Page 38 of Demon Heart: The Complete Series

“ H ello, Roman,” said the naked Xavier, rage swimming in his demon eyes.

In pure horror, I glanced at the cameras. My spell broke, leaving me exposed with the demon.

“Don’t worry,” he said, big arms down by his sides, massive cock hanging there like forbidden fruit. “I tweaked the system.”

“You did what?”

“Crawled from your hood, played around with the cameras. Currently, the feed is frozen so we can talk.”

The doors to the next carriage opened. Xavier moved quicker than I could blink, spinning me into his arms, slamming my back into the wall.

I responded with a diversion spell which the demon’s partial magical resistance didn’t, mercifully, block.

My chest pressed against his, my head tilted up for his breath to wash my lips. His natural heat was a delicious blanket, his arms a delightful crush around me. Only denim jeans and cotton underwear separated our groins.

I shuddered, patrolling footsteps passing.

Xavier smiled down at me.

I resisted kneeing him in his exposed balls and going for a kiss. Even in such a deadly situation, the temptation of his bee-stung lips tormented me.

What the hell was he doing here? Why wasn’t he taking his fine body out of my life?

It was still good to see his face.

The guard moved into the rear carriage, returning half a minute later, passing slowly into the next carriage again.

Freedom came. I shoved the demon away from me, skin whining for his return—only for me to be naked next time.

For God’s sake!

“You crawled out of my hood?” I said. The indignant levels were high.

“I did.”

“So, you didn’t leave properly?”

“I snuck into your bedroom just as you were kissing Darcy on the head.” He looked down at his dick. “I was in small spider form, of course.”

“You were spying on me?” I questioned, tangled in confusion.

“No. I just told you. I returned as you were leaving.”

He didn’t hear my confession to my little buddy. Phew. But what did that matter now? He’d joined me in the thick of things, about to experience my secret life for the first time.

“I can’t believe you’re here,” I responded, shaking from the surprise.

“There are no demonic protections on the train.”

“Huh?”

“Strange, isn’t it?”

“Word of the night,” I said. “Why are you here?”

His gaze burrowed into me, holding me in hypnotic power. “I… I…” He struggled, raking a hand through that wonderful hair. “I just can’t walk away.”

My heart thumped harder. “You can’t?”

“You have breached so many of my walls, Roman.”

I teetered on the precipice of a giddy spin.

“You can’t be here,” I whispered.

Breached his walls? What did that mean? I knew what it meant, but what did it mean ?

Gah! My head!

Sweat beaded my brow, my heart a hammer of excitement, a new layer of confused knots choking everything else.

He wanted me.

I wanted him, more than his scent, more than?—

No. My work came first. The queen came first. I wasn’t breaking any more rules.

He took my hand. I let him trace his thumb across my knuckles, allowed myself to fall deeper into his gaze.

The returning guard sent me back into his arms. A better position than drowning in icy blue, reveling in the connection of our hands.

But now I thrummed in his hold, desperate for, well, everything.

Yeah, I had it bad. Someone perform an emergency operation to cut it out.

The train entered the Channel Tunnel, the air changing as the locomotive rushed through the darkness under the sea.

“I have to go,” I told him, getting free of him.

“I’ll come with you.”

“No. Stay here, I?—”

He shifted, disappearing from view.

“I think I hate you,” I mumbled, casting my diversion spell again.

I winced, the pain sharp from palms to fingertips. Throwing more Synth pills down my gullet, I moved through the first set of doors.

The carriages were packed with seats, the occasional human typing on a laptop, working for the king. I shuffled past the guard who’d come into the storage carriage earlier, passing another who covered the next two carriages.

Swift yet careful.

Was Xavier in my hood? I didn’t stop to check. Let him see the real me. Let the lid be blown off the truth. Fuck it. I shouldn’t be here anyway. The queen was…

…no. Enough of that.

Two guards flanked the locked doors to the royal carriage, staring ahead.

I cast an extra layer of diversion on myself, driving Skele into the two locks protecting the king.

I saw him in there, sitting in a blue seat with lots of leg room talking to someone with red hair opposite him—a man, his back to me. Possibly the paramour.

Only eight seats, a dining table in this carriage—a form of travel fit for a royal witch.

The doors slid open. I moved in, relocking them behind me.

Deep breath for a bigger hit of diversion.

Three.

Two.

One.

I cast the magic, red mist rushing through the carriage, sinking into the walls, the ceiling, windows, hiding me and these two men from the guards outside. And a certain eight-legged pain in my arse potentially lurking in my hood.

