Page 10

Yien

I s that why you purchased me?

Her words caused something to stir in me. I wasn’t like those demons. I didn’t want to force the human to spread her legs for me.

No matter how tempting it may be.

A companion. That’s what I went for, and that’s what I got. No more. No less. And I wouldn’t allow myself the pleasure of touching or tasting her unless it was what she wanted.

“Don’t touch it,” I said as Iris got too close to the shadows that lined the property.

“They’re so pretty,” she said, her hand still coming up to touch the glimmering souls despite my best efforts to warn her not to.

I learned quickly that’s just how Iris was. Her eyes delighted in the challenge I was providing her, even if it was as simple as not touching the souls.

It shouldn’t amuse me as much as it does.

Just how bored had I been that this little human’s existence could light up my life in such a way?

The answer is… severely. I needed a companion; I just didn’t know how it had taken me so long to realize it.

My eyes kept wandering to her almost bare back. She kept on wearing the slip Madam had given her even after I had placed clothes in the closet in her room.

Maybe she doesn’t like them.

Or maybe she didn’t like the way I touched her the other day, and this is her rebellious phase.

I couldn’t believe that I had let my shadows wander across her skin like that.

Even just the memory of her warm skin was enough to cause my mind to go into a frenzy.

Never once had I been so overtaken with the urge to touch a human like I had in her room.

It was… distasteful.

I purchased her, but I wasn’t going to force her into anything. Especially of that nature.

Time. She needs time.

And in this instance, time meant staring at the souls for a long while. Walking back and forth, peering into the darkness as if she could make them out. I couldn’t understand what she was seeing.

They weren’t pretty. They were twisted, ugly things. Filled with a person’s fears and wasted hopes.

More often than not, whenever I let my shadows venture too close, all I saw was pain. Flashes of murder, assault, loss. All of it was forced into my head.

Never once had I found anything beautiful about the pained souls that lay beyond.

So, I ignored them for as long as I existed. Watched them from afar and only left my realm to go get souls from others.

Many parts of my realm were covered in shadows, making it almost impossible to travel. But here was this human, stepping into something she knew nothing about, and unafraid.

You need to protect your companion, a voice in the back of my head said. Make sure she doesn’t hurt herself.

But the other part told me to wait and see.

She thinks they’re pretty. Maybe she could see something I couldn’t. Maybe, unlike my siblings, they would accept her.

Even so, I let my own shadows trail her feet, keeping them close enough so I could pull her back to safety if I needed to. Her gasp cut through the silent air as her fingers dipped into the shadow.

My shadows slithered up her bare ankle, ready to pull.

“That was a human,” she whispered.

“Most are,” I said. “It’s after that many of them change.”

She made a humming noise before forcing her hand further into the fog.

“After?” she asked, her eyes unfocused as she watched the memories run through their minds.

“We have to come from somewhere as well, little human?—”

“Oh,” she blurted out, a blush traveling up her neck. I had never seen such a breathtaking color before. “ That’s what you mean by companion.”

“What did you see?” I asked and stepped closer to her.

Did she see them getting torn apart limb from limb while the demons feasted?

From the look on her face, the souls had decided to show her something much more… interesting and much less painful than they ever chose to show me.

Bitterness rose in my chest. I am jealous of what the souls are showing her.

She cleared her throat before looking back at me with a forced smile. “Nothing you haven’t seen before, I’m sure.”

“I haven’t,” I said quickly and closed the space between us. My shadows traveled up her body, keeping her in place. I needed to see it once more—that devious pink that covered her face and neck. Can I make her react that way again? “I’ve never seen anything that turned my skin the shade of red that graces your face.”

“What do you see?” she asked.

I didn’t want to tell her. A part of me wanted to protect this idea she had, that the souls were beautiful… because why should everyone have to suffer seeing the same things I did?

I’m sure the souls enjoyed the attention after years of me ignoring them.

“I asked you first,” I said.

I thought it was impossible for her face to get any redder, but she proved me wrong.

“I saw a demon between a girl’s legs,” she mumbled. “Tasting that thing you call nectar. ”

My body responded before I could think. I was leaning down, pulling her to me, getting our faces impossibly close. I could smell her. The arousal that was building between her legs.

She isn’t disgusted by the idea. She likes the image of a demon licking her.

“How did it feel?” I asked, trailing my shadows up her legs. “The memories were in your head. Could you feel it too?”

“Yes,” she replied breathlessly.

I reached past her to where her hand had been, searching for the same memory. I wanted to feel it. Wanted to see what the humans felt when a demon did that to them.

But as soon as my hand came into contact with it, images of the woman being torn apart by the demon she thought she loved raced through my mind.

I felt the pain. Tasted her blood. Heard the sounds of her begging them to stop.

I jerked away and turned from Iris’s curious gaze.

“What did you see?” she asked, her voice hesitant.

“The demon you saw between her legs ripping her limb from limb because they liked how she tasted a bit too much.” I didn’t mean for it to come out as a growl, but it did, and before I knew it, I had turned away and started walking toward my home without waiting for Iris.

“Come,” I ordered. “Humans need to eat to live.”