“It’s a thing of the past,” he said as he brushed the hair back from my face.
“So why did humans create the legend of the werewolf if you don’t turn into some kind of a wolf?”
“My ancestors didn’t turn into them, but they controlled the hounds.” He grinned at me and turned his left arm over to reveal the detailed etchings of the hellhounds on it. “And then I came along. Like the fire, the hounds come to life when I release them. Until then, they reside within me, an ever constant, feral soul looking to be set free. I am the first varcolac to be able to control the hounds, and to have them etched onto my body and housed within me.”
“A blessing and a curse,” I murmured as I recalled what he’d said about the mark of Ziwa.
“Yes, there is power in these symbols. Ziwa and some of the others are also the reason Lucifer has been unable to defeat me as he has my ancestors. I am stronger and more powerful than they were.”
Thank God for that, or perhaps I should thank Hell for forging him in such a way. Who knew? I stared down at those glistening fangs as my hands traced over the beasts trapped within him. I couldn’t imagine the strength and control it took to keep them contained; only he would be able to do so.
“Do the humans here know you can release the hounds?” I asked.
“No, and they can’t know. This must be kept between us. Just as you have to keep your ability to draw life from the earth from the humans as much as possible. Don’t ever let anyone, beside me, know what you are fully capable of.”
I kissed his shoulder, nuzzling his smooth skin. “I won’t tell anyone,” I vowed. There were other symbols on him I was curious about, but there was something I had to tell him first. “There’s something you should know.”
He stiffened against me, and his obsidian eyes burned into mine when I tilted my head to look at him. “What is it?”
I had no idea how he was going to react to what I had to tell him, but he was opening up to me and it was time I did the same. “I had experienced the sparks a few times before. Nothing like what happens between us,” I gushed out. “But smaller sparks that lasted for only a second. I wrote them off as static electricity, or I tried to.”
“What were you doing when they happened before?”
I shrugged. “The first time it happened was the first time I held Gage after he was first born.” My heart swelled at the memory. “He was so precious with his chubby cheeks and tiny fingers. When one of them gripped mine, I felt and saw a small spark, but he didn’t notice as he continued to sleep in his swaddle of blankets. It was the first time I ever truly knew what it was to love another.
“The second time was when the man who taught me how to fish died. He was the closest thing I’d ever had to a father and it… it broke my heart when he passed.” His hands slid over me in a soothing gesture when my voice broke. “After he was buried, I returned to his garage, where I’d spent many hours with him learning everything he was willing to teach me. I was crying as I ran my fingers over the poles he’d carved by hand when it happened again. It was only a couple of sparks before they vanished. The third time I saw them was the first time I ever held Bailey. I never told anyone about them, not even Gage.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s tough enough to already have a few people knowing about your oddities without adding a whole new item to the freaky list. Plus, Gage already worried about me no matter how much I tried to keep things hidden from him. I tried to give him more of a childhood than I’d had; he deserved better, but he still grew up too fast.”
My gaze slid away from him and to the sheets. He brushed back my hair before bending to kiss my shoulder. “You deserved better then as you do now, and I will make sure you have it one day. Listen to me and know this, you are not an oddity or a freak.”
I smiled at his words, though we both knew there was a good chance that one day would not come. “Maybe not to you,” I said. “But we both know I fit in nowhere.”
“You fit perfectly against me,” he said and hugged me closer against his chest.
My heart melted as I trailed my fingers over his bare legs. If I’d been well on my way to falling in love with him, those words pushed me over the edge. I’d slammed head first into this, but I had no idea what he felt for me, or if demons were even capable of love.
Looking for a way to distract myself from my turbulent emotions, I focused on something else. “Why do you have no hair on you, like other men do? Like I do?”
“This is the way I rose from the fire. However, most other demons are hairless on their bodies, though some do have facial hair along with the hair on their heads.”
“An adaption to the heat of Hell,” I guessed.
“Probably.”
“Will I ever get to see the hounds come to life?” The prospect of such a thing was both thrilling and frightening.
“Most likely, once we leave here. What we’ll face out there will be far worse than anything encountered here.”
I couldn’t imagine anything worse than those strange, pig-like madagans or those bony, mummy-zombie-like revenirs. My heart clenched in my chest at the prospect of worse things.
“Death waits out there,” I murmured.
“Is that a vision?” he inquired.
“No, I simply know it. There’s a lot of death out there, possibly ours.”