The spell came with a caveat—to expose me to King Basile and the redhead. I wanted to talk to them first.

King Basile rose to his feet, Synth igniting in his hands. “Who are you? Guards!”

“They can’t hear you,” I countered in French, readying a deflection spell.

Drink the Sneaky End…

The red head stood and turned. I couldn’t believe my eyes.

“No way!” I proclaimed.

Phillipe, the demon of the peace talks, stared back at me, a dusting of freckles on his fair, smooth skin and boyish features. Dressed in a white hoody and black jeans, his red hair was messy. He’d built himself a fanbase of swooning followers, the subject of fanfiction and art.

“No way,” I repeated. This explained the lack of demon contingencies on board.

The peaceful demon put himself between the king and me. “Please. Let’s not fight.”

This couldn’t be real. “What are you doing here?” I asked.

“I think you should answer that question first,” His Majesty responded. “Though I’m beginning to slot the puzzle pieces together.” He lowered his hands, the magic fading.

I lowered mine. “You really are working with the demons behind closed doors.”

“Is that what she believes?” the king retorted, stepping around Phillipe. “I had my suspicions of someone like you working for her.”

Yeah, he’d really shoved those puzzle pieces into place.

Drink the damn potion.

End him.

Too late…

“I never wanted to interfere with her and Lawrence’s business, even though having a creature such as you working in the shadows is deeply immoral for a monarch.”

Was he being serious? Creature? Morals? Pah!

He hit me with a dark glower. “Assassin. You are here to kill me.” He shook his head. “This is my own fault for standing by and allowing this to go on for so long. You, and her descent into this insanity she has inflicted on all of us.”

Phillipe took his hand, their fingers interlocking.

The peace-talking demon was the paramour.

I tried my best to stand firm, to not let this throw me off. But resistance was futile. This had seriously blown my mind.

“How long has this being going on?” I asked.

The king lifted their joined hands, kissing the back of Phillipe’s.

“That is none of your business. However,” he lowered their hands, “whatever scheming your queen believes I am part of is nonsense. I am not conspiring behind her back. I am engaging in peace talks with witch monarchs around the world, with demons who wish to interact. Trying to make our world a better place, unlike your queen.”

I took an angry step forward. “I won’t let you slander Her Majesty.”

“Queen Margarite is losing her mind,” he said. “There is no move against her. She is the one resistant to change, constantly skewering any efforts for a new way forward. No one else is to blame.”

“That’s not true.”

“Believe what you want. Her paranoia will destroy everything if she continues down this path. I know she suffers. I know her grief is overwhelming. But this is already a step too far. Look at what she’s done.

Look at what she’s declared. And now she sends an assassin to kill a fellow monarch?

” He shook his head. “Even you must see the madness in this.”

Truthfully, I did. But she was my boss, not him. And I couldn’t keep letting her down. Giving her peace of mind gave me a shot at redemption after my recent fuck up.

But King Basile’s death would only embolden her cause, plunge her deeper into destruction.

The world couldn’t take another war.

My conviction broke, a real snap of epiphany-laced force. Every rule, every piece of training crumbling around me. This wasn’t doubt; this was the heavy collapse of my foundations.

My knees threatened to buckle under the sudden weight of anguish, my shoulders sagging.

“I don’t know what to do,” I whispered.

“You get can the fuck off my train,” the king responded.

Phillipe touched his shoulder. “Let’s think about this.”

“What is there to consider, my love? This man is an assassin and must be dealt with accordingly. Thank goodness I never brought you to the palace.” Red energy licked across his hands.

With the Sneaky End still in my pocket, I drew my dagger, magic rising up my arms, swirling around the blade.

“Can’t we talk this through?” Phillipe tried again. “This doesn’t have to end badly.”

A peacemaker until the end.

“Too late for that,” the king said, hitting me with a blast of magic.

I responded with deflection, the beam bouncing off the air inches from my body, dissipating in a puff of useless red smoke.

“Decent reflexes,” His Majesty responded, eyeing the blade floating before my face.

“Please,” Phillipe begged. “Please don’t do this.”

The train broke out of the tunnel into the French nighttime, hurtling along the tracks, rain smearing the windows.

Xavier part-shifted, spinnerets firing jets of silk at the king. The monarch hit the ground, the silk a steel binding across his middle, pinning his arms to the side.

Xavier hit him with more across the mouth, then stuck Phillipe to the window.

“Don’t touch this witch,” Xavier warned, so terrifying, so beautiful.

