that the original pattern didn't fit anymore.

"Shit," I breathed, realizing what she was talking about. "First, there was Adam, and God decided to use his rib to make Eve."

The first children, Tiamat corrected. And with their separation, I created my second world.

The air rushed from Ron's lips. "The storms," he breathed. "The fucking storms. That's why no one else remembers them."

24

Ronwe

I remembered the storms so well. The beautiful swirls of colors in the clouds. The sharp flashes of light. The brilliant flare that I hadn't understood at the time and had always