Page 55 of Cold Sacrifice

I needed him.

And he came. Not physically, but I felt him rushing down the line that connected us, I felt his strength, his unconditional love, his worry. I also felt his confidence. He believed in me, in my power. I would believe in myself.

He was with me, and that was all I needed.

I settled, and I opened myself up for whatever was about to come. The elders were going to give me power, essentially, and wasn’t power what I wanted?

Yes.

I was a greedy demon.

“Do not fight the change, little wolf,” Ael whispered, something close to sympathy in his cold alpha eyes, and maybe that was the most terrifying thing of all.

“Let the butterfly wings burn,” the vampire said, and it only occurred to me in that second that his name had never been given to me. I doubted it ever would. “You have hidden the fire in a beautiful, fragile little thing. Imagine what you can do if that change is you, not a shift. Just you.”

“Let the butterfly wings burn,” Ti murmured, repeating his words. “Let the demon breathe.”

And finally, Kronor spoke. Reluctantly, and with rage, but he did what he had to do. He aided the elders in their attempt to aid me. He was the one to physically touch me. He traced a circle on my forehead, and oh my god, how that touch burned. It burned through me, and the pain was unbearable, but I couldn’t move. Even as I stared at him, my eyes wide, tears streaming down my face, I could not move.

Satisfaction blossomed in his stare, and I knew he felt my terror as well as my agony, and he enjoyed it. He fed from it, as any demon would do. As my butterfly had fed from the vampires.

Ti’s soothing voice wafted through my mind. “Steady, Kait. Reach for your strength. Reach for your rage. It’s still there.”

The fire spread through my body, bursting to life inside me, burning, burning.

“Don’t fight it,” Ael said. “Accept it, wolf. As before, activate it, and you will know power.”

That was what I focused on. Not the pain, not the shadows, not the uncertainty. The promise of power. Maybe I wouldn’t have magic like I’d had before. Maybe it wouldn’t burst from the fading colors of my fingertips.

But something was inside me. I knew it was. And it would burst from my blade in one way or another. I would become the demon, whatever that meant.

I was done hiding.

I was going to fight.

Kronor’s satisfaction dimmed when I smiled, and he narrowed his eyes and redoubled his attempt to cause me pain.

My rage flew through me like black wings, fanning the fire, and then my entire body was on fire. But I didn’t fight it. I embraced it. And with a burst of pure energy, I flung my arms out as those wings burst through my back and fire poured from my fingers, my eyes, my mouth.

The elders flew backward, hitting hard against their guard, their protectors. And abruptly, they were simply gone. Just gone.

And I was alone with my demon in the frozen world, and everything inside me was ashes. Burned away beneath the fire of my demon. It devoured everything.

Everything.

Everything but my wolf.

It took everything I was to fuel my demon. Because right then, my demon was everything.

I rose into the air, fire breaking off and landing upon the snow to burn black holes where seconds before, only pristine white had been.

I felt the elders, though I could no longer see them. They were watching. I felt their awe, as well, and their fear. Their worry that they had helped unleash something that would have been better confined into the small body of a beautiful butterfly.

I whirled high in the air, laughing, crying, burning.

I wasn’t a normal demon. I wasn’t a lesser being who scurried through the physical realm possessing humans and causing chaos and pain for the sheer pleasure of it.

No.