Page 3

Three

A zreth sensed her coming before she stepped through the door. He was so starved that even through the barrier, he could sense the spark of her emotions. Her fear.

Lord Nirlan, smiling a little, dragged her through the doorway, and her eyes focused on Azreth just as intently as his did on her.

Was she for him?

This was the third mortal he’d met up close, but the first female. She was human, like the others, but she looked different from the males. Slightly smaller and finer-boned. Her skin wasn’t quite as pale as Nirlan’s. Instead, it was a faintly earthen color, and her hair was as shiny black as his own. Her eyes were dark and somehow seemed more watchful than the others’.

Nirlan shoved the woman closer, and she fell to her knees in front of Azreth. She looked up at him with her eyes wide, her lips slightly parted. Fear spilled from her, and it was like wine pouring down his throat.

Salivating, he leaned closer to the barrier. He’d heard that mortal blood was sweet and bright red, like the juice of some rare fruit. The woman’s skin was thin, and he could see the flutter of her panicked heartbeat in her delicate throat, her veins plump and ripe.

He forced himself to pull back a little. He couldn’t bite her. She might die. He didn’t know how long it would be before they gave him another mortal to feed from. He couldn’t waste this one.

“Nirlan, please don’t do this,” he heard the woman say, her voice small and distant through the barrier.

Nirlan was smiling faintly. His hand was on the back of her neck, which might have passed for a loving caress if not for the way her skin was turning white where his fingers dug into her.“Don’t do what?”

“Feed me to it.” There was a slight crack in her voice. Though she spoke to Nirlan, she was still staring at Azreth, her eyes shining.

“What makes you think I’d feed my own wife to a demon?”

Azreth’s gaze flicked up to Nirlan’s in faint surprise. A wife was a mating partner. Mortals liked to pair up for life, sharing homes and children together. They were allies, bound by permanent vows. Or so he’d thought.

Nirlan leaned close to his wife’s ear, whispering terrible threats. The way he touched her was almost sensual, even as he was describing how Azreth would flay her alive. His hand traveled down her body and then eased between her legs. The woman’s eyes darkened, and the scent of her fear changed, now tinged with shame and… hatred.

Impossibly, Azreth’s appetite for her blood began to wane, replaced by irritation.

Not that it mattered. He understood now that she was no sacrifice for him. Nirlan was only using Azreth to threaten the woman. And he was using the woman to taunt Azreth. To Azreth’s chagrin, it worked. Having a meal dangled in front of him was infuriating.

* * *

When Azreth grew too weak to sit up anymore, he curled up on the bottom of his cage. Eunaios would occasionally look over at him and frown as he worked. Azreth would blink at him slowly.

He would close his eyes, and even though he couldn’t quite sleep, time seemed to pass more quickly that way.

He half-dreamed while he half-slept. He would imagine escaping and sucking the humans dry, but then he would rouse himself and realize he was still in his cage.

He dreamed of the dark-eyed woman. In the dream, her face entranced him, like she’d cast a spell that kept him from looking anywhere but her. Her pulse pounded visibly in her throat, teasing him.

He would probably die soon.

He regretted never tasting the freedom he’d imagined he might have here.

But there was no point in regretting things. It was irrational and unproductive.

* * *

In a half-dream, he saw the river he’d tossed Nariel into. He could feel the warmth of the flames. The heat was inviting. He tried to move closer, but his limbs were leaden.

Slowly, he opened his eyes. His cursed cell swam into focus. Before him, there was a figure on the ground. His vision sharpened.

There was a mortal in the cage with him.

When she saw that he’d awakened, she tried to scramble backwards. Azreth lunged for her. She shouted as he grabbed her and pulled her back. He was only vaguely aware of her skinny limbs kicking and slapping at him as he flipped her onto her back and pinned her by her throat. The bloodlust overpowered everything else.

Terror filled the space between them, washing over him, and he could not get close enough, could not have enough. It spiked his hunger, and suddenly he was ravenous, his body empty and wanting. The back of his throat flexed in anticipation of feeding. His stomach twisted on itself, desperate to be filled. All of his senses were focused on the heat of the body beneath him, the pumping of its blood and the thick, heavy waves of fear flowing from it, pulsing in his ears and clouding his eyes. A river of emotion exploded across his skin, drowning him.

He bent toward the source of the river, pressing his mouth to a fluttering vein. The scent of flesh filled his nose. His teeth itched to sink deep into it, to tear muscle fibers and snap veins and rip strips of fat into broken pieces. He needed to bite and crush and destroy, or he would die, he would go mad?—

There was a sound very close to his ear, fighting against the din of his hunger. Screaming.

He couldn’t bite her. She would die. He had to stop.

Hunger pounded through him as he pulled away to look down at the mortal. It was the same woman as before. She was crying.

A heavy feeling passed over him like a shadow, numbing his hunger. He paused there, struggling against himself.

And then a sweet, metallic scent reached his nose. He inhaled deeply, looking for the source of the smell. Somehow, the mortal had started bleeding from her fingers.

He lifted her hand, fascinated. The blood was vibrant, beautiful, shining red. It was hard to believe that it had turned out this way through the random chaos of the universe, and that it had not been designed specifically to entice him.He closed his eyes and drew his tongue slowly over her fingers.

It tasted like sunlight.He’d never experienced anything like it.

As he tasted her blood and her warm skin, he was surprised to find himself imagining licking her sex this way. How would her arousal taste? He pictured her writhing in ecstasy beneath him, overwhelmed with pleasure.

She’d never allow that. No mortal would willingly allow a demon to touch them.

“Tell me what you want,” she whispered.

Azreth looked down at the woman. Her tears were drying on her cheeks, and her gaze was intense and focused and furious. She had stopped trying to wriggle free of his grasp.

“Make my death quick and painless, and I’ll give you whatever you want,” she said quietly. An idea seemed to come to her, and her eyes brightened. “I will tell you about Nirlan. You want to kill him, don’t you? I’ll help you escape. I’ll help you kill him.”

With his mind still hazy with hunger, he couldn’t quite make sense of this. It was the last thing he’d expected her to say.

“Please,” she whispered.Azreth’s insides twisted a little.

Light exploded through the barrier, and pain juddered through him. He released the woman, rolling backwards as several more blasts hit him. The baton again.

By the time he could see straight again, the woman was outside the barrier. He could hear the mortal lord arguing with her.

Azreth warily sat up, and the lord sneered at him. “Soon you’ll be bound to me. Then we can let you out, and you can wreak havoc on the countryside. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” He pointed the baton toward him, and lightning burst forth again. Azreth gasped, crumpling.

Nirlan tossed the baton aside. There was something intentional about the casual way he did it, as if to show them all how little he cared about any of them.

As Azreth watched them go, he fantasized about separating Nirlan’s head from his body.