Emmery kept her mouth clamped shut, even as Senka’s claws rifled through her brain. But no matter how hard she pushed, she couldn’t dispel the demon from her mind.
“You are a wicked thing. Full of pretty words and contradictions. Much more like our Goddess of the Eternal Sky than you know.” Senka ran a clawed finger over her lips. “Desperate for love. Yearning for it. Such longing lives in your heart. It’s a pity.”
Emmery gritted her teeth as the demon extracted the dark loneliness in her heart and spilled her weaknesses for all to see. Senka’s eyes roamed down Emmery’s body, traced every line and curve, and only after she sufficiently picked her apart, did Senka glance over at Destonne. Emmery glared, ready to torch the demon bitch.
Something devious flickered in those milky eyes as Senka gazed at Destonne. Something downright terrifying.
“I choose a summon.” A wicked smile claimed Senka’s mouth. “You shall have a taste of him for my amusement.”
Emmery’s gaze darted to Destonne. His face remained unreadable, but his usual bored expression flickered with something else she couldn’t decipher. Was he thinking of that moment they shared at the pond? That sweep of insanity when they almost kissed? Or maybe she’d imagined the whole thing and read the situation wrong.
Would he consent to this? And did they have a choice?
He stood unnervingly still, as if holding his breath, a lost look on his face, like he couldn’t decipher how to sway this interaction in his favour.
Emmery was the first to tear away.
Her own words to Brennen rang through her head,the choices we have in life are everything.
So, she would make hers count.
“Name another price,” she said. She held her head high, though her heart hammered against her ribcage.
“That is it,” the demon hissed.
“Nameanother,” Emmery snarled. She would not be exploited for some disgusting game or allow this choice to be made for her.
Senka’s face lit up as she released Emmery and circled her in that same eerie measured pace. “If you do not comply, you must pay with pain.”
A chill snaked down Emmery’s spine, but she stood her ground. If this was the cost, so be it. She proved she could handle pain when she’d taken Callias’, Vesper’s, and even endured Destonne’s. Surely this couldn’t be worse. “Fine, I—”
“No.” Destonne’s voice rang out.
Emmery caught his gaze, but only for a flicker of a moment. What was he doing? Why was he intervening?
“You dare interrupt me?” Senka's spine unfurled, and her toes squelched in the clotted blood as she stalked toward Destonne. She stopped a hair’s breadth from him and stared at him with both intrigue and dark delight. “This ismygame.”
“You heard me,” he challenged, his words unwavering. “I’ll pay her price. Double mine.”
“What if the cost is too high?”
“I sincerely doubt that,” he shot back.
As Senka dug her claws into Destonne’s cheek, fresh blood welled and dribbled down his chin. He didn’t even flinch, only glared back at the demon like he planned her slow, painful, and very thorough death.
Senka closed her eyes as she sank into Destonne’s mind, the same place she’d pilfered in Emmery’s head—the one that had once been intimate and now sat completely and utterly desecrated.
The muscles in Destonne’s shoulders and arms bunched as the briefest pass of pain flashed across his face, then banished in a blink.
“Interesting,” Senka purred. “Veryinteresting.”
Through clenched teeth, Destonne dared, “Would you get this over with? I’m losing my patience.”
Senka tapped a spindly finger to her chin, relishing in the unbearable suspense. “You too shall pay with…” The demon leaned in, licked up Destonne’s throat with a long, black tongue, and whispered, “Pain.”
The crack of a whip struck the air, and it was like the earth split down the middle, swallowing his world whole.
Destonne threw his head back and a hoarse shout tore from his throat, the sound almost inhuman—full of unending terrors and nightmares and suffocating shadows. The tendons jumped in his neck, his hands clawed as he ripped at his chest, like he couldn’t breathe, like the air in his lungs was on fire, and if he could reach the flames, he could smother them. As if coming to his aid, the soaked ground and that endless river behind them …rippled.