here tonight. Alone.”
“You must really think I’m stupid if you think I’ll fall for that,” I snapped. He reached out and brushed the back of his fingers over my cheek.
“Actually, I think you’re quite smart. Enough so to know this won’t end well if I try to take you. My supernaturals are holding off the Harvester, but it won’t be long before he joins us. Once he catches up, there will be a fight. One of us will win, and that person will never let you out of their sight again.”
I jerked my head back, and he didn’t seem bothered by it.
“I’m not a bird to be caged.”
“I know. That’s why I’m going to set you free. For now.” He leaned in and ran the tip of his thumb over my bottom lip. “But first, I’m going to bite you.”
Lucifer grabbed my arm before I could react. He spun me around, pressing my back to his chest. I felt his lips and saw Nathalie’s wide-eyed surprise.
Then he sank his teeth into my neck.
At first it hurt. But the pain was only a small prick compared to the lust that filled me. My core turned aching. My legs became heavy. My skin was hot, then cold. Goosebumps broke out across my flesh.
Ice trailed down my stomach and between my legs, filling me with dark desire.
Lucifer groaned, his arms tightening around my waist. I felt him, his magic, his blood, his soul. I felt it all answer to me.
And I loved it. This power. This strength. This desire.
But that didn’t stop me from burning it all.
I looked Nathalie in the eye as I made my choice. Ronan said another blood-exchange would kill me. I’m not sure if it would or not, but I was taking him down either way.
White fire erupted.
It started at my shoulders and travelled down to my hands. I clamped them down on his arms that held me. The fire covered my chest and was just starting down my abdomen when he pulled back and tried to pull away. Blood dripped from my neck, and the thin dress went up in flames, showing my body for what it was.
For what I was.
A demon.
I was made, not born, but a demon all the same.
My brands glowed red-hot as I funneled all my rage and resentment with thoughts of my sister. Of the way she looked when I stumbled home from the summoning all those years ago. I’d just consumed Aeshma, and the witches were after me. I had nowhere to go. Bree thought I was stupid. She was so, so angry that I would risk myself—my family—for magic.
We had to run, but we didn’t get far.
The witches found us within hours.
They killed my parents first.
Two spells. One for each. Their bodies caught fire, and they burned alive, like the witches of old. When my parents’ screams died down and the smell of burnt flesh had filled the air, they turned to me.
Except whatever spell they used to try to kill me missed and hit Bree instead.
She went down. I’ll never forget the way her eyes went blank. They closed mid-fall. The sound of her body hitting the ground was the last thing I remembered.
I lost myself to the rage for the first time.
When the red cleared, all that remained was blood and body parts and an unconscious sister who never woke up. She wasn’t dead. But she wasn’t living either.
I thought of her and my family and the life I should have had. The life she should have had, had it not been for my actions.
I’d been told that resentment was anger at another for how they had wronged you, and I had a lot of that aimed at the witches.
But guilt is being angry with yourself. Rage that festers inside you, eating at you like a parasite, an everlasting reminder of what you had done.
For the last decade I ran from it, and from myself.
While it might have been what drove me forward, I never acknowledged it. I certainly didn’t think about why it was there. I never let myself feel it because it was too painful.
My guilt, my resentment, my own rage had been eating me alive for a decade.
And now, I gave in to it.
I felt it all.
And it burned.
From a place so deep inside that I didn’t even know it existed; these horrible feelings drew out every last bit of fire. Every flicker of flame. Every spark. Every ember.
Until I couldn’t burn anymore.
I let go of