AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I am.”
I blinked up at him through the tears.
What was he saying? Was he admitting that he was just using me to piss off my dad?
“I never claimed to be a good man, Evie, but he told you something else.”
His eyes somehow brightened.
It had to be a reflection from a passing car, or maybe the overhead lamp post at the end of the block, but the heat under his fingers grew painful against my skin and the dull glow behind his eyes grew brighter until I was gasping for air.
“Demon,” I managed to breathe out. “He said you were a demon.”
“That’s right. And do you know why he knows what I am? What could a popular politician have to gain from being friendly with a demonic presence?”
He was leading me to the answer, showing me what he wanted me to work out on my own.
My father had always been a likable and social man, but there had been defining moments in his life that had built up his career and catapulted him from local government, up to the state level, then on to Washington, D.C. The passing of my mother and siblings was the only major circumstance he’d faced, but I couldn’t believe that my dad had anything to do with that. I wouldn’t believe it.
“Say it out loud, Evie.” Stolas’ gruff voice was laced with eager tolerance.
“No.” I wiggled my shoulders, trying to break free of his hold, but his body pushed me harder into the wall at my back.
“You’re so close to the truth. I know you can see it. It’s on the tip of your tongue. The buried memory of a familiar face before the accident.” He coaxed me with words and a hand down my side to my hip.
My memories around that time were fuzzy at best. But that day would be seared into my brain forever, though there were chunks of time before and after that grief had robbed me of. My mother’s funeral was a blur, as was the dedication ceremony of a park in my family’s honor. I could only see flashes when I thought my hardest to piece those events together.
“Think back. Weeks before that day,” Stolas instructed. His hand cupped the back of my knee, hitching my leg on his hip.
His breath on my neck and lips on my ear lobe distracted me from the pain of remembering what he needed me to see.
The face in my father’s office about a month before my mother, brother, and sister would die on the brand-new boat.
That cunning grin and cutting, odd wit.
“We have a deal then?” the dark voice says.
I’m watching from the crack in the door, crouched like a spy while my brother counts downstairs. I need to find a hiding place before he gets to one hundred, but the way our dad is sitting has my eyes glued to him.
“I have your word. They won’t feel any pain and it’ll be quick?” My dad’s voice comes up from his desk, but his face is covered by his hands.
“Not even a pinch. Three little souls for the next step to the White House.” The other man flicks lint from his shoulder then checks his watch.
“Just three. No more. No less,” my father agrees, finally looking up to the face of . . .
“Oro.” My voice was hoarse and strained from the tension and pressure that had been building in my body.
“What did Oro and your father do?” Stolas’ lips moved over the sensitive spot under my jaw.
“They . . . They made a deal. He’s a demon, too. Just like . . .” I allowed the realization to wash over me.
“Me?”
My stomach turned into knots as he lifted me and settled his hips between my legs for our eyes to meet. I knew I should have been afraid, but we’d been alone for hours before my dad had shown up. How could Stolas have been some otherworldly monster without me knowing it? Or was I so cut off from humanity by my own bitter loneliness that I couldn’t see the devil dancing before my eyes?
“Evie, I’m not going to hurt you,” he said, a softness to his voice that I hadn’t heard before, hadn’t needed to hear yet. “I know it may be difficult to understand, but I want to help you. I need you to trust me.”
“You’re a demon! You’re vile and evil.”
