All I knew was pain and darkness.
Gulping, I finally found some air. Connell was inches from Astor, close enough to be seen as a threat. I was on my knees, Rowan kneeling beside me, shielding me.
Astor smiled at Connell, which made him stumble backward. She showed her yellow, piranha teeth that hadn’t looked so scary a few minutes ago to me next.
“You will perish during the Blooding,” she announced. “You can never be what Royalty needs to be.”
We were dismissed, escorted out by those demons hiding in the shadows. Rowan and Connell had to carry me as the door was slammed in our faces.
CHAPTER 29
Rowan’s watchful eyes studied my tense shoulders and my strained face as we stepped onto the roof. I knew I wasn’t projecting anymore, but he could still tell I was wounded and troubled. No longer in any physical pain, but hurt nonetheless.
I never had an ego before. But now I did, and it had been pulverized.
And my mother was requesting me to visit her. The idea of going to the Underrealm, of meeting her, of becoming this Royal creature I had no idea how to be, didn’t feel at all comfortable with, and apparently no one thought I could survive, was a heavy load to carry.
I didn’t want to be weak, but I was. I felt trapped. I needed a break from it, if even for an hour, which was exactly why when Connell invited us to a Faction Mischief demon party, then went airborne ahead of us, I dragged Rowan to it.
Unglamoured demons were everywhere, dancing, hovering inches off the ground, veiny, bat-lizard wings flapping like a hummingbird’s, so fast I could hardly see them. They chatted and laughed with friendly ease.
When they saw me, or when the low-level energy hum of the Imperial Mark struck them, half the rooftop was glamoured in an instant. The other half was cowering in a bow, orange hair midway to a more human red.
My eyes stung.
Connell walked through the dazed crowd of his caste with a smile, his lack of teeth showing, and I smiled slightly at him, pushing away tears that threatened to fall, grateful to see a friendly face who looked me in the eye.
“You do know how to make an entrance, beauty,” he joked, and I sighed.
“Is this how it’s always going to be?”
“You can change it,” Connell said, now close enough to lean in and whisper into my ear. “But change takes time.”
“I’m pretty impatient lately.”
Rowan came up behind me, let his hand rest softly on the small of my back. It wasn’t a proposition or a controlling act. He was silently saying he understood what I needed.
He placed his other hand on Connell’s shoulder. “Savannah could use a distraction.”
The Mischief demon I called my friend looked surprised by Rowan’s touch, his kind words, and the permission he was being granted. Not that Connell needed Rowan’s permission, but I could tell it meant something between the two demons to have it.
Rowan, completely unlike before, took his hand from my back, stepped away, and didn’t even growl once as he left me at the mercy of a Mischief demon.
I raised an eyebrow, deliberately looked mischievous, and feeling instantly better. “Want to give them a show?”
“Wicked female.” Connell leaned in and kissed my cheek, eliciting gasps and more than a few panicked looks from the demons behind him.
“Cheeky demon.” As Connell put a long, lanky arm around my waist, I slapped his slender arm lightly. “You did that on purpose, didn’t you?”
“Of course.”
Liftoff! I telepathed after we were in the air. Connell threw his head back in a grand laugh, but it didn’t slow him down.
We zoomed above scandalized, glamour-red haired demons. Connell spun around so fast, the world was nothing but a colorful blur. I giggled and shrieked, unable to, and not wanting to contain my joy.
But the demons below were a meadow of worry. I could feel their anxiety grow. The waves of it rose through the air and seeped into my pores. I was afraid they would get Connell into some sort of trouble.
Without thinking, without analyzing to death or considering the right or wrong of it, I unlocked the cage I’d constructed to keep in my emotions. Below, the rooftop filled with Mischief demons and one, golden-haired Warrior, felt my projected joy.
Each time I giggled, squealed, each time the elation of flying, of feeling safe in a friend’s arms, each moment that chipped away at the mountain of tension the day had built, the demons below felt it.
