Demonic Passions

by Marks, Rena

  The powerful demon lord returned to his own body in the swamp where Natalya had no idea he’d even left.

  “I can be your wife,” she hissed. “You don’t need her.”

  Enishka looked at her thoughtfully. The idiot had no idea what he needed. She was so jealous of Keara, it clouded her vision.

  “You are aware that it’s a temporary job?” he reminded. “My breed will eat their mother when they hatch.”

  The horror in her eyes showed she wasn’t aware.

  “I never have enjoyed children.”

  “I imagine I can learn to live without passing along genes.” He rolled his head on his shoulders, the neck bones popping loudly in the silence. “Let’s put you to the test, shall we, my dear?”

  Natalya looked at him eagerly.

  “Let’s see if you can get Keara to strike out at the human Dean. If we can get her to rise to violence, we’ve got her. Take a human form and go seek him out.”

  Natalya took a dark haired form, mimicking that of Keara. “How’s this?”

  He nodded. “It’ll do, if necessary. Or you can use it to hunt her new pet, Caleb. A handsome human man you might have fun with. As long as we can get her to strike, we have her. Oh, and Natalya?”

  She looked back at him.

  “Do not fail me.”

  “Never, master. But how shall I get to the hell dimension?” Her voice was sweet, knowing that he had the means to send her. It was a tremendous draw on his power but if he wanted this badly enough, he’d do it.

  “Tell me what you would pay for the trip, my dear.”

  “Pay?” The look in her eyes was confused. Surely he didn’t expect her to give him something for his own favor requested of her?

  “Yes, pay,” he said firmly. “You don’t expect I would be weakened by sending you, and returning you, from the hell dimension?”

  It was the tricky returning you that got her. The subtle threat of being left forever in hell that sent cold shivers down her spine like frozen little fingers grabbing for her. There wasn’t much Natalya feared, but this was a childhood scare. Things like that stayed with you forever.

  “What is it you’d want?” she asked slowly, cursing herself mentally for underestimating him.

  “A blood promise. You will never betray me and will serve me always.”

  Blood promise. A ritual of blood willingly shed from demons and a promise made at the same time, unable to ever break. It also meant that once she became his wife, she could never rule the dimension. For how would she kill him off if she promised on her own spilt blood to serve him?

  Yet, should she refuse, he could slaughter her here and now for attempted betrayal. Dammit, why was it the politics became more difficult the higher you climbed on the social steps of society?

  “Of course, master,” she smiled sweetly, because she had no other choice in the matter.

  Chapter Seven

  The Sweetness of Revenge

  The next morning, Keara did remember as per Enishka’s last instructions. It was the first thing on her mind when she awoke. He was going to send Natalya after Caleb. Was that his game when he said he only helped out his own? She’d go crying to him and he’d turn her away unless she bartered her soul? Or gave him her powers? Or even agreed to bear his children?

  Natalya couldn’t have Caleb. Keara knew how she worked, the blonde demon would seduce him. He wouldn’t be able to resist, no man could. Once that was done, Natalya had the power over men to cause impotence except with her. A tough lesson, to pick up a stranger in a bar and never have your Johnson work again. To have her disappear and you never again have sex, ever.

  The only fate worse than that was following her into her dimension to serve her. Willingly. For that was the only way humans could get in. Short of the ones who had bartered their souls.

  She could keep Caleb safe from getting tricked by Natalya. She could make him fall in love with her. The Punisher of Luciefyiore.

  It was the lesser of the two evils. The Punisher and The Huntress. Herself and Natalya.

  But then she’d run the risk of accidentally stealing his soul. And it would condemn her to a lifetime with Enishka, for she’d be proven demon if that happened.

  She’d never deliberately forced a good human to fall in love with her. Not since the accidental high school incident.

  Was it fair? Hell, why should she care? Life wasn’t fair. She certainly hadn’t been treated fairly in either dimension, so why should she worry about another?

  Was she deliberately going to do this? Force his love, take away his choice? His humanity? Her father did with her mother. Obviously it was how she was wired, for it was in her genes.

  Was she doing it to save him from Natalya? Or was there a less heroic reason? Like the excuse to keep him forever tied to her? Was her demon speaking? That selfish, rotten core of her that surfaced over and over?

  When she was an innocent teenager, she discovered she could cause men to fall in love with her to the point of madness. Back then, it was merely by focusing her wants and desires on them. Now however, her bitterness was like a screen filtering the love. Now she’d have to do it differently.

  She’d have to focus during sex. And fight hard not to suck the soul. She couldn’t condemn his life along with hers.

  Tonight.

  A slight vibration in the dining room caught her attention and Keara concentrated on not looking directly into the room. Peering through the curtain of dimensions was easy now that Enishka kept sucking her through the portals. She may have given him the power to summon her against her will, but without realizing it, he gave her a weapon in return.

