by Ella M. Lee
I couldn’t take my eyes off him. I felt a strange sense of privilege and pride. A demon was explaining demon politics and history to me. How many humans had ever had this conversation? It couldn’t have been many. My fear was still present, but it was being pushed down for the moment by fascination as I watched Ren pull his thoughts together.
“My father—the current holder of the throne—would normally be expected to live for a long time, many human lifetimes. There would be plenty of time to hash out the ascension. Eventually, the correct path would align itself as we all grew into ourselves.
“But there was an assassination attempt on my father’s life. He was stabbed with a spelled dagger, and now he’s dying. This has thrown my existence into chaos.”
“I’m sorry about your father,” I said.
Ren laughed wryly. His eyes fell on the portrait of his father, and something like annoyance flickered across his face. “Trust me, that’s the least important thing to be sorry about here. I’m not close to him. I don’t like him. It’s even possible my life and my world would be better without him. But…I’m not ready for that to happen. I need him to live, and this is where my sister and I differ in opinion.
“She wants him dead, and me on the throne. If it were up to her, she would let him die his slow death then install me as ruler with her support. She thinks I can usher in a golden age for Baphometic Demons. You see, there’s this prophecy…but she doesn’t have all the information. She doesn’t understand that the prophecy isn’t about me. I’ve tried to explain that I have a different path in life—not as a ruler—but she doesn’t believe me. She thinks I’m just afraid.”
“Prophecy?” I asked.
Ren sighed. “My world is filled with prophecies. It can make things very confusing, especially when the subject of the prophecy is unclear. But I know my fate better than El does, and it isn’t to rule my kind. I believe the prophecy refers to my youngest brother, but he isn’t old enough to rule.”
Ren spun to the part of the wall completely opposite us. On it was displayed a scene of four demons, lounging among pillows and fur blankets, their expressions animated and excited as though in the middle of a rousing game or engaging conversation. One was female, with long flowing black hair, her severe face softened by a smile. She was wearing something like a purple tunic over loose pants, her charcoal-gray wings casually spread around her.
The other three demons in the scene were male. Two seemed like identical twins, their hair clipped short and their expressions an identical mask of mischief and glee. The final male looked a lot like Ren, except his frame was smaller and his feathers were snow-tipped, white from almost the halfway point down to their ends.
“My siblings,” Ren said. “Well, some of them. The ones I’m closest to.” He pointed to the snow-tipped male. “That’s my youngest brother, Rua. He is the Prince of Mercy. His name means ‘compassion.’ He will make an excellent ruler someday, once El and I fade from the spotlight.” Ren smiled fondly at the painting. “I suppose I’m doing this all for him. So I need to keep my father alive until Rua is ready.”
“How?” I asked.
“The dagger he was stabbed with is leeching his life force. When it’s done, he will be dead. This dagger was brought to the Mortal Realm and entrusted to a vampire in the vampiric royal family. It was a clever move on the part of the assassin because there’s an ancient truce between Baphometic Demons and vampires. My kind’s royal family can’t hurt or kill a member of their royal family, nor can we steal from them. And the same goes for them. No royal vampire can hurt or kill or steal from a member of the Baphometic Demon royal family—my family. The dagger needs to be retrieved, but it cannot be done by anyone in my family, and no vampire would ever go against their own royal family in order to get their hands on it for a demon. They’d be hunted into oblivion and killed.
“So I need a human. Someone who can infiltrate their household. Who can sneak in without suspicion. Who has all the freedoms that I don’t as a royal demon.”
His green eyes shone intensely, and I could almost see the echo of his horns and wings as he studied me like I was the solution to all his problems.
Chapter 17
I was silent for so long that Ren’s tone, when he next spoke, had shifted from patient explanation to petulance again.
“You don’t have any questions?” he asked.
“I do.”
I just hadn’t figured out what they were, or whether I should voice them. I cast my eyes back on the portraits of Ren’s parents. He didn’t love his father, but I imagined his mother did. Maybe his brothers and sisters—although not El—did, too. Were family relationships in his world as complicated as they were here?
“Ask what you want to know,” he said.
“How much time before your father dies?”
His eyes flicked again to the portrait of his father. He tilted his hand back and forth. “More than days. Less than weeks. I’ve already delayed this endeavor myself by spending time to put together a plan.”
“Why is this your responsibility?” I asked. “Doesn’t your family have some sort of…I don’t know, royal guard? Advisors? People who make plans? People who go look for things and find them? Police? Magical SWAT teams that fix your problems?”
Ren’s flummoxed expression twisted into a bemused grimace. “My kind don’t organize like that.”
“Yet you have a royal family.”
“The ruling part is pretty symbolic, represented by a magical bond between the ruler and his or her people. It isn’t at all what you’re thinking. It isn’t like a king or queen in your world. But suffice it to say, my kind needs a king or queen, but the power structure beyond that isn’t effective for getting things done.”
He tapped his fingers on the table, frustrated. “I’m perhaps one of the only ones who thinks saving my father’s life would be a good thing and is in a position to do something about it, so the task falls to me. I’ve done the work until now, and I will see it through.”