“You’re magnificent,” Connell said, his face bent down against my cheek. He’d slowed, and now we hovered high above the rooftop, on level with the clouds. The air was significantly colder up here, but Connell was warm wrapped around me.
“They were worried.”
“Now they see how unique you are. You will win them over, I think.”
I looked down—waaay down—and saw more orange than red. Looking up, I grinned at my friend. “Thank you, Connell.”
“I would pursue you, if you’d permit me,” he said, tone serious.
Suddenly, being wrapped in Connell’s arms, being kept warm by his body heat felt too intimate.
I looked deep into the glass of his eyes, into the intricate veins that lay beyond. “I think we both know I’m no longer available.”
“He hasn’t made a move yet.”
“No,” I frowned, knowing what I felt for Rowan might never progress to anything. He did seem determined to ignore it. Yet, I didn’t have a choice. “But it’s him for me.”
“I assumed as much,” Connell smiled, but didn’t show his lack of teeth. “Had to ask anyway. Wouldn’t be a proper Mischief-maker if I didn’t.”
“I’m still touched.”
“Eh,” he smiled, and I smiled. “You’re not really my type anyway.”
Kicking him mildly as I laughed, Connell unlocked my pried hands behind his neck with long, oddly angled fingers. I didn’t know what he was doing, but I trusted him. Both hands now tightly around my waist, he held me out at arm’s length, which was remarkably far from him. Now I felt exactly how much the temperature plummeted up here.
Giant, impressive bat-lizard wings flapped steadily, and my demon half suggested it would be wise to consider the situation dangerous. After all, I didn’t have wings.
“Ready for the grand finale?”
“Huh?”
Connell smiled, but I was too confused to smile back this time.
“Continue letting them see, as long as you can.” He winked, and I knew deep down what was about to happen.
He dropped me.
Wind whipped my hair into my eyes, and violently against my face. My stomach was still up in the clouds with Connell, and my clothes flapped around, making me, not for the first time, immensely grateful for the pair of pants Division had supplied instead of the skirt I otherwise would have been wearing.
I didn’t scream. Even though it wasn’t the reaction I should have been having to being dropped from the sky, to falling towards the ground which was rapidly rising to meet me, I knew I would survive this.
I wouldn’t die today.
I wouldn’t give up today.
In that moment, I was totally free. Free of my worries, my demolished ego. My feelings of being trapped, of hopelessness disappeared as instinct rose up, reminding me that I didn’t yet know what was inside me, what I was capable of.
And neither did anyone else.
I’d changed so much in just a few days. I refused to believe I was weak. I refused to believe I couldn’t learn to be what I needed to be.
Astor didn’t think I could survive this. Maybe I couldn’t. But I was damn sure going to try.
CHAPTER 30
Solid but gentle arms cradled me on the ground before I realized I was no longer falling. I could still see the roof from where Rowan held me, hovering over me protectively. He hadn’t jumped me far.
The door I’d been keeping open so the rooftop of demons could feel my projections snapped shut, I thought the moment Rowan touched me. But I coul
dn’t know for sure. It all happened so fast, and my demon instinct took care of it.
Looking up at Rowan, I was suddenly very aware of the position we were in, and of the intense, unfathomable beauty of the male. We lay together in the grass, him propped up on an elbow above me. Pure gold hair fell into his eyes, framing the white gold fury in his gaze.
He was out of breath, making an effort to control himself. Muscles twitched and flexed, his jaw worked and his glamour was gone, so when he spoke, his words held an air of menace, of chilling severity.
“I am going to kill him.”
Smiling—even though I believed Rowan just might kill Connell for what he did—I put my hands on the sides of his face. “No, you’re not.”
My touch didn’t calm him even a little. “You could have been killed.”
“He knew you would jump in.” I was positive of it.
“I never should have trusted—”
“I’m fine,” I interrupted. “You’re fine. Rowan, it’s fine.”
He vibrated with his anger. The feel of it was in the air around us, so thick I thought I might choke.
