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I sucked in a slow, bitter breath. The darkness lightened, like mist chased away by the dawn. The tethers encompassing my ankles vanished. His hand reached around my throat, and his claws caressed lightly along my jaw. I shivered at the touch, the coldness of his claws shocking in comparison to the warmth of his skin.
“What happens when we go after Kent and Leon stands in our way?” I said tightly. His fingers tightened too, holding my jaw as if to demand my attention.
“He won’t. Leon will do everything in his power not to protect the Hadleighs. You can hate him all you want, Juniper. Plenty of beings hate that murderous bastard.” He let me go, and I turned toward him, arms folded. Without his supernatural darkness and dramatic deep voice, he was just a clawed pretty boy with sharp teeth and weird eyes. I scowled.
“Are you done with the theatrics?” I said. His eyes widened at the challenge.
“Mytheatrics? What about yours, little wolf? Are you done throwing a tantrum?”
I kept my mouth closed, angry words caged behind my clenched teeth. My heart rate was slowing, coming down from the mind-numbing panic.Leon. I’d never known the demon’s name before. A name stripped away some of the terror, like a phantom brought into sunlight.
“I’ll get the information you need,” Zane said, rubbing his hand over his head with a heavy sigh. “I’ll find out where your brother’s body is.”
15
When I first met Leon, he was haunting a graveyard in France, jealously guarding the grave of the dead human he’d once loved. He’d fallen for a mortal whose soul he’d never claimed, and death separated them forever. He hadn’t been able to bear it.
It seemed ludicrous now, considering that in the centuries since then, he’d developed the habit of killing any human who rubbed him even slightly wrong. But he was a romantic at heart. On the rare occasion he got a liking for someone, his devotion was strong —obsessive, even.
It was foolish, loving a human. Humans were fragile, and they didn’t view loyalty like our kind did. A bond between demons rarely broke, but humans threw each other away over the pettiest things. I’d told Leon as much. I’d told him he needed to detach his raging emotions. He needed to bury his grief. But Leon was all rage — he was all wildly swinging feelings.
I knew better. Hunting souls had led me to hundreds of humans over the centuries. Some I’d felt affection for, but in the way one feels affection for a sentimental object — it was special, certainly, but ultimately disposable.
Juniper was challenging that outlook.
She was merely a soul, a fascinating endeavor, a pleasurable pet. Except, she wasso damn difficult. She raged at me, her cortisol shooting so high it even putmeon edge. I reasoned it was normal enough: her soul had only just bound to mine, so those powerful things she felt could affect me too.
But it was more than that. It was more than just a touch of shared emotion.
I didn’twanther to be angry. I hated her accusations that I was trying to get out of our bargain, as if I was cheating her out of something. I upheld my deals. I always had.
Did I blame her for her anger? Of course not. But it frustrated me to no end that I couldn’t reason her down from it. It was difficult to think of her as a fun pastime when that look of panic in her eyes — utter, heart-achingpanic— made me feel like a massive stone was pressing on my chest.
I’d always sought the broken ones. It had never bothered me, the terrible circumstances from which so many damaged souls came. Such was life: violent, unfair, cruel. All one could do was find pleasure where they could, hold tight to indulgences and savor every drop of enjoyment one could possibly suck from the marrow of existence.
I found Leon on the university campus, guarding a building cordoned off with yellow caution tape.
“What’s all this?” I plucked at the tape curiously with my finger. “Smells like blood. Blood and magic.”
“Get away from it, would you?” He glared at me from the bottom of the steps, arms crossed. “You’re making it look like I’m not doing my job. That kid, Marcus, died in there. They can’t get the bloodstains out of the stones.”
“And what’s this?” I pinched at his tight shirt.PNW Security Serviceswas stitched onto the front. “Playing security guard, are we? Have you caught any naughty, snooping students yet?”
“Only one,” he muttered, peevishly straightening his shirt. “I’m still figuring out how to punish her for it.”
I chuckled, lighting up a joint. “Well, if you need help thinking something up, I’ll gladly help you brainstorm some ways to make her squeal.”
The campus was quiet that afternoon. Students hurried past between classes, and groups of them were spread out across the lawn as they studied. Leon glared at any who dared come too close with undeniable distaste.
Being forcibly summoned and kept, as he had for so long, will change a demon in unpleasant ways. I was fortunate to have never experienced it. After a few centuries of collecting souls and growing my power, a magician would need to be powerful indeed to manage to summon me,ifthey were able to get their hands on my name.
“I’m supposed to tell you not to smoke here,” he said.
“Noted. When can you leave? I want to go out somewhere. Catch up. It’s been ages since Kent let you out.”
“Tonight.” He paused, giving a long, heavy glare to a pair of students who’d paused in front of the building to snap a photo with their phones. One glance from him and their faces fell, hurrying away. “There’s a festival in town. Kent wants me to keep an eye on things.”
“Why?” I groaned. I laid down on the stone steps behind him, simply because it bothered him, and bothering Leon was far more fun than it should have been. “That’s such a painfully mundane use for a demon. Doesn’t he ever give you anything interesting to do?”
