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His upper lip curled. “Are you truly ready to free yourself from his grasp, love?” he hissed.
“I-I am! I swear it!”
Lazarus’ grip tightened, squeezing off our airflow. “Someone desperate to break free from their family’s hold wouldn’t utter the words you just did, Calianna. Either you are attempting to pull a wool over my eyes or you didn’t come here alone.”
She clawed at his hand, our lungs already burning from the lack of airflow. “I…came…alone! I…swear it! No…one…followed me!”
His light brown eyes narrowed into thin slits. The blood pool had finally spread enough to where it started coating our back. While it was enough to drive Calianna’s panic to another level, he kept her pinned. He lowered his face until only a matter of inches separated us. “I’m not concerned with who might have tailed you to our location, love… There’s someone else in that head of yours and they’ve seen everything.”
Calianna started thrashing against him, desperate for oxygen with darkness already haunting our vision. That didn’t mean Lazarus was willing to loosen his hold. As far as he was concerned, she’d brought an intruder with her.
It just happened to be me.
For a moment, I could feel more control over her body. We just happened to be in perfect sync with trying to pry his fingers off our throat. The more he held on, the more I could feel both of us slipping away. The shadows surged forward to collect and I had no idea if it would grab both of us. That didn’t stop me from clawing at my throat with panicked gasps.
“Quinn!”
All it took was Asher’s voice for the darkness to dissipate immediately. It took me far too long to realize that I had crumbled onto the floor and my head was pounding from a nasty headache. Even my shoulder was throbbing in agony. That didn’t mean a thing when it came to the nausea finally coming to collect. I jerked away from the prince, my stomach emptying within seconds.
Nico swore under his breath, grabbing a towel from a nearby rack. “Are you sure there’s only a small part of her humanity left to erase? Demons don’t throw up from a concussion.”
The nausea refused to release me until my stomach was completely empty, acid and all. My body was consumed by painful aches, making every tremble I endured hell on earth. I didn’t have the strength to protest Asher pulling me into his arms. “W-What happened?” I rasped.
He kept me pinned against his chest, doing his best to keep me from moving while he took a closer look at my head. “We were hoping you could tell us, pet. All we heard was a scream and I found you on the floor, bleeding.” He nudged some of my hair away from an area where the pulsing seemed to originate from, squeezing a sharp hiss from me.
The sharp pin needles dancing along my skin ceased as soon as the demon lord managed to reach past us and shut the water off. I trembled against Asher, offering up no protest as he shifted to allow the towel to be wrapped around me. “I-I don’t understand…I was just…taking a shower while you were talking to Archer.”
“Now how did she know that?” Nico grumbled, drifting into my peripheral. His crimson eyes locked on me. “Were you eavesdropping on our conversations, love?”
My skin crawled from the term of endearment. It left me enduring flashbacks from my experience in Calianna’s body and I wanted to be as far from it as I could manage in my current state. I tucked my head down, desperate to stop the agony.
“Don’t push your luck, Nico,” the prince snarled. With me all bundled up, he eased an arm below my legs and hoisted me up against him. Although it squeezed a whimper out of me, he carried me back into the chamber and eased me down onto the bed.
I couldn’t bring myself to break the silence until he eased down onto the mattress behind me, keeping me upright. With so many emotions tearing through me, I couldn’t bring myself to let my eyes stray toward either of the demons. There was a layer of shame haunting me that I just couldn’t shake. I didn’t know how. Sniffling, I lowered my head and closed my eyes. “It was like…I had been yanked from my body and shoved into someone else’s. I felt everything she did. Saw everything through her eyes.”
The demon lord casually came into the chamber with his arms crossed over his chest. “She?”
The breath I managed to take wasn’t much of one, yet it shook as it flooded my lungs. “Calianna.”
Both demons stiffened immediately with Nico’s crimson eyes finding their way to Asher. “Well, fuck. If pictures of her reaching the manor weren’t enough... Although I don’t understand how a mixed blood like Quinn was able to astral project. Her mother was human. No magic in those veins.”
“Her father was Faxiss blood.” The air shimmered beside my leg as a first aid kit was formed from thin air. Asher didn’t acknowledge his remark while he flicked it open with a finger and got to work cleaning my wound. He had a tight enough grip on me to where I couldn’t pull away from him. The hissing I threw in his direction certainly didn’t seem to phase him. “Someone along that bloodline must’ve had abilities the rest of us didn’t know about.”
Nico responded with a scoff. “Someone knew. You don’t go after a ruling family unless they’re a serious threat. Anything within the vision area would certainly draw enemies.”
The prince remained silent and the lack of a response certainly left me yearning to curl up on the bed. There was no doubt he had rage lurking beneath the surface, tearing through his veins with so much heat that it rivaled three days ago. All it would take was one more thing before he snapped.
Would anyone be safe from that kind of rage?
Blowing out a breath, Nico trained those eerie eyes on me. “What did you witness through her eyes, Quinn?”
I kept my gaze low. “I-I saw a demon they’d taken prisoner. Xaide. They had him tied up in the basement, but Lazarus wasn’t interested in trying to turn him. He was using him to make Calianna prove her loyalty to him.”
The demon lord straightened slightly at the mention of the Nephilim’s name. “Did she?”
“I don’t know if she killed him…” I turned my hand slightly. It didn’t matter if I had finally managed to snap myself back to the real world, I could still feel the blood coating my skin. My stomach churned. Gritting my teeth, I slowed my breathing with the desperate attempt to keep my body from betraying me once again.
Asher snapped the box shut. “It doesn’t matter if she killed Xaide or simply inflicted pain. It is a crime to turn against a demon of high ranking. Those that work beneath the demon lords are granted the same level of protection as the lords themselves.”