“I could have missed. I could have…”
He twitched.
What? I made myself as small as I could, drawing my arms against my sides.
“I can’t jump through air, girl,” hostility in every, snarly word. “Do you understand the odds of jumping to the exact spot at the exact moment before you hit the ground? You should be dead.”
“But I’m not. It’s fine. You caught me.”
Maybe it was stupid that I thought my words would reassure him. I was fine. He had gotten to me in time. Connell knew it. But Rowan wasn’t listening, and his looming presence wasn’t intimate anymore. It was dangerous.
Connell’s intention wasn’t to harm me, but to help me. His methods were classic Mischief. Can you fault him for being himself when I specifically told him that’s all I wanted him to be?
Talking wasn’t getting through to him. Maybe telepathy would, but it didn’t. Rowan didn’t even seem to hear me, and dread built in my chest.
I never wanted to feel fearful of him, but my panic spiked when the Hammer growled, not sexily like I’d heard it before. It was threatening. And I was in an incredibly vulnerable position beneath him.
Shuddering, I babbled, my fear and worry and temper rising up and spilling out along with my words. “I had three seconds of clarity up there. He gave me the distraction I needed to figure all this out. And he trusted you to not make him a Royal murderer, which, I think says exactly how much he trusts—”
Rowan’s lips were on mine before I finished my thought.
Bright shocks zinged along my body.
I shuddered again, only this time for a different reason. His kiss wasn’t soft, but wasn’t rough either. It was forceful and hungry, like he was convincing himself of something.
My fear, my worry, my temper melted into a puddle. My tensed muscles relaxed as his did. The thick aggression in the air faded.
He growled into my mouth, and I moaned shakily, never having felt anything so incredible in my life.
Not to mention, he gave me you in my arms.
My telepath was a whisper, and unintentional, but Rowan heard me. It startled him into realizing what he was doing. The moment was gone too quickly. Rowan pulled inches away, putting distance between our mouths and bodies. I didn’t want him to go, but the turbulent white gold sparks in his champagne eyes forced me to let him do what he thought he needed to.
“I…” he began, then cleared his throat, and I realized he hadn’t censored his words like that around me for a while. “I apologize.”
“Don’t.”
“This cannot go on. You must stop…enticing me.”
I sniffed. “It’s all on me then?”
“I know better. You’re Scion.” He sounded sure, but as he continued, his conviction wavered. “And I’m your Sentinel. I said I’d be honorable from now on.”
I tried to meet his eyes, but he wouldn’t look at me. I could practically see him retreat into that blank persona he had. All the white gold disappeared from his eyes. He reglamoured. And his glamoured expression was empty.
It was so frustrating.
“You want me,” I said, considering how much like Grayson I sounded. “So just want me already.”
Pushing him off, I stood and wiped leaves from my clothes. Without looking back, I trudged through the grass, heading back towards the rooftop. I blocked the Hammer out, mentally pushed against him with purpose, making sure he could feel nothing of what I was feeling.
Stuffing everything into a cage and locking the door inside my mind wasn’t even enough. I frosted the cage, hiding what was stored there. If Rowan was having any strong emotions, sending those waves I could pick up on into the air, then I was determined to ignore them.
Out of sight, out of mind, I thought as I made my way through the small field of wildflowers Connell had flown me over a few days ago. Housing everything in those opaque cages in my head, I focused on the task ahead of me.
I reached the building where the Mischief demon party was now in full swing. There was a fire escape ladder running all the way from the ground up to the roof, so I began to climb.
There was tension in the air, probably because one of them had threatened a Royal’s life. They didn’t need to be worried. So I had to reassure them.
An impossibly long arm slinked over the rail as I was reaching the top few rungs of the ladder. I didn’t take it. I wasn’t in the mood to be coddled.
“What if I’d said you could pursue me?” I asked Connell the moment I had two feet firmly on the rooftop, meaning to joke but the words coming out irritable.
Rowan jumped in next to me. The fact that he didn’t lunge at Connell the second he saw him was mildly remarkable. But I didn’t look over at him. I wanted to stay angry, keep those opaque cages locked and secured. Looking at him, letting him in even a little would shatter them.
The Mischief demon flashed his toothless smile and bowed slightly, putting his hands over his eyes. That allegiency appeal for mercy thing, the same as Dmitri had done before I knew what I was.
I left Rowan’s side, took the Mischief demon’s hands, and lowered them.
Never do that again, I commanded, but with a slightly forced grin. Connell nodded, looking worried for a second, but then relaxing.
“Come, beauty. Meet some of the fiends who call me friend.”
Any lingering anger at the demon for dropping me from the sky—which I hadn’t even realized I had, because I knew he hadn’t wanted to hurt me—disappeared. Connell was charming. How could I stay mad?
Two Mischief demons stepped forward, and for a second, it felt like I was in a receiving line at some formal event.
“Savannah, this is Yan,” Connell said, putting a big hand on a male’s shoulders. “And this is Flora.”
They were typical, glamoured demons. They looked human, with a subtle, nearly undetectable sheen of tinsel on their skin. Red hair, blue eyes, impish features. They were lovely. But glamoured.
The male stayed glamoured, but the female, though reluctantly, unglamoured, the tinsel-shimmer falling over her slower than I’d ever seen it. I saw each red hair change, one by one to orange. I saw her muscle-tone fade away and her limbs and fingers elongate. In slow motion, it looked painful.
I suspected Connell told them I’d prefer it. The act made me want to cry with relief, both that Connell had told them to unglamour, and that one of them actually had. He knew what it meant to me.
Flora, the first Mischief female I’d ever seen unglamoured, looked practically identical to Connell when the transformation was complete. Tall, lanky, orange hair and bat-lizard wings. No teeth, but a charming, easy presence, the same that won me over with Connell so quickly.
“Scions don’t exactly grace us with their presence often,” Flora said, with a glance over at her friends, an awkward, half-executed bow, then a pleading look at me. “You have to unde
rstand…”
“Of course I do,” I smiled, first at Flora, then at Yan who looked like he was about to throw himself off the side of the building. “And I hope you don’t feel uncomfortable being unglamoured around me.”
Her orange eyebrows furrowed. “Connell made it seem like you’d be offended if—”
“The only thing that could offend me is you doing something you don’t want to do because of me.”
It was as if my words were transmitted across the entire rooftop, though I knew I hadn’t projected them or telepathed them to everyone.
One of the demons nearby made sure their caste knew.
As the night went on, as I met more Mischief demons, some remained glamoured, some unglamoured, but all looking me in the eyes, and smiled big—some toothy, some toothless— smiles.
I refused to look at Rowan most of the night, blocking him out, keeping the frosted cages in my mind locked up tight. But he stayed by my side anyway.
CHAPTER 31
I called Benn the moment we jumped back from Faction. He agreed to meet me at our favorite coffee shop, so Rowan and I didn’t waste any time getting there.
Though it was night at Faction, it was afternoon here. With the sun shining, most of the snow and ice was melting rapidly. If there hadn’t been so much snow, the temperature might have reached fifty degrees. As it was, walking down the street in my new, Division provided clothing wasn’t uncomfortable at all.
My Sentinel didn’t talk. We said nothing about what happened. My anger and frustration fizzled away at some point while meeting Connell’s friends. It was impossible to stay upset and negative around Mischief demons. They exuded happiness.
Once we were back to our part of the world, I felt silly for staying upset as long as I had. It was childish, and I didn’t want to be that person.
The kiss was all I could think about now, and I was dying to know what was in Rowan’s thoughts, but his stony expression didn’t betray him.
I kept my mouth shut, but most of the opaque cages I kept imaging housed my thoughts and feelings were gone. Anxiety, excitement, desire, affection, and worry bore into me unhindered.
Defying Instinct (Demon Instinct Series) Page 20