“Can’t you just find a non-royal demon and bring them here? They’d be able to kill royal vampires, right?”
“It isn’t as easy as that. It takes a lot of power to cross realms. Most of my kind who are strong enough and knowledgeable enough to come into the Mortal Realm would not do so without a trade for their effort. And that sort of trade would likely be to my disadvantage.”
I frowned. “And you think working with a human will be better? So you came here and bought me, and I have to retrieve the dagger. You know this is a stupid idea, right?”
“It’s not,” he said in that purr, and it irrationally calmed the alarm bells ringing in my mind.
I shook my head, partially to clear it. “It is. The vampires in the royal family are hundreds of years old. I’m nineteen, and human. And I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m not special. I’m not, like, secretly an assassin. I’m not smart or clever. I weigh nothing. I know nothing. I am nothing. You should be hiring one of those vampire-hunter covens. If you know where the dagger is, send them to target it. You have enough money, I’m sure. You can literally make gold.”
Maybe I could talk him out of this ludicrous idea altogether. I shoved my hands back in my pockets, chills of cold and loneliness creeping over me. This room was beautiful, but it reminded me more than ever that Ren wasn’t human, and his priorities weren’t human priorities.
His kindness was manipulation whether he meant it to be or not, and he held all the power here.
“It’s not about the money,” he said, waving a hand. “It’s about the magic. I’m working around some frustratingly difficult rules here, put in place by magic that’s bound my kind for a thousand years.”
“I thought your kind didn’t like rules,” I said.
“Yes, and where do you think that aversion came from?” he shot back, his brow raised. “Magic doesn’t care what we like or don’t like. I have to make do, even if it’s with a human girl.”
“So you think you ca
n sneak me in, and some nice vampire will show me where their pretty murder weapon is, and I’ll just grab it and run?” I asked.
“I have a plan,” he said. “You can get inside. You will be inconspicuous. You will have the freedoms you need to find the dagger. You can steal it or destroy it without triggering the effects of the truce.”
My heart sank as I studied his grave expression. I didn’t know the full details, but he believed everything he was saying. He believed he needed to do this, that he couldn’t let his father die, and he was prepared to do anything to prevent that. He also believed he’d worked out the solution, and he’d decided on this path. He was desperate.
But I was desperate, too.
Manipulate him right back, the tiny voice said.
“Ren,” I said, and his eyes went wide at the sound of his name. I hadn’t said it before. “I’m going to fail, and I’m going to die. You’re going to leave here with some human girl’s blood on your hands, and that doesn’t make you much better than a vampire.”
I tried to turn everything off—the emotions, the fear, the weird sense of betrayal I felt when I looked in his eyes. I tried, but it didn’t work. The switch wouldn’t budge.
My eyes filled with tears, and I fled the cave for the relative safety of the fading twilight.
I managed to get about fifty feet into the brush before I realized what a stupid idea it would be to leave the area. It was nearly dark, with cold winter wind rattling the trees. Ren had taken us miles from the road, off the main trail, and I didn’t even know which direction to go.
Not to mention, I’d be hunted down by a creature with better senses than mine. Ren had been patient up until now—who knew how quickly that would disappear if I tried to escape?
I brushed a stray tear off my cheek and turned to look behind myself. Ren stood in the opening of his cave, studying me. He didn’t seem angry or tense. If anything, the curve of his mouth spelled sadness, and shadows covered his hair and shoulders, blending him with the weak light.
I turned away, closing my eyes.
I didn’t hear him move, but I felt his presence behind me an instant later. It was easy to forget he possessed supernatural speed, but here it was on display. He put his hands gently on my shoulders. I jumped, nervous, but he held me firmly as warmth spilled from his fingertips.
“The two girls before you at the auction,” he said, his voice very soft and his breath ruffling my hair, “they cried on stage. But you didn’t.”
I shrugged.
“You didn’t cry facing Jenna and her sister,” he went on. “You didn’t cry when I bought you. You didn’t cry when I smashed a vampire to pieces in front of you and scared you. You didn’t cry when we talked. You didn’t cry when I showed you my demi-form.”
I shrugged again, wishing he would get to the point.
“But you are crying now. What changed?”
I gritted my teeth, sick of his plaintive, innocent tone. “It’s complicated. I can’t explain emotion. I know you want me to explain humanity to you, but I can’t.”
“Could you try?”
“I could,” I conceded, “but it wouldn’t make a lot of sense. You have an aversion to rules, and humans have an aversion to sense. I don’t understand it either.”
“I like you,” he said. “I don’t want you to cry.”
My eyes went wide. “You don’t know me.”
“I don’t?” he asked. “What do you mean?”
I shook my head. “I can’t explain. There are worlds between us. Literally.” I tossed a hand behind myself, indicating the cave and all those scenes that proved we weren’t the same at all.
“I’m trying to fix that,” he said.
I threw my hands up, spinning to face him. “You can’t! You just can’t. You could live forever and study humans the whole time, but you’d never be one. You’d never get it. You’re trying to treat me with respect, but you don’t even know what that means. You don’t even get that asking me to throw my life away for yours makes me feel small. Humans don’t want to be used like, like animals. I’m sick of being just an animal to some selfish monster.”
“You don’t want to be owned,” he said.
“Would you?” I asked. “Would you want someone to take away everything you love and lock you in a cage and stroke your pretty wings all day?”
A shudder ran through him. His expression was unbearably sad. “No. No, I wouldn’t.”
“Well, at least humans and demons have one thing in common.”
“What do you want?” he asked.
“I want you to let me go. I want to run far away and never see another vampire or demon again.”
“I told you the path to freedom,” he said.
“And I told you, I will die,” I said. “Vampires use up humans. The royal vampires…they just use up humans faster.”
“I can make sure that doesn’t happen,” he said. “I have a plan. Don’t you want to at least hear it before crying again?”
“Does it matter? I know what you were going to say earlier, at the apartment. You’re running out of time. If I don’t agree, you bind me to your will anyway. So let’s skip the part where you make it seem like there’s a choice here.”
“I’m trying to make this into a fair trade. A situation where we both get what we want.”
“Can it really be fair when the power dynamic between us is so different?” I asked.
He sighed again. He shifted his shoulders, tensing. “I want to show you something.”
His belt had a strip of metal on the outside. With a swipe of his fingers, he pulled the metal off, and with another swipe and a burst of magic, he fashioned it into a small knife. A plain little thing, with a tiny hilt and sharp point. He handed it to me.
I took it, confused.
He held his arm out and rolled up his sleeve. “Cut me.”
I eyed his pale skin. It was smooth and perfect and unblemished, reminding me once again of every vampire I’d ever seen. Like a vampire, his skin would likely repair quickly if he got cut.
With a hesitant glance at his imploring eyes, I swiped the blade over his skin.
Nothing happened. I looked at the knife. It was definitely real and sharp.
I pressed it harder into his skin, trying to drag it deeply down his arm. He didn’t move. I raised the knife up and brought it point down into his arm, trying to puncture the skin. It bounced off.
“Harder,” he said.
I stabbed at him again, leaning into the knife as I tried to press it into him. It didn’t work.
“It’s the same for my demi-form,” he said. “Very few humans can exert enough force to break my skin. My bones won’t snap. I can’t be burned. I can’t be stabbed or shot with a weapon. Even a weak vampire couldn’t go up against me, although some stronger ones could put up a brief fight. A non-lethal one.”
“What can kill you?” I asked.
“My own kind. Some other demon types. Magic. Certain specially forged weapons. The very eventual old age of my people.”
“Well, lucky you,” I said.
But my eyes wandered back to his smooth skin. I reached out and pressed my fingers into his forearm. It felt like human skin, cool and smooth and malleable. I couldn’t reconcile that with how the knife wouldn’t pierce it.
But vampires’ bodies felt human, too, and they weren’t.
I took my hand back. “What does that demonstration have to do with me?”
His eyes lingered on the spot where my fingers had been. “I can share that with you, and much more. I can make you strong. Make you fast. Durable. I can give you knowledge and magic. I can make it so that the plan works.”
Chapter 18
My tears disappeared, replaced by wary interest.
“How?” I asked.
“Through magic,” Ren said.
“Can you give me wings?” I asked, casting my eyes up at the sky.
He laughed. “No. That isn’t part of it.” His eyes found mine. “You really l
ike wings, don’t you?”
“They are…freedom,” I said.
“Interesting,” he said. “In my world, they are responsibility.”
“Doesn’t make flying any less cool. I want to fly.”
Ren looked around us. “We could fly right now. It’s dark enough that no one would notice, and not too wet or windy.”
He took a step toward me, and I backed up hastily, my brain reminding me that letting a strange, non-human creature carry me up into the sky without a rope or parachute was an awful idea if I’d ever heard one. Ren and I didn’t have that level of trust. Not even close.
I held up my hands. “It’s…okay. Maybe, um, some other time.”
Ren’s slight smile widened into something wild and feral. “Come on. It will be fun. I promise.”
In a single, fluid motion, he pulled his shirt over his head and laid it over a nearby branch.
“Ren…” I said, backing up another few steps.
I didn’t see him move, I just felt the rush of air and the brief moment of weightlessness as he hauled me into his embrace, one arm under my knees and the other looped around my shoulders.
“Put your arms around my neck,” he said in my ear.
“Ren, really…”
His wings burst from his back as he shifted into demi-form, arching over us, glorious and brutal and beautiful. “You won’t come to any harm,” he said, his voice hoarse and gravelly. “I would like to share this freedom with you, at least, even if I can’t share others.”
I swallowed, my heart already trying to beat itself out of my chest in a mixture of fear and excitement.
I took one look at his dark, imploring eyes. “Don’t drop me—”
I’d barely finished the words before he shot into the sky, so fast I couldn’t even scream. My terror came out as a breathless gasp, and I clung tightly to him, squeezing my eyes shut. Harsh wind and the booming of Ren’s wingbeats roared in my ears, almost as loud as my own racing heart.
But Ren held me securely, and he seemed comfortable in the air. Of course he did. He’d learned to fly before he could walk, just like I’d learned to swim before I could walk. Wouldn’t I feel equally comfortable in the water?