He withdrew his claws but leaned in, holding my gaze. “Worlds die, always . . . but if blood lives . . . so does heart.”
His words burned through me, sharp and aching. I could not look away from him, but when I tried to speak, nothing worked. I hurt too much. I hurt for him, and myself.
“I love you,” I whispered. “But I cannot let you harm this world. Not even for me.”
Zee glanced away at the others. “May change mind, Maxine.”
“No, I will not.”
Dek mewled at us. Raw covered his mouth. Zee gave them a hard look, then met my gaze again. “Need to go. Need you with us.”
“We’re not done here.”
He bared his teeth at me, snarling. I refused to flinch.
“No,” he snapped, and grabbed my right hand. Before I could take a proper breath, we slipped into the void.
Seconds passed into eternity. When we stepped free, I gasped for air, stumbling—shielding my eyes against a terrible, harsh blast of sunlight. It was so bright. I glimpsed blue skies, spinning—
Strong hands caught me. Not Zee. The grip was too large, and I glimpsed long fingers, shaped like pitchfork tines.
My heart stilled. I looked up, breathless, and stared into piercing green eyes set in a sharp, angular face. Silver hair fell into long, knotted braids, tied like armor around a broad chest the color of silver, while silver chains of chiming hooks glinted around a muscular waist.
“Young Queen,” murmured the demon.
“Lord Ha’an,” I said, stunned to see him. The last time had been inside the prison veil. We had come to a truce, of sorts. An alliance, even. I had promised to return to the veil and help him subdue the other demon lords, should they break into his section of the prison and try to conquer his people, the Mahati.
Apparently, those demons clans did not get along. Apparently, they had
never
gotten along. Only the Reaper Kings had kept the peace and managed to unite them under a common cause.
Survival. War. Death.
Grant and I had sealed the breach in the prison veil that had set the Mahati free on earth. If Lord Ha’an was here, though . . .
“Oh, God,” I said to him, horrified. “The prison is open.”
“Not exactly,” he said quietly, and released me with great care. I looked past him, around him—and found that we stood on a vast stone veranda filled with tropical plants, burbling fountains, and a small wading pool where several well-endowed and very naked human women were lounging with drinks in their hands. They gave me a disinterested look—and didn’t seem to notice the seven-foot-tall demon standing in their midst.
I stared, blinking. “Where the hell are we?”
“An island on your world.” Lord Ha’an touched my shoulder with the tips of his long fingers. “Come. We must talk. Quickly.”
His concern was palpable. I glanced around for the boys. No sign of Zee, Raw, or Aaz—but Dek and Mal appeared from the shadows between some potted plants and slithered toward me with an urgency that made my chest tighten even more. I scooped them up to my shoulders, and Lord Ha’an exhaled slowly, bowing his head to them.
“My Kings,” he said, and the two little demons crooned at him with a cold, melodic trill. Not for the first time, I had a
what the hell
moment, wondering what it was, exactly, that made a warrior like Lord Ha’an act so deferential to two little demons who weren’t much bigger than snakes and whose favorite hobbies were eating M&Ms and teddy bears and singing classic Bon Jovi.
We walked across the veranda toward a stone rail shrouded in thick vines. Exotic blooms swayed in a warm, gentle breeze that washed over my body, carrying a sweet scent like honey and sugar and the sea. I inhaled deeply. I felt nauseous.
When we reached the rail, I looked down and saw a startlingly blue ocean between the craggy slopes of a tropical, lush hillside. I wondered if we were in Hawaii, and found that idea just plain weird.
Ha’an stood at the rail, gazing out at the ocean with a thoughtfulness that seemed both wistful and uneasy.
“You still care for this world,” he said. “You still wish to save it.”
“Of course,” I told him, suddenly afraid to ask the questions burning inside me. “It is a good world, with good people. You love your Mahati. I love my humans.”
He grunted. “
Love
is not a word my kind use.”
“But you know it.”
“I know enough.” Ha’an glanced at me, then looked away. “I admire your loyalty . . . but hate it, as well. We must feed or die.”
“You have no qualms about murdering a race of people who are just as intelligent, passionate, and . . .
cultured
. . . as you? That gives you no pause, whatsoever?”
Ha’an raised his brow. “You think we are cultured?”
“I know it. I saw it, when I was in the prison veil.”
He snorted but not in derision. “What do you wish me to say, young Queen? Yes, it gives me pause. But as I have told you, it is not just flesh that feeds us but the energy of the kill. The pain. The fear.”
“You didn’t always have humans to hunt.”
“No,” he said, quietly. “We changed, after the war. Our . . .
needs
. . . changed.”
I wondered what that meant. Before I could ask, Ha’an drew in a deep breath and pointed at the ocean. “Where I was born was never like this. It was a desert land, sharp and hard. Beautiful, in its own way. I have found other places on this world that remind me of it, but this . . . this is also comforting.”
“Other places? Places you visited a month ago, when the veil broke?”
“No. I had no time, then. Nor has it been a month, inside the prison. Much shorter. Days, perhaps. Time moves differently there.”
I stared. “How long have you been free?”
“Two sunrises,” he said, looking down at me. “I thought you knew.”
Dek and Mal stilled. Cold hit, followed by a streak of heat that blossomed in my chest. I gritted my teeth, and reached up to touch those two little heads buried against my neck. I wanted very much to throttle them.
“No,” I said, in a hard voice. “I did not know.”
“Ah,” said Lord Ha’an, and his long fingers wrapped around the rail. “Then it is very good we talk now, before the others arrive.”
“Others?”
“All the demon lords are free,” he said in a soft voice, and the stone rail cracked beneath his hands. “We were summoned, and brought here by our Kings.”
I tapped my armored fist against my thigh. “You were
summoned
.”
“Shall I repeat myself?”
“No need.” I glanced across the veranda as Zee finally pushed free of the shadows deep within a tangle of vines. I had felt him there, watching—wondering when he would finally have the courage to show his face.
He gave me an assessing, unapologetic look—and I said, “Two days? Two
fucking
days?”
“You, sick,” Zee replied, sparing Lord Ha’an a hard glance. “Not ready.”
“So this is what you were doing while you were gone,” I snapped. “Bringing demons into this world. For what reason?”
“Control,” Ha’an said, and the rail finally crumbled beneath his tight, strained grip. “Preemptive control. Promises kept. We all felt our Kings fall free of their bonds. It was like being struck in the heart with a blade. When that happened, the rings inside the prison, those walls separating the clans . . . began crumbling. It would have been war if our Kings had not come. My people would have been massacred for their flesh.”
“Your Mahati are powerful warriors.”
“We would have been massacred,” he said, again. “We almost were.”
“The Shurik are strong,” Zee said, glancing over his shoulder as Raw and Aaz loped across the veranda toward us. “The Yorana and the Osul also strong, but not like Shurik.”
“Why?” I asked them, as my head began hurting. “You act surprised.”
“Not surprised,” he muttered. “Disappointed.”
Disgust flickered over Lord Ha’an’s face. “They ate their children to survive, then kept having more children. To raise as food.”
The urge to vomit was so strong, I had to lean on the rail. “What?”
“Survival,” Zee muttered, also looking ill. “Adults survive, can always make more babies, when free.”
“Free and strong,” Ha’an said to him. “Lord Draean is more ruthless now than ever. He will not be easily appeased this time.”
“Will kill him,” Zee said. “Will shatter his bones.”
“There is no one left to replace him. You kill him, you kill
all
the Shurik.”
I held up my hands. “I don’t understand.”
Ha’an stared at me—clearly surprised—and then gave Zee a hard look. “You have been lax with your Queen.”
Zee growled at him. “Silence.”
“I cannot be silent,” he replied. “Punish me. Kill me. But I will speak the truth. She should already know these things.”
“What things?” I persisted.
Ha’an shook his head, and even though every bit of him was inhuman, his posture, his eyes, retained some indefinable quality that was emotional, and familiar.
“I derive strength from my people,” he said to me. “Every one of them is bonded to me. It is so for every demon lord. We are as strong as those beneath us. But the reverse is also true. What we are defines those with whom we are bonded. And if a demon lord dies without there being one to pass on this responsibility, our people will die. Not immediately, but soon enough. For we are one.”
Lord Ha’an looked at Zee. “Every demon lord, in the past, shared a bond with our Reaper Kings. We fed them our strength, and the strength of our people . . . and in turn, they gave
us
strength and defined us with their hearts. It united the clans. It made us . . . invincible. Until the war with the Aetar.”
I took a slow breath. “Zee. Did you bring the demon lords here to bond with you and the others?”
“Only way,” he muttered. “Must control the army.”
“The bond must be freely given, but there is much anger for those years spent in the prison veil.” Lord Ha’an hesitated, looking from me to Zee. “And forgive me, but you are no longer the Vessels for the power that united us, before. Your Queen is, and they will
not
follow a human.
You
, my Kings, have nothing to offer them that they cannot take on their own.”
“So why haven’t they started
taking
?” I asked, deeply uneasy.
“Caution. Curiosity,” Zee muttered, as Raw and Aaz gave him grim looks. “Memory is strong. Will test us first.”
“I’m surprised they didn’t already try.”
“Too distracted by the bounty before them,” Ha’an said in a cool voice. “They have been feeding these last two days. As have I, young Queen.”
I remembered the last time I’d seen the Mahati feed. “You killed people?”
“Only the old and weak,” he replied, as though discussing a lame deer in the woods. “It was quick, clean.”
Zee grunted. “Moment for peace, Ha’an. Need to speak with our Queen.”
The Mahati lord bowed his head and backed away. I stopped him, with a brush of my fingers against his arm. “Who are those women out there, and why aren’t they frightened?”
“Lord K’ra’an left them here,” he replied, in a voice that was a little too careful. “No one ever fears him. Until it is too late.”
Ha’an held my gaze a moment longer, as if making sure I understood. When I nodded, he turned without another word and strode away, long fingers flexing through the air, that silver chain around his waist chiming, delicately. I watched him, then leaned back on the rail, staring at the boys. Zee met my gaze, but Raw and Aaz studied their claws. Dek and Mal were too quiet on my shoulders.
“Will not apologize,” Zee muttered.
“I don’t want an apology,” I shot back. “I want to know how you’re planning on controlling a bunch of baby-eating demon lords.”
He dragged claws over his round belly. “Will do what it takes, Maxine. Must be cold. Must survive.”
“Like Lord Draean survived?”
“No,” Zee spat, and held out his hand. I hesitated, and set my left palm flat against his. Human flesh, pressed against demon. Fingers and claws. Though I had held his hand many times before, the differences, in that moment, seemed stark and cold.
“Forgive us,” Zee whispered, and his claws closed, biting into my flesh, drawing blood. I grunted, but did not pull away.
Behind him, out of sight on the other side of the veranda, I heard voices. Deep, masculine, slithering through the air and across my spine. Raw and Aaz stiffened and turned to face in that direction.
“Maxine.” Zee drew my attention back to him. “Are we of one heart?”
I felt sick to my stomach. “Why are you asking me?”
“Matters. Life or death. Yes or no.” He pulled me closer, staring into my eyes with an urgency that frightened me as much as those voices. “One heart, or five?”
“One,” I said, confused and uneasy. “It’s always been one.”
Zee closed his eyes. On my shoulders, Dek and Mal trembled. So did I. I felt very strange, at that moment: light-headed, skin prickling, short of breath. My armor tingled, growing warm.
When Zee leaned in and licked the blood off my hand, I couldn’t move. I couldn’t move even when Raw and Aaz took his place, their long black tongues rough upon my skin. Mal uncoiled, slithering down my arm, licking the cuts. Finally, Dek . . . though he showed the greatest reluctance.
Deep inside the darkness stirred, a slow swell beneath my soul. When I tried to push it down, my
will
slid over it, slippery as ice. I tried again and again, but it was futile. I could not touch that power, not even to control it.
I heard a sigh inside my mind, a whisper without words.
And then my bond with Grant flickered, and was joined with . . . something else.
A heaviness, like iron weights hanging from the bottoms of my ribs. Not dragging me down, but anchoring me. Rooting my body to the earth, to each heartbeat, as if I were some . . . unmovable giant.