Amazingly, the diversion spell still held, the guards clueless to this incident.

I fell to my knees, defeat assaulting me. My dagger slid from my grip. “I can’t hold on much longer.” Holding up my clawed hands, flickering Synth slithered across them, pain ringing in my bones.

Xavier crouched beside me. “I’m getting you out of here.”

“No…”

“Yes.”

“I have to kill him.”

“You have to survive.” Scheming eyes, demonic white, scanned the closest window.

Phillipe’s mouth wasn’t glued shut. “She’s put a bounty on my head.”

“I know,” I answered.

“We have to stop her.”

I didn’t answer this time, letting Xavier help me to my feet.

“There has to peace,” the hopeful demon added.

“I think it’s too late.”

“I don’t believe that.”

Xavier left me to lean against a seat, moving toward the window.

“I love him,” Phillipe said. “The king. And he loves me. This isn’t an affair. This is an open arrangement. Queen Sophie has her lovers, too. There is nothing?—”

“I don’t want to hear it,” I sighed out.

“Then know I’m not your enemy.”

“He is, though.” I nodded at King Basile.

“We can work this out.”

Xavier struck the window with his fist, the punch so hard the entire panel came off, sucked off into the night. Wind and rain rushed into the carriage, a blast of cold air to wake up the senses.

“Kill Queen Margarite!” Phillipe roared. “There’s no other choice!”

Ah, not so peaceful.

But correct?

Kill the queen.

Kill the queen.

I killed for the queen, not the other way around.

Xavier scooped me up into his arms. “This will be unpleasant,” he said, barely audible over the wind.

“What—”

He wrapped me in silk, a fly in caught in his web. Spun me quickly, tossing me out of the window. The cocoon hit the ground, bouncing, rolling, rattling me like a ragdoll caught in a toddler’s tantrum.

I threw up. Puke spun with me, splattering my face as I rolled and rolled and rolled.

Oh, God.

And then it stopped, a sudden jolt, the cocoon yanked off to the side with whip-lash speed.

The silk broke open, Xavier’s face there.

“I threw up,” were the first words to leave my mouth.

He smiled. “I’m not surprised.”

The demon picked me up again, carrying me through the wind and rain across dark French fields.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“To safety.”

Dread threatened to trigger my guts again. “I failed. I failed. I failed.”

He kept quiet, taking me to a motorway service station with a motel joined to it.

“We can take shelter there,” he said. “Leave it to me.”

“You’re naked and a demon.”

“Not for long.” He went to pick me up.

“I can walk.”

“You’re weak.”

“I can walk,” I responded.

“Fine. Follow me.”

Soaking wet, he led me to a fence, a carpark on the other side. He gave me a boost over, despite me not needing one, directing me to keep low.

“Wait here,” he said.

“I’m soaked.”

“Then you won’t mind a few more raindrops on your head.”

“I really want to punch you.”

He smirked. “Do you say that to all the boys?”

“Only cocky spider demons.”

His smirk dropped as if I’d called him a prick. “Wait. I’ll be back.”

“You better be.”

“What size are you clothing wise?”

“Why?”

“Discuss later, answer now.”

I told him, too done in to argue.

He sped off.

I backed into the fence, a single tree keeping some of the rain off me.

“I’ve failed her,” I said to myself.

What was I going to do now? What would she do? What would she say? The disappointment in her eyes would be like taking a bullet. I had to do something, steal a car, catch up with the train. Try again. No, not try. Succeed.

Kill the queen.

I slid down the fence, backside landing in wet, cold mud. “I don’t know what to do.”

Shutting down, closing up. This did not compute. I was The Shadow, beyond these human ties.

A killer.

A vessel for a queen.

Xavier returned fully clothed, a bulging rucksack flung over his shoulder.

“What have you done?” He’d paused my inner collapse.

He offered me a hand. “I expertly stole us some clothes, and I’ve got us a room in the motel. I booked it for us on their system.”

“Did you pay for it?”

“This is a desperate situation, Roman.”

“That’s a no, then.”

“Are you bothered?” he wondered.

“No.” I took his hand, letting him pull me to my feet. “How long have you been gone?”

“Fifteen minutes.”

“And you did all that?”

“When needs must, Roman. Come on. Let’s go.”

I held his hand, puddles of warmth in my chest, hurrying through the rain to the motel.

Motel with him.

Alone.

None of it mattered. All that mattered was my failure, my face now known to the Witch King of France.

Talk about an epic disaster.