  Her abstract sight saw the faintest shadow on the white wall. A feminine shadow…with horns.

  Natalya.

  “How did you get here?” Keara hissed.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Natalya said, morphing fully into her body and trying not to look surprised that Keara had spotted her. Surely that was impossible? She circled the table opposite her, like a hunter stalking its prey. “I was given permission to hunt you.”

  “Hunt me? Not possible,” Keara spat. “I have more power than you ever will.”

  Keara was right. How else could she have sensed her arrival? But trying for the element of surprise, Natalya struck hard with a blow to the center of Keara’s chest.

  Keara flew across the room and through the open doorway to land against the living room wall. Natalya ran after her with the dagger in hand to finish the job, but to her surprise, Keara wasn’t lying on the floor. She wasn’t even in the living room. Natalya paused in confusion before looking around her wildly. She grunted when she was kicked in the middle of her back. She flew head first into the wall where Keara was supposed to be.

  Her horns tore holes in the wall and she was stuck midway there. Keara grabbed the back of her neck and pulled her out.

  And held her up with one hand until her feet dangled above the ground.

  No one had ever knocked the breath out of her before. Certainly not a half-breed piece of…

  Fingers tightened around her throat.

  “Yes, I know what you’re thinking,” Keara said.

  If she could have, Natalya would have shivered at the coldness in the voice. Keara’s eyes glowed even worse than Enishka’s did. Her heart beat faster in her chest and the adrenaline surged in her limbs. Maybe the rumors were right. She’d made it up back then, but maybe the intense glow of Keara’s eyes did cause the fire that destroyed their school. And had her banished from Luciefyiore.

  “So, replace me, hmm? You’ll be the demon lord’s next bride? For the opportunity to poison him and rule?” Keara asked.

  “Never. I wouldn’t have him with a ten-foot pole.”

  “Liar.”

  “Wait,” Natalya croaked.

  “Why?”

  “I…I have information to barter.”

  The hand from her throat dropped so suddenly, her oxygen-depleted legs gave out beneath her. She collapsed onto the floor,
gagging at the tightness in her dry throat.

  “Out with it.”

  “The human. Dean. Wasn’t your…mistake.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He traded…his soul…to Enishka.”

  “Before or after meeting me?”

  “Before.” She took a deep breath. “He knew what you were. All along. He was being fed information about you.”

  “His purpose?”

  “Enishka sent him to tempt you into a testing phase.”

  “His reward?”

  “Money at first. He was a millionaire when he met you, wasn’t he? After he traded his human life in, he was to receive power. The end result? Status in our dimension.”

  “So money plus power equals status at the end of his two lives.”

  “Yes.”

  “And are you telling me because he’s now your competition on the social ladder? What’s it going to take to get rid of you?”

  “That slimy human can’t compete with me. But if you take revenge on him, they have you.”

  “You do know that Enishka wants me as his bride? That’s why he sent you, the best huntress in Luciefyiore, to seek me?” Keara asked suddenly.

  The hiss of indrawn breath told her that Natalya didn’t know.

  “I take it he made certain promises to you?”

  Slowly, Natalya nodded. “He did. He never mentioned you as a possible candidate for bride.”

  “Well you can have him. I have every intention of staying in the Earth dimension.”

  “I don’t want him.”

  “Then I repeat, what will it take to get rid of you?”

  The energy expended during the fight with Natalya exhausted her, both mentally and physically. Mentally because she knew it was a preparation for the showdown with Enishka that was sure to come.

  Physically because…damn. Demons have inhuman strength and she still wasn’t sure how she defeated Natalya. It must have been that desperation streak in her that had surfaced one other time in her life.

  The time she burned down the all-girl school she attended back then. Luciekynokus.

  Much as she hated it, she had to lie down for a nap. And hope that she could actually rest this time instead of dreaming, which sucked time and energy from her.

  Or maybe she could get really lucky and Enishka would summon her.

  Keara sighed. At this moment, she was too exhausted to care. She collapsed onto her bed and immediately drifted away.

  She was in Dean’s white SUV, driving down a path she remembered well.

  And somewhere, Caleb was with her, commanding this dream.

  Not this one, Caleb. Please.

  You can do it, love. You’ve already lived through it. You just need to learn from it. I’m here for you. Be strong.

  He knew the “be strong” would get her, Keara thought. Dean pulled up in the curved driveway and came around to open her car door.

  “Well, baby doll? What do you think?”

  “It’s gorgeous.”

  “And all ours. If you like the inside as much as the outside.”

  The house was magnificent. A corner home in a prestigious neighborhood filled with attorneys, stockbrokers, and investors.

  The front door was opened as they approached the steps. “Welcome folks. You must be Dean and Keara? I’m Matt.”

  Matt held out his hand for Dean’s handshake first.

  “Yes, Matt. I’m Dean, this is my fiancée, Keara. She’s the one who’ll decide if this is a make or break deal,” he joked.

  Matt shook Keara’s hand next, the charm already lighting his salesman’s eyes. “I guess I’d better be extra nice to you then, hmm?”

  She forced a smile. Stupid human. Treating her as though she were a half-wit like the rest of them.

  Keara refused to allow this scene to continue. She woke herself up, slowly coming to reality to find herself staring at her bedroom ceiling. The familiar sight strangely comforting.

  It didn’t matter that she’d refused to dream, because Keara knew what originally happened anyway. They’d decided to rent the home instead of purchasing immediately. They’d just signed the paperwork and had gotten their keys when the realtor left and Dean paled as he stared out the window.

  He’d forced her to hide, because Annie had driven by and noticed his SUV.

  Annie. The wife who supposedly he had no real marriage with. The wife who knew he was engaged to another. The wife who agreed to their amicable divorce with the understanding that he’d get visitations with Carissa.

  He’d had a private conversation with her outside on the front porch while Keara crouched in an upstairs closet.

  She refused to relive those feelings she felt back then. The humiliation, the doubt. The sick pit of something deep in her belly.

  The ever-so-brief knowledge that she was being used. That maybe, just maybe, Annie wasn’t aware of her.

  She jumped when pounding sounded at her door. She stumbled to it, throwing it open to the real-life Caleb.

  “You have to relive these, baby.”

  She regretted that she’d long ago given this human the power to invade her dreams. Unfortunately, as a child away from the teachings of her demon father, she had no idea what powers existed inside her when she drew Caleb to her.

  “I’m tired. I don’t have the energy to dream. I just want to sleep. Is that too much to ask?”

  “You won’t be able to rest until you can get your mind to relax, too. You have to go through this.”

  “What is the point? What’s done is done. I loved and lost. He returned to his wife, he’s happy. I learned to live without him. Big deal.”

  “But Keara, you’ve never gotten angry over Dean. You allowed him to make you feel like you were crazy for feeling normal emotions. You never understood they make you human, especially rage.”

  “I don’t get angry,” she said coldly.

  Not since the fire at Luciekynokus. No one knew quite how the fire started, but Keara did. It was the reason why she didn’t allow her eyes to glow for long periods but Caleb didn’t need to know that.

  “Everyone gets angry. It makes us human. We’re not angels, we’re not demons. We’re human. When you suppress your feelings, you may dull the pain, but you also numb the pleasure. You are human, baby. Not demon. Live, Keara. Live and love.”

  Live and love? Such an odd phrase, almost as odd as Enishka’s think, and tomorrow, remember.

  “I do love,” she said slowly, because she couldn’t really remember. It was all so confusing, Enishka telling her one thing and Caleb giving her another.

  Still, his voice was soothing and calm when he said, “Tell me about the breakup with Dean. You’d shut me out by then. I have no idea what happened.”

  Keara sighed. He wasn’t going to give up and sleep was obviously lost. Again. Maybe it would help to talk to his calming force. Although she wouldn’t go into the humiliating scene as she crouched in the closet, like a scared and humiliated rodent. “It was a normal, bright day in April. We met at ten in the morning, Dean had rented us a house. The owner handed us each a garage remote and a set of door keys. Everything was fine. He called me later like he always did and said that Annie had called him over to see Carissa. He laughed because every time he was around Annie, she would kick him out of the house. His last comment to me was, ‘Let’s see if I can get kicked out a third time’. He was supposed to call me on his way back home from there and at nine-thirty, it dawned on me that he never did. Just then an email popped up. It read, Don’t freak. Will call you in the a.m.”

  “Selfish bastard. How could he send you something like that and not expect you to stew about it all night?”

  Keara shrugged, the hurtful emotions turned off while she told the story. For once, Caleb took pity on her and allowed her to hide her raw insides.

  “The next morning there was no phone call. I was up at five after not sleeping all night. Finally at ten there was another email. Attending church with everyone. Will call later
. All I could think of was that to attend church obviously meant he spent the night there.”

  Keara took a deep, painful breath and decided to turn down the hurtful emotions. Her voice became monotonous, the deadened gaze focused on a spot on the wall behind him. She forcibly relaxed her hands. The hands that clenched together, white knuckled.

  “He finally called around noon. Said we had to talk. In a sarcastic tone of voice, I said no kidding. When he arrived, he had all of the stuff that I’d ever given him dumped into a plastic trash bag. He handed it to me and said he’d decided to reconcile with Annie. That he couldn’t leave a family behind, not even for love. He walked out and left me in shock.”