Pleasure.
Desire.
His heart skipped.
Neyu...
It reminded him of when he’d first labeled Asheda’s pride, like a warm sunbeam on his skin.
He couldfeelpride.
In that instant, hetastedlust.
Runeak’s words when he first entered her encampment leapt into his mind.‘I could smell you.’Because the sin of wrath carried a scent for her.How did the otherDaemoenicasense their respective sins?
It seemed he’d absorbed more from his beloved than her Hellsfire.
If he was right, it also meant the blood drinkers’ bite evoked a sensual euphoria, and that desire called to him.
Saer forced it down with a hard swallow and focused his efforts on quashing the sense.He didn’t want it, or the reminder of what he’d unwittingly stolen from his match.What else had he gained from her destruction?
An agonal gasp threw Pride out of his thoughts, and he jerked his eyes back to the young man.Runeak went on scouring her war maps without pause.
The vampires pulled away, revealing streams of leftover blood slipping down the sides of his neck.Their victim’s eyelids fluttered, and one of the blood drinkers curled herself over his body.“Invite him in,” she whispered.
A wave of uneasiness curled through Saer.Without taking his eyes off the pair, he aimed his question at Runeak.“Who?”
Saer knew before his sister brushed off the inquiry with a single head shake, but answered anyway.“Father.”
Saer moved back another step, and then Runeak lifted her attention to his face.
The spy cried out.His eyes flew open; the orbits bathed in endless black.
No.
Fear rooted Saer in place, lodged in his throat, choking him.He distantly noted Runeak tipping her head in vague fascination.
The drained man’s head snapped towards the First at an unnatural angle, neck cracking, and those onyx pools locked on Saer.
Saerkhanum.The hissing voice whispered in his head, desolate and enraged all at once.Under it all, a sense of delicate surprise.
No, no, no.
He wasn’t done.He hadn’t located Errshek.Had barely begun seeking his revenge.
And now Lucifer saw him.He’d be unmade for his disobedience.
Saer couldn’t voice any of it, stuck between begging and fighting in his terror.All he managed was a diminutive shake of his head.
The man’s eyes shut, then his entire body seized.
The instant Lucifer took Its eyes off him, the force holding Saer in place released, and he shoved past the vampires to flee the war tent.
26
Saermadeittothe edge of the sparring grounds before his tunnel vision caved in, and he fell to his knees, palms digging into the crushed grass.Panic gripped him, squeezing around his heart to the point of suffocation, a stricture he couldn’t quell.He wanted to flee at the same time his innate pride refuted the instinct.
How could he have been made by the same creature who took away everything he was with a single